Victoria Solomonides, Boris Johnson, Thaila Stathatou and Greek Minister of Culture, Melina Mercouri at Oxford University June 1986
23 December 2021, TA Nea
Four eminent figures in British public life, speak to Yannis Andritsopulos, UK Correspndent for Ta Nea and ask Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures
When he was young, he said that one day he would become "king of the world." Later, Boris Johnson lowered the bar: he decided to become Britain's prime minister. In 2019, he made it to that post.
The reputation that follows him, however, is not that of the great leader, but of the deceptive politician, who will not hesitate to say and do anything - and later take it back - if he thinks it will benefit him.
He did the same with the Parthenon Sculptures: in 1986 he was a prominent advocate for their return to Greece, confessing that Elgin stole them, as revealed by "TA NEA" last Saturday, 18 December 2021. Today, he claims the opposite. Could he change his mindonce again and allow the Greeks to rediscover their "pride and identity", as Melina Mercouri described Pheidias' masterpieces?
Eminent personalities of British public life are asking Prime Minister Johnson to do the right thing and facilitate the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles in the Acropolis Museum. Speaking to Ta Nea:
Janet Suzman, Chair of the British Committtee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles
[RETURNING the Marbles to Greece] 'would require an Act of Parliament to hand them back. This, needless to say, seems to be a more or less insuperable brake on the process of return - yet it could be passed in an afternoon.'
I quote this observation from the younger Boris Johnson’s paper on the theft of the Parthenon Marbles because it isolates the nub of the present situaation. What he is saying is that where there’s a will there’s a way. Once a government had decided to do the right thing and return the Marbles to their mother country, the Act that formally adopted them could be quickly rescinded to un-adopt them. One senses a faint groundswell of feeling that is tending that way; if you took a poll today most people would say it is only fair and right that the Parthenon Marbles should be returned. Mr Mitsotakis should soon make a quiet return visit to Mr Johnson and gently persuade him to make amends. It would enhance a reputation much battered by indecisions and prevarications not to say certain economies with the truth. Come back Mr Mitsotakis - this is your baby!
Paul Cartledge, Professor Emeritus of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge, Vice Chair of the BCRPM and IARPS
At 22, Boris Johnson had a brighter vision than he had as mayor of London, then as foreign secretary and, now, as prime minister. Last week it was ten years since the untimely loss of Christopher Hitchens, a passionate man who was a fellow student of mine at the University of Oxford in the late 1960s. He was one of the most ardent supporters of the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures and I can well imagine how he would comment on the recriminations and inconsistencies of Johnson, once a student of Classical Studies at Oxford, and now our pitiful prime minister.
Edith Hall, Professor of Classics and Ancient Greek Literature at Durham University, member of BCRPM
Boris Johnson's attitude to the sculptures of the Parthenon is that they are no more than a rhetorical football in his eternal game of self-promotion. As an undergraduate who liked to titillate audiences by presenting himself as a subversive controversialist, he accidentally produced an excellent moral and legal case for immediate reunification. But as a self-seeking politician he mouths what he thinks it is expedient for the most narrow-minded of his party loyalists to hear.
Sickening cynicism. He is a moral invertebrate.
But even he may be embarrassed by this astonishing discovery.
Sarah Baxter, former deputy editor of The Sunday Times
Johnson has in his office a bust of Pericles, which is a copy of the bust in the British Museum. Accordingly, the British Museum should commission copies of the Parthenon Sculptures and return the real ones to Greece. The reunification of the Marbles is morally imperative. In a last noble gesture as prime minister, Johnson should return them to where they belong. When arguing in favour of Greece, in the article he wrote as a student, Johnson noted that the Greek gods cannot and should not be deceived. Be sure that if he returns the Sculptures, the gods will smile at him again.
Boris Johnson and the triumph of Melina Mercouri
Boris Johnson with Melina Mercouri at Oxford University June 1986
In 1986, Johnson asked Melina Mercouri to speak at an Oxford Union debate on the subject of the reunification of Parthenon Sculptures. The Greek Minister of Culture won the debate by 167 votes in favour and 85 against. Dr Victoria Solomonides, a member of the Board of Directors of the Melina Mercouri Foundation, then an educational advisor at the Greek Embassy in London, reveals the background to this triumph.
"In October 1983, with the establishment of BCRPM, we began with the late Eleni Cubitt the effort to join British personalities. In the autumn of 1985, we came into contact with Oxford students. Among them, Boris Johnson, then secretary of the Oxford Union. When he was elected president, we proposed to hold a discussion on the subject with speakers Melina and the professor of logic, Michael Dammett. He immediately accepted and appointed as rapporteurs of the opposite side the architectural historian Gavin Stamp and the writer Jonathan Barnes. Although Johnson did not express a clear opinion on the return of the Sculptures, the impression we got was that it was positive. His article revealed by "TA NEA" is based on and, to a large part, copies the notes we had sent him to prepare for the event."
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