"The theft of crown jewels from a museum of empire may look like payback, yet the spoils will still enrich the same world that built it. On Sunday, the iconic Louvre Museum in the French capital played host to a speedy heist in which eight items of precious jewellery dating from the Napoleonic era were spirited away from its second floor."
"The sensational hand-wringing was almost reminiscent of another contemporary national disaster in Paris namely, the April 2019 fire at the Notre Dame cathedral that broke the hearts of politicians worldwide, even as they remained apparently unmoved by such objectively more tragic events as Israel's recurrent slaughter of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."
"In fact, many of us might even find ourselves rooting for the thieves, to some extent if only as a symbolic middle finger to a world predicated on obscene inequality and misplaced priorities."
A speedy heist at the Louvre removed eight pieces of Napoleonic-era jewellery from a second-floor display. Stolen items included tiaras and necklaces linked to Marie-Amelie, Queen Hortense, Empress Marie-Louise, and Empress Eugenie, including a diadem with 24 Ceylon sapphires and 1,083 diamonds. International outlets presented the theft with dramatic headlines. The coverage was compared to earlier national crises such as the Notre Dame fire, contrasted with muted responses to prolonged violence in Gaza. The theft prompted reflection on elite museums as repositories of treasures accumulated through imperial power and on symbolic acts of resistance to entrenched inequality.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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