France: museum postpones exhibition on Mongolia, denouncing Chinese pressure
The Nantes History Museum was initially supposed to host an exhibition on the Mongol Empire on October 17, 2020. FRANK PERRY / AFP
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The history museum of Nantes, in the west of France, announced on Monday, October 12 that it was postponing an exhibition devoted to the history of Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire due to the "hardening" of " the Chinese government's position against the Mongolian minority ”.
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"
We made the decision to stop this production in the name of the human, scientific and ethical values that we defend
", explained the museum in a press release signed by its director Bertrand Guillet, in which the institution considers that it has suffered "
censorship at with regard to the initial project
”.
The exhibition was initially due to start on October 17, then due to the health crisis its start was rescheduled for the first half of 2021. "
We are now forced to postpone this exhibition to October 2024
", indicates the museum in its press release.
The institution thus lists the manner in which he was subjected to "
an injunction from the central Chinese authorities to remove from the exhibition elements of vocabulary (the words" Genghis Khan "," empire "and" Mongolian ")
", then "
a announcement of modification of the content of the exhibition accompanied by a request to check all of our productions (texts, maps, catalog, communication)
”.
"
Tendentious rewrite
"
The project, like previous exhibitions presented in Nantes with the assistance of Greek, Colombian or Swedish museums in recent years, was planned in partnership with the Museum of Inner Mongolia in Hohhot, China.
But the "
proposed new synopsis, written by the Beijing heritage office, applied as a censorship to the initial project, includes elements of tendentious rewriting aimed at completely eliminating Mongolian history and culture for the benefit of 'a new national story
,' the statement added.
The Nantes history museum affirms that a new exhibition "
nourished by European and American collections
" will soon be rebuilt by "
keeping the first synopsis
".
Events in Inner Mongolia
China has 1.4 billion people and 56 ethnic groups.
The Hans are in the majority at 92%.
The roughly 6.5 million Mongols live mainly in Inner Mongolia in the north of the country, a vast region of grasslands, deserts and forests.
At the beginning of September, large demonstrations shook the territory with the announcement of a new language policy which increases the teaching of Chinese to the detriment of Mongolian.
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See also: China: HRW report denounces the export of censorship
(With AFP)
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