Western states are increasingly confronted with ethical demands to acknowledge and redress past human rights abuses.
This paper argues that the restitution of objects from European museums, particularly Sub-Saharan African artifacts,
involves a distinct political dimension and is not driven solely by the aims of fostering new postcolonial bilateral
relations or reconciling historical injustices. First, I introduce the concept of ‘object diplomacy’ as a distinct subset of
cultural diplomacy in international relations, focusing on the political dimensions of cultural restitution both theoretically and empirically. This perspective contends that while artifact restitution ostensibly represents a gesture of reconciliation and ethical
responsibility, its strategic instrumentalization risks perpetuating existing hierarchies and structural inequalities.
Second, drawing on interviews and fieldwork conducted in 2023-2024, I examine a key case of restitution—the
saber of Omar Tall—to illustrate this framework in the context of Franco-Senegalese international relations. I
demonstrate that the return was primarily transactional—evidenced by arms deals signed on the same day as the
restitution event—which rendered it an appeasement strategy for domestic conflict, ultimately serving the geopolitical
interests of former colonizers, as well as the economic and military interests of both states involved. The paper concludes
by assessing the normative implications of these empirical findings from a political theory perspective, positing that
while strategic political motivations for cultural restitution might predominate, the act itself may carry dependent
instrumental or independent intrinsic value.
