Museums as Political Pawns

I suppose it’s come to be expected by now. Political correctness in museums becoming appears to becoming a more serious issues recently, with museums becoming centres of opposition. The normal (hoped for) expectation of debates being inside museums can become about arguments about museums themselves. It’s no wonder that many museums are constantly treading on eggshells when its easier to protest outside a museum than talk inside it.

(Quick note: A lot of people use “political correctness gone mad” as an whiny response to wanting to use racial slurs. I am not one of them)

It appears that a museum is still considered part of some kind of institutionalised praise.

I quote from The Independent:

The “Pius Wars” that have long raged over the Vatican’s desire to declare Pope Pius XII a saint flared up again over the weekend when the Jesuit priest in charge of the canonisation process declared that Pope Benedict XVI could not visit Israel until a disputed panel in Jerusalem’s Holocaust museum, which refers disparagingly to Pius, is removed.

I like the idea of museum’s having an opinion. It makes me think they give a damn. Not everything has to be sterile language so not  to offend every single last person. Admittedly, annoying the Pope is pretty big.

But not to visit an entire country because of a single museum panel? Especially a country that needs the world’s focus and the leader of a worldwide community to help make amends.

Couldn’t he just say “You’re museums sucks” and that be it. Or even better, go to the museum, sit down with them and have it out why they talked smack about your hero. Make the issue about the issue, not about the medium carrying the issue. Be a grown up.