French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe recently presented an antique sabre to Senegalese President Macky Sall at the presidential palace in Dakar. But it was not a gift. The sabre was coming home, more than a century after it had been stolen.
The repatriation of an item with deep historical, spiritual and cultural significance might seem like a mere gesture of colonial redress. But this ceremony was different, and it was about much more than a single physical object. In fact, it was a watershed moment in the West's recognition of the cultural damage inflicted by colonialism.
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