BSing the Punters

A British FLO wrote a few days ago:

" Illegal metal detecting or nighthawking is theft. These are people knowingly damaging important historic sites in order to steal artefacts as trophies or for profit. In another country, this would be called looting. If you have any info, please go to the police.

He's the one that the detectorists were saying the other day had been "dealt with" because of his critical attitude to some aspects of artefact hunting with metal detectors. I was interested in that "in another country this would be called looting". I asked:

serious question, why is it not in the UK? Yet British press writes about Collection-driven exploitation of the archaeological record in MENA, Asia and elsewhere freely using this label. Why not at home?

and added

Could the PAS, or maybe CBA, issue an official explanation of what the real (not perceived) difference is between "illegal metal detecting" in the UK and "archaeological looting" in general.

and, of course,

And why, to avoid confusion, we don't just adopt a more adequate term for all manifestations of this problem - such as "artefact hunting" or "collection-driven exploitation of the archaeological record"? What's "objectionable" about these @findsorguk @archaeologyuk @rescue_news ?

I suggest nobody hold their breath waiting for a substantive reply from any of them. Corporate fog-creation is what the whole PAS-partnership-with-collectors business model relies on, not telling the public like-it-is. We only do that when its brown-skinned furriners doing the 'looting'.

This is not irrelevant I feel:

Maya Goodfellow, Put our colonial history on the curriculum – then we’ll understand who we really are Guardian Thu 5 Dec 2019