South African politics is taking centre stage at Oxford University where a controversial #RhodesMustFall campaign is being waged against the colonial icon. Cecil John Rhodes was reputedly the richest man on earth when he died in 1902, at the age of 49, in his modest Muizenberg cottage, A chunk of his wealth was bequeathed to a trust which provides scholarships to Oxford University, used to fund the famous “Rhodes Scholars” whose number include US President Bill Clinton, scientist Edwin Hubble, father of disruption Clayton Christensen. Austrralian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and singer Kris Kristoffersen, South African Rhodes Scholars include lawyer and academic Jan Hoymeyr, Anglo CEO Julian Ogilvie-Thompson, rugby star Tommy Bedford, AIDs activist Judge Edwin Cameron and author RW Johnson. A grateful Oxford University duly honoured Rhodes with a statue at its Oriel College. In recent months, two South Africans – one, ironically, Rhodes scholar Ntokozo Qwabe – have replicated the campaign which led to the University of Cape Town removing Rhodes’s statue. The other leader of Oxford’s #Rhodesmustfall charge is St John’s-eductated Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, son of former ANC stalwart Dali Mpofu. Advocate Mpofu is an outspoken supporter of Julius Malema’s EFF since switching to the party in 2013. For reasons articulated in a letter to The Times of London, former SA President FW De Klerk has also entered the debate, urging the university to respect history and reject the campaign. Because of the sentiments he raised, the EFF is now urging those who decide on the Nobel Peace Prize to withdraw De Klerk’s award. – Alec Hogg
By Mohammed Abbas of Agence France-Presse
South Africa’s last white president, F. W. de Klerk, on Saturday criticised a campaign to remove a statue of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes from an Oxford college.
The move to remove the statue follows a similar campaign at the University of Cape Town, where a statue of Rhodes has already been taken down, and whose “Rhodes Must Fall” initiative now aims to tackle institutional racism.
De Klerk described the student-led plan, whose British arm is called “Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford” as “folly”.
“If the political correctness of today were applied consistently, very few of Oxford’s great figures would pass scrutiny,” he wrote in a letter to The Times newspaper.
“We do not commemorate historic figures for their ability to measure up to current conceptions of political correctness, but because of their actual impact on history,” added de Klerk, who was instrumental in ending racial segregation in South Africa under apartheid.
Rhodes, a believer in Anglo-Saxon supremacy, was a major driver of British territorial expansion in southern Africa and a key player in the Boer Wars, which pitted Britain against the Dutch-origin Boers.
Thousands were killed in a conflict which became infamous for Britain’s use of concentration camps, where many blacks and thousands of Boer civilians, forefathers of today’s Afrikaners, were held.
“My people — the Afrikaners — have greater reason to dislike Rhodes than anyone else. He was the architect of the Anglo-Boer War that had a disastrous impact on our people,” De Klerk wrote.
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“Yet the National Party government never thought of removing his name from our history,” he added, referring to his former party.
Rhodes, founder of the De Beers diamond company, went on to bequeath a substantial sum to Oxford University to pay for scholarships that still carry his name, and his statue adorns the facade of Oriel College.
Reckoning with the past
Writing in an opinion piece for the Times, Oxford’s Chi Chi Shi said the campaign was not just to remove the statue, but was part of “reckoning with the past”.
“Popular history sanitises the brutal facts of colonialism and those who profited are recast as heroes,” Shi wrote.
“Much of Britain’s history rests on an unsavoury pile of native corpses, of lands pillaged by imperialist megalomaniacs. To maintain the rose-tinted myths of colonialism, its victims must be silenced.”
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In a statement last week, Oriel college said Rhodes’ world view stood in “absolute contrast” with the ethos of the scholarship programme and the university today, and said it would apply to remove a plaque honouring Rhodes.
More importantly, the college said it would conduct a six-month “listening exercise” to decide the fate of the statue.
“If Oriel now finds Rhodes so reprehensible,” De Klerk wrote, “would the honourable solution not be to return his bequest, plus interest, to the victims of British imperialism in southern Africa?”
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