At a corner of the verdant rugby field at the University of Cape Town stands a statue covered in wooden slats. Until around three weeks ago, this 81-year-old statue of the colonialist Cecil John Rhodes had lorded over the campus from its vantage point unhindered. Things changed on March 9 when a 30-year-old black student named Chumani Maxwele emptied a bucket of excrement on it.
That act of protest, aimed at the “institutionalised racism on campus” and the “continuous denigration of black students”, catalysed a student movement of a fervid intensity unseen since the days of apartheid in South Africa.
For a month now, agitations have been raging on the campus demanding the removal of the statue that is seen as “a celebration of an imperialist”. “This is about transformation as a whole, and decolonising our community,” said one student leader, addressing school students at a public meeting last Thursday. “The statue is a representation of institutionalised racism.”
The debate has now spread far beyond the varsity. Maxwele’s act has sparked a national conversation on race, history, heritage and white privilege, with #RhodesMustFall dominating conversations online and offline. There is little sign of the conversation petering out. Though the Cape Town university senate voted two weeks ago to remove Rhodes’s statue, the final decision on this will be taken this week by the university council.
“The statue has great symbolic power; it glorifies a mass murderer who exploited black labour and stole land from indigenous people,” says the mission statement of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign. “Its presence erases black history and is an act of violence against black students, workers and staff – by ‘black’ we refer to all people of colour. The statue was therefore the natural starting point of this movement. Its removal will not mark the end but the beginning of the long overdue process of decolonising this university.”
Ways to ensure diversity
Cecil John Rhodes, whose legacy is best known through the Rhodes Scholarships he endowed for students at the University of Oxford, was born in 1853 and built a fortune in Africa through mining. He was prime minister of a part of the cape from 1890 to 1896, and a key figure in imperialist expansion in the region. He had donated the land on which the University of Cape Town was built.
Recently, at a panel discussion between the judges of the International Man Booker Prize following the announcement of the awards shortlist, there was a brief interruption when a group of students silently entered the university hall bearing placards saying “Rhodes Must Fall”. The panel itself could not help but refer to the ongoing debate. One belligerent audience member even stood up and asked the judges why the panel had chosen to align with a university where black voices “continue to be undermined”.
Throughout the storm, the university’s vice chancellor Max Price has been singularly tested, although he has consistently said that he is impressed by the student activism and personally believes the statue should be taken down and displayed somewhere with proper contextualisation.
At the International Booker event, he congratulated the students for their “thoughtful and dignified protests”. “It is not just about redressing past inequalities, but [also] about ensuring diversity,” he remarked. Several days before, when the occupy movement at the campus had kicked off, students, civil society groups and supporters had spoken at length, as Price and other officials had stood behind and watched.
What about other issues?
In the last month, the statue campaign has not left the pages of newspapers; editorial pages are filled with censorious and approving letters from readers. Demands have been made for the Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape province to be renamed. Two weeks ago, a group of students at the University of KwaZulu Natal, riding the wave of anti-imperialist protests, defaced a statue of King George V on that campus.
The movement has been driven by black students but other groups have also joined in. A former student said that he did not think white people really had a right to have a say in this matter. Some have compared Rhodes to Hitler, while pointing out that nowhere in modern-day Germany is the Nazi leader celebrated.
However, many have questioned the way some of the protests unfolded (on one occasion anti-Semitic imagery has been used), whether they have detracted from other issues by focusing on one statue, and whether cosmetic changes can be harbingers of real transformation. Some have pointed out that there are other, more pressing issues for the country to deal with, including poverty, corruption and crime, instead of focussing on the statue of a long dead white man.
One former student said she could not understand what the fuss was about. “He was a complex figure,” she said. “It’s just a statue. What happened is history, it’s over. Is throwing faeces the way to protest?”
We welcome your comments at
letters@scroll.in.
That act of protest, aimed at the “institutionalised racism on campus” and the “continuous denigration of black students”, catalysed a student movement of a fervid intensity unseen since the days of apartheid in South Africa.
For a month now, agitations have been raging on the campus demanding the removal of the statue that is seen as “a celebration of an imperialist”. “This is about transformation as a whole, and decolonising our community,” said one student leader, addressing school students at a public meeting last Thursday. “The statue is a representation of institutionalised racism.”
The debate has now spread far beyond the varsity. Maxwele’s act has sparked a national conversation on race, history, heritage and white privilege, with #RhodesMustFall dominating conversations online and offline. There is little sign of the conversation petering out. Though the Cape Town university senate voted two weeks ago to remove Rhodes’s statue, the final decision on this will be taken this week by the university council.
“The statue has great symbolic power; it glorifies a mass murderer who exploited black labour and stole land from indigenous people,” says the mission statement of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign. “Its presence erases black history and is an act of violence against black students, workers and staff – by ‘black’ we refer to all people of colour. The statue was therefore the natural starting point of this movement. Its removal will not mark the end but the beginning of the long overdue process of decolonising this university.”
Ways to ensure diversity
Cecil John Rhodes, whose legacy is best known through the Rhodes Scholarships he endowed for students at the University of Oxford, was born in 1853 and built a fortune in Africa through mining. He was prime minister of a part of the cape from 1890 to 1896, and a key figure in imperialist expansion in the region. He had donated the land on which the University of Cape Town was built.
Recently, at a panel discussion between the judges of the International Man Booker Prize following the announcement of the awards shortlist, there was a brief interruption when a group of students silently entered the university hall bearing placards saying “Rhodes Must Fall”. The panel itself could not help but refer to the ongoing debate. One belligerent audience member even stood up and asked the judges why the panel had chosen to align with a university where black voices “continue to be undermined”.
Throughout the storm, the university’s vice chancellor Max Price has been singularly tested, although he has consistently said that he is impressed by the student activism and personally believes the statue should be taken down and displayed somewhere with proper contextualisation.
At the International Booker event, he congratulated the students for their “thoughtful and dignified protests”. “It is not just about redressing past inequalities, but [also] about ensuring diversity,” he remarked. Several days before, when the occupy movement at the campus had kicked off, students, civil society groups and supporters had spoken at length, as Price and other officials had stood behind and watched.
What about other issues?
In the last month, the statue campaign has not left the pages of newspapers; editorial pages are filled with censorious and approving letters from readers. Demands have been made for the Rhodes University in the Eastern Cape province to be renamed. Two weeks ago, a group of students at the University of KwaZulu Natal, riding the wave of anti-imperialist protests, defaced a statue of King George V on that campus.
The movement has been driven by black students but other groups have also joined in. A former student said that he did not think white people really had a right to have a say in this matter. Some have compared Rhodes to Hitler, while pointing out that nowhere in modern-day Germany is the Nazi leader celebrated.
However, many have questioned the way some of the protests unfolded (on one occasion anti-Semitic imagery has been used), whether they have detracted from other issues by focusing on one statue, and whether cosmetic changes can be harbingers of real transformation. Some have pointed out that there are other, more pressing issues for the country to deal with, including poverty, corruption and crime, instead of focussing on the statue of a long dead white man.
One former student said she could not understand what the fuss was about. “He was a complex figure,” she said. “It’s just a statue. What happened is history, it’s over. Is throwing faeces the way to protest?”
