THERE are conflicting views on how Cecil John Rhodes’s legacy should be evaluated. The proximate issue in the debate raging at the University of Cape Town is whether the statue of a figure as divisive as Rhodes should continue to form the centrepiece of that university 20 years after democracy. The deeper issue concerns the nature of the university’s institutional culture.
Rhodes came to SA as a young boy of 17, suffering from tuberculosis. Defying his doctor’s prognosis that his death was imminent, he quickly established himself as a mining magnate during the gilded age in Kimberley.
Not content with being a magnate, he sought a seat in Parliament and became prime minister of the Cape Colony, in a meteoric rise that some suggested was greased through bribes in his Griqualand West constituency. Rhodes capped his success by convincing the British monarch to give him unfettered authority to colonise parts of Africa using a special charter company, acting like a substate.
Rhodes was driven by the grand idea of enlarging the British empire. As he put it, he worked "for the bringing of the whole civilised world under British rule … for the making of the Anglo-Saxon race into one empire".
His initiatives as prime minister included sponsoring the infamous bill colloquially known as the "Every Master Wallop His Nigger Bill", granting the right to Cape Dutch farmers to flog their black workers. In his words: "We must treat them (natives) as a subject race and be lords over them." He considered natives as appendages in the production process.
As a member of Parliament, he fought against giving blacks title deeds in urban areas. According to Lewis Mitchell, his biographer, Rhodes asserted: "Now I come to the question of title. My idea is that the natives should be in reserves and not mix up with the white man." In a sense, he laid the foundations for apartheid’s economic geography and spatial inequalities that still exist.
The protest by a section of students against Rhodes’s statue is valid. First, universities are fountains of critical thought and have no business hosting in their centre courts statues of political figures. These belong to the museum. Further, it is not just the statue that is problematic but the ideas Rhodes stood for that are subtly embedded in the institutional culture.
Rhodes believed until his death in Anglo-Saxon dominance across the domains of culture, politics and ideas, using the instruments of dispossession and dominance. His philanthropic gestures, such as establishing a "colonial scholarship", donating vast tracts of his residency for the establishment of the University of Cape Town, and giving his main Groote Schuur residence to be used by future presidents, should be regarded as proceeds of plunder. His was a selfish attempt to atone for his earthly sins in order to escape judgment beyond the grave. He was bribing the future to regard him kindly.
Changing institutional culture entails more than removing the statue of Rhodes. There is a need for self-awareness of the discourses that have over time shaped the evolution of historically white universities, especially the idea that there is only one view of cultural progress and intellectual expression. Deliberations on institutional culture should strive to create vibrant intellectual and social spaces that affirm plurality of ideas and cultural diversity.
University leadership should do much more to attract, develop and retain black talent in their teaching staff. Many white students go through university life without ever encountering black authority figures of knowledge. It gives black students no confidence not to ever encounter black role models who disseminate knowledge as professors. Hopefully, the Rhodes debacle will force historically white universities to look inwards and take decisive steps for change.
• Qobo was president of the University of Cape Town’s Student Representative Council in 1996.
The statue of Cecil John Rhodes covered with plastic at the UCT main campus in Cape Town. Picture: ADRIAN DE KOCK
THERE are conflicting views on how Cecil John Rhodes’s legacy should be evaluated. The proximate issue in the debate raging at the University of Cape Town is whether the statue of a figure as divisive as Rhodes should continue to form the centrepiece of that university 20 years after democracy. The deeper issue concerns the nature of the university’s institutional culture.
Rhodes came to SA as a young boy of 17, suffering from tuberculosis. Defying his doctor’s prognosis that his death was imminent, he quickly established himself as a mining magnate during the gilded age in Kimberley.
Not content with being a magnate, he sought a seat in Parliament and became prime minister of the Cape Colony, in a meteoric rise that some suggested was greased through bribes in his Griqualand West constituency. Rhodes capped his success by convincing the British monarch to give him unfettered authority to colonise parts of Africa using a special charter company, acting like a substate.
Rhodes was driven by the grand idea of enlarging the British empire. As he put it, he worked "for the bringing of the whole civilised world under British rule … for the making of the Anglo-Saxon race into one empire".
His initiatives as prime minister included sponsoring the infamous bill colloquially known as the "Every Master Wallop His Nigger Bill", granting the right to Cape Dutch farmers to flog their black workers. In his words: "We must treat them (natives) as a subject race and be lords over them." He considered natives as appendages in the production process.
As a member of Parliament, he fought against giving blacks title deeds in urban areas. According to Lewis Mitchell, his biographer, Rhodes asserted: "Now I come to the question of title. My idea is that the natives should be in reserves and not mix up with the white man." In a sense, he laid the foundations for apartheid’s economic geography and spatial inequalities that still exist.
The protest by a section of students against Rhodes’s statue is valid. First, universities are fountains of critical thought and have no business hosting in their centre courts statues of political figures. These belong to the museum. Further, it is not just the statue that is problematic but the ideas Rhodes stood for that are subtly embedded in the institutional culture.
Rhodes believed until his death in Anglo-Saxon dominance across the domains of culture, politics and ideas, using the instruments of dispossession and dominance. His philanthropic gestures, such as establishing a "colonial scholarship", donating vast tracts of his residency for the establishment of the University of Cape Town, and giving his main Groote Schuur residence to be used by future presidents, should be regarded as proceeds of plunder. His was a selfish attempt to atone for his earthly sins in order to escape judgment beyond the grave. He was bribing the future to regard him kindly.
Changing institutional culture entails more than removing the statue of Rhodes. There is a need for self-awareness of the discourses that have over time shaped the evolution of historically white universities, especially the idea that there is only one view of cultural progress and intellectual expression. Deliberations on institutional culture should strive to create vibrant intellectual and social spaces that affirm plurality of ideas and cultural diversity.
University leadership should do much more to attract, develop and retain black talent in their teaching staff. Many white students go through university life without ever encountering black authority figures of knowledge. It gives black students no confidence not to ever encounter black role models who disseminate knowledge as professors. Hopefully, the Rhodes debacle will force historically white universities to look inwards and take decisive steps for change.
• Qobo was president of the University of Cape Town’s Student Representative Council in 1996.
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