It is misleading to use Nelson Mandela’s name to defend the Cecil John Rhodes statue
have spoken out about the need for Oxford University to demonstrate its commitment to equality by addressing their concerns. The university’s response has been to not only reject these calls, but to also suggest that they are based on a mistaken view of history.demonstrated by senior university leaders, but I was also surprised at the intellectual flaws in their statements.
Let us start with the argument for moral relativism. Speaking of the statue, Richardson suggested that we need to understand “”. She then used an example from her own life, saying that when she had grown up in Ireland she had thought that Oliver Cromwell had been a “barbaric” figure, but had then found out that he was “perceived very differently in Britain”.
This argument will intuitively appeal to many people. But there are a number of problems with the way that Richardson made it, and with its application to the case of Rhodes. The most significant is that Rhodes was “” and seen to represent an extreme version of imperialism even in his own lifetime. So it is not only on the basis of contemporary standards that a statue of Rhodes can be questioned — even when he was alive, he was a controversial figure.
Indeed, every decade since Rhodes’s death has seen a different critique of his vanity and pursuit of self-interest. Well before the Rhodes Must Fall movement started in South Africa in 2015, his many limitations had been thoroughly documented by a number of academics — some of whom worked at Oxbridge. In the 1960s, for example, JH Plumb compared Rhodes’ strategies to “Fascist and Nazi intervention techniques”.
The second problem is that, despite all the talk about teaching history, initial proposals to erect a plaque to explain why Rhodes is controversial came to nothing. Neither has the university led aabout race that engages with the statue and its history. I know from having tutored countless undergraduates over many years that Oxford would never teach a political debate to students by assigning them only one book.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Red, gold and green: A pan-African history of flags and the remarkable woman who inspired it - The Mail & GuardianThat many of the continent’s flags contain a similar colour scheme is deliberate by design.
Read more »
ANC needs young leaders and uDuduzane could be one - The Mail & GuardianOPINION: Youth Day, June 16, reminds us of the role of youth in the struggle against oppression throughout the history of the ANC.
Read more »
Labour court rules in round four of Fawu vs Fawu - The Mail & GuardianMore court action is likely to follow as sitting faction wins the latest round of the infighting plaguing the Food and Allied Workers Union.
Read more »
Northern Cape worried about rise in cases - The Mail & GuardianPremier Zamani Saul blames the doubling of Covid-19 case numbers a week after level three restrictions were implemented – on people travelling from neighbouring provinces.
Read more »
The private plane, the minister and the $1.3-billion scandal - The Mail & GuardianA private plane and a Nigerian minister are at the centre of a $1-billion corruption scandal.
Read more »
In Zambia, Covid-19 has claimed democracy, not human life - The Mail & GuardianThe novel coronavirus has not only claimed Zambian lives, but has also put the country’s democracy at stake.
Read more »