Posted on 03/24/2002 2:27:58 PM PST by H.R. Gross
Mugabe’s men want remains of Rhodes sent back to Britain
THE bones of the imperial hero to whom Zimbabwe traces its current troubles are in danger of being dug up and dumped back in Britain. The grave of Cecil John Rhodes, the British adventurer who once bestrode Africa, has become the latest focus for the anger of President Robert Mugabe’s supporters.
After invading the land of white farmers they have, perhaps belatedly, turned their attention to the man who seized it in the first place.
Veterans and locals in Zimbabwe’s Matopos national park, where Rhodes is buried, are calling for his remains and memorial to be removed before they “take the law into their own hands”.
“Cecil Rhodes is the hero of the British. He is the one who grabbed land and left it in the hands of whites and is the reason why Zimbabwe has been suspended from the Commonwealth for trying to address a problem that he left behind,” said Andrew Ndlovu, secretary of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans.
“We cannot find peace when we are keeping a white demon in our midst which is at the very core of our problems. His grave should be returned to the British or we will just destroy it.”
At present the grave is guarded by police and protected as a national monument.
“That place is not for criminals like Rhodes who took away our forefathers’ cattle and plundered our resources,” said Ndlovu.
The man who gave his name to Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was known until 22 years ago, was sent to Africa as a teenager to improve his asthma. He ended up making a fortune in diamond mining and extending the British empire.
With wealth came power, and he became prime minister of the British Cape Colony. He pursued expansionist adventures with extraordinary daring and energy, building railways and towns. His wealth and exploits gave rise to the Rhodes scholars at Oxford University, among whom have been Bill Clinton and Sir Arnold Smith, the first secretary-general of the Commonwealth.
But buccaneering, bribery and brutality tarnished his reputation. He was linked, for example, to an illegal attempt to annexe territory in the Transvaal held by Boers, which sparked the South African war of 1899-1902.
Others accused him of treating the local people harshly, prompting one friend to defend him. “His favourite Sunday pastime,” said Dr Leander Starr Jameson, “was to go into the De Beers native compound, where he had built them a fine swimming bath, and throw in shillings for the natives to dive for.”
But some black farmers just remember Rhodes as taking 1,240 square miles of land as his own estate and removing the black inhabitants from it.
Locals in the Matopos park are also up in arms at the preferential treatment granted to Rhodes’s memorial compared with that of the founder of the Ndebele nation, King Mzilikazi. While a stone slab marking Rhodes grave still stands proud, King Mzilikazi’s grave is overgrown and neglected.
The historian Thomas Pakenham, author of The Scramble for Africa, said yesterday that digging up Rhodes’s grave “would be ethnic cleansing of the dead”. Though Rhodes was in many ways an “appalling man”, he was also brave and a key part of Zimbabwe’s history. Nor was his grave an egotistical monument to colonialism. “It is very quiet and dignified, very poetic.”
But Rhodes has become another pawn in Mugabe’s battle to hang on to power by whipping up anti-colonialist passion.
“We are trying to free ourselves from all forms of colonialism and it would be a good idea to have Rhodes’s statue returned to Britain,” said Nathan Shamuyarira, secretary for information and publicity in Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party.
“It would probably send a clear signal to Britain that Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans and will never be a colony again.”
They'll be lucky if it's ever habitable again after a few more years of 'Mugabeism'.
Of course, we know Klintoon's idea of championing black rights. Blacks have the right to live in poverty in their own communities, untouched by befouling white private education. Black children have the right to live in foster care forever, as wards of the state, rather than being adopted by whites who would raise them to be middle class and destroy their "culture." As long as Klintoon can perform at the Apollo, all's right with the world
Much of what is going on in Zimbabwe, the blacks have brought on themselves, but they are right about Rhodes. Too bad the black community in this country can't see that Klintoon and his ilk are a major part of their problem.
Right. You wouldn't want the spread of STDs to all the other corpses in the yard, now would you?
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