The Past Haunts Oxford Debate Over Rhodes Statue

The New York Times ^ | JAN. 21, 2016 | ALAN COWELL

[sukhoi-30mki]

LONDON — High above a main thoroughfare in the city of Oxford, in an alcove framed by twirly columns, a statue of Cecil John Rhodes, the archimperialist who shaped Britain’s empire and the destiny of its far-flung subjects in Africa, peers down inscrutably on the people below. If you weren’t looking for it, you might miss it.

In recent weeks, though, the statue has provoked an acrimonious debate about whether it should be removed, as was another monument to him last year, in South Africa, where he built his fortune and power before his death in 1902.

But, as the debate has unfolded, it has sometimes been tempting to ask what it is all about — the unhealed wounds of Africa’s colonial heritage; or fears among Westerners that their version of history may be sacrificed on an altar of racially tinged revisionism, an echo of an equally fiery debate on some American campuses.

Certainly, it seems beyond dispute that colonialism, along with the slave trade and the encroachment of foreign faiths in lands that had not requested them, burned an enduring scar on Africa’s self-regard and self-esteem.

But, said Christopher Patten, the chancellor of Oxford University, who does not want the statue pulled down, “our history is not a blank page on which we can write our own version of what it should have been according to our contemporary views and prejudices.”

As Africa peers into the uncertainties of 2016, there seems to be a disconnect between the preoccupation with the past at Oxford, where Rhodes studied intermittently between 1873 and 1881, and the continent’s broader concerns in the present.

[sukhoi-30mki]

A statue of the colonialist Cecil John Rhodes on the facade of Oriel College in Oxford, England.

[TigerClaws]

Lefists have become our homegrown ISIS. They want to destroy all history.

[dp0622]

MLK used to beat the @#$@#$ out of hookers.

can i go to take the sign off the freeway named after him on Staten Island.

very small piece. and it doesn’t let you off at any safe exits really.

[ZULU]

It’s part of history, dammit. What the hell is wrong with people?????

[Covenantor]

Cecil “Cape to Cairo” Rhodes, the Colossus of the Victorian Empire.

During one interview, Rhodes was asked why he went to Africa, paraphrased, he replied that he was sick of all that cold mutton all the time.

Bad British cuisine drove him to it. Apocryphal or not, history often hinges on strange strange things at times.

[bjorn14]

Are they going to rename the Rhodes scholarship too,

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***”the unhealed wounds of Africa’s colonial heritage;***

Let see, African tribes subsist by cut-slash-burn agriculture and still can’t feed themselves so they raid neighboring tribes.

Along comes the Whites, seize the land and using modern agricultural practices soon feeds ALL of AFRICA.

Then comes in the White-Guilt people and decry “colonialism” until the world decides Rhodesia needs to be turned back over to the blacks.
A war is fought, and eventually Rhodesia becomes Zimbabwe.

The modern farms are destroyed and there is a return to cut-slash-burn agriculture which could not feed enough tribesmen back in the 1800s. But now the population is TEN TIMES what it was back then so we end up with another beggar nation who blames all their problems o White Colonialism.

Maybe the Chinese will straighten them out with Chinese Colonialism.

[moose07]

This is the kind of crap created by those ignorant of the true history of southern Africa.
Having researched it myself whilst out there, those who claim SA is theirs weren't there when the first Europeans arrived.
Of course the truth doesn't fit the bash whitey narrative of the Left.

As for getting the H*ll out of here due to the bad food, sounds perfectly plausible to me. :)

[pbear8]

It’s part of history, dammit. What the hell is wrong with people?????

Well, the suit is pretty ugly ;)