De Klerk criticises Oxford college plan to remove statue of Rhodes
Students and staff of the University of Cape Town (UCT) shout slogans during a protest against the statue of British coloniser Cecil John Rhodes at the university in Cape Town on March 20, 2015. Student activists want the statue torn down, calling it a symbol of white oppression. F.W.de Klerk, has criticised a campaign to remove a statue of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes from an Oxford college. PHOTO | RODGER BOSCH |
What you need to know:
- Mr F.W.de Klerk described the student-led plan, whose British arm is called “Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford” as “folly”.
- “We do not commemorate historic figures for their ability to measure up to current conceptions of political correctness, but because of their actual impact on history,” added de Klerk, who was instrumental in ending racial segregation in South Africa under apartheid.
- Rhodes, a believer in Anglo-Saxon supremacy, was a major driver of British territorial expansion in southern Africa and a key player in the Boer Wars, which pitted Britain against the Dutch-origin Boers.
- In a statement last week, Oriel college said Rhodes’ world view stood in “absolute contrast” with the ethos of the scholarship programme and the university today, and said it would apply to remove a plaque honouring Rhodes.
LONDON, Sunday
South Africa’s last white president, F.W.de Klerk, on Sunday criticised a campaign to remove a statue of British colonialist Cecil Rhodes from an Oxford college.
The move to remove the statue follows a similar campaign at the University of Cape Town, where a statue of Rhodes has already been taken down, and whose “Rhodes Must Fall” initiative now aims to tackle institutional racism.
Mr De Klerk described the student-led plan, whose British arm is called “Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford” as “folly”.
“If the political correctness of today were applied consistently, very few of Oxford’s great figures would pass scrutiny,” he wrote in a letter to The Times newspaper.
“We do not commemorate historic figures for their ability to measure up to current conceptions of political correctness, but because of their actual impact on history,” added de Klerk, who was instrumental in ending racial segregation in South Africa under apartheid.
BOER WARS
Rhodes, a believer in Anglo-Saxon supremacy, was a major driver of British territorial expansion in southern Africa and a key player in the Boer Wars, which pitted Britain against the Dutch-origin Boers.
Thousands were killed in a conflict which became infamous for Britain’s use of concentration camps, where many blacks and thousands of Boer civilians, forefathers of today’s Afrikaners, were held.
“My people - the Afrikaners - have greater reason to dislike Rhodes than anyone else.
He was the architect of the Anglo-Boer War that had a disastrous impact on our people,” De Klerk wrote.
“Yet the National Party government never thought of removing his name from our history,” he added, referring to his former party.
Rhodes, founder of the De Beers diamond company, went on to bequeath a substantial sum to Oxford University to pay for scholarships that still carry his name, and his statue adorns the facade of Oriel College.
In a statement last week, Oriel college said Rhodes’ world view stood in “absolute contrast” with the ethos of the scholarship programme and the university today, and said it would apply to remove a plaque honouring Rhodes.
More importantly, the college said it would conduct a six-month “listening exercise” to decide the fate of the statue.
“If Oriel now finds Rhodes so reprehensible,” De Klerk wrote, “would the honourable solution not be to return his bequest, plus interest, to the victims of British imperialism in southern Africa?”
Former Australian PM Tony Abbott has also said the statue should stay.
Mr Abbott, a Rhodes Scholar, said removing the statue would “substitute moral vanity for fair-minded enquiry”.
MOVEMENT
More than 2,300 people have signed a petition calling for the removal of the statue from Oriel College.
The movement includes amongst its members several current Rhodes Scholars.
Mr De Klerk, 79, was South Africa’s last white president and shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela in 1993 for helping to bring an end to the apartheid system.
In a statement, the Rhodes Must Fall Oxford (RMFO) movement told the BBC it considered it “despicable that someone who claims to be an ‘icon for reconciliation’ uses apartheid’s National Party as a model for how to deal with colonial symbols”.
It added: “His comment that white Afrikaners ‘have greater reason to dislike Rhodes than anyone else’ embodies precisely the distortion and whitewashing of colonial history that we at RMFO are challenging.”
IMPERIALIST
Cecil Rhodes was an imperialist, businessman and politician who played a dominant role in southern Africa in the late 19th Century, driving the annexation of vast swathes of land
Born the son of a vicar in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, in 1853, he first went to Africa at the age of 17; grew cotton with his brother in Natal, but moved into diamond mining, founding De Beers, which until recently controlled the global trade.
Rhodes’s bequest continues to finance scholarships bearing his name, allowing overseas students to come to Oxford University; most famous of these was probably Bill Clinton.
Controversial even in his own time, Rhodes backed the disastrous Jameson Raid of 1895, in which a small British force tried to overthrow the gold-rich Transvaal Republic, helping prompt the Second Boer War, in which tens of thousands died.
