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Old South African Statue of British Imperialist Sparks New Debate About Racism and Equality
Old South African Statue of British Imperialist Sparks New Debate About Racism and Equality
Old South African Statue of British Imperialist Sparks New Debate About Racism and Equality
again? What, if anything, should take their place? Who decides? Where does it stop? One caller to a
radio show mockingly asked whether the Union Buildings in Pretoria, which were designed more
than a century ago and today house government offices, should be leveled.
Mthimkhulu, the former student, said he thinks the statue-targeting campaign is mushrooming now
because, in the early years after apartheid, people focused on seizing jobs and other opportunities
previously denied to them. Another theory is that South African blacks had directed their ire at
symbols of the apartheid system overseen by the white Afrikaner minority, rather than the earlier
British colonial period.
"I think this thing is going to snowball throughout South Africa," said Chris Landsberg, an African
diplomacy expert at the University of Johannesburg.
Last week, the academic moderated a statue debate at the Centre of the Book, a domed, early 20th
century building on Queen Victoria Street in Cape Town. Activists hoisted banners reading "Rhodes
must fall" and "All Rhodes lead to colonization of the mind."
Landsberg also said there should be more critical debate about the legacy of Mandela, challenging
the "iconization" of a leader memorialized in numerous sculptures and other tributes. In a
conciliatory gesture, Mandela, who died in 2013, had lent his name to the Mandela Rhodes
scholarships for postgraduate study in South Africa.
"By combining our name with that of Cecil John Rhodes in this initiative is to signal a closing of the
circle and a coming together of two strands in our history," Mandela said more than a decade ago.
The most sweeping name change happened in a neighboring country whose name changed from
Rhodesia to Zimbabwe in 1980 after white rule ended. Zimbabwe also removed Rhodes statues, but
resisted calls to dig up Rhodes' grave in the Matobo National Park on grounds that it is a reminder
of colonialism.
Andrew Dhliwayo, a Zimbabwean student at the University of Cape Town, described the Rhodes
statue as a useful channel for debate.
"The fall of the statue won't change much," he said. "It's just for people to get their views out there."
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/04/01/old-south-african-statue-british-imperialist-sparks-new-de
bate-about-racism-and.html