Cecil Rhodes, Oxford, and victimhood

[Lokasenna]

I’ve been following the Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford debacle with morbid curiosity for a while now.

For those of you who are not aware of it, a group of students are lobbying Oriel College of Oxford University to remove a statue it has of Cecil Rhodes, the Victorian business magnate who played a very prominent role in the British Empire’s colonial expansion in Africa. Rhodes was an alumnus of Oriel, and bequeathed the enormous sum of £100,000 (more than £36,000,000 by today’s standards) to Oxford, part of which was used to fund the Rhodes scholarships, which have subsequently allowed thousands of people from all over the world to attend Oxford University. Indeed, the main orchestrator of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign has been accused of hypocrisy, because he himself has a scholarship funded by Rhodes’s money. It should be noted that Rhodes himself expressly stated that consideration for one of his scholarships should not depend in any way on the colour of one’s skin.

The flip-side of the argument, though, is that some students are claiming that having to see his statue on a daily basis is highly offensive, even traumatic, to them, and that it typifies the institutionalised racism that still underpins the Western world. They claim that the presence of Rhodes’s statue makes victims of non-Caucasian students.

So what is going on here? Is there a genuine point to be made about inherited damage from previous generations? Or is the cult of victimhood being used as an excuse to censor history? And why Rhodes in particular? Few would disagree with the fact that Rhodes was a great man, which is a very different thing from being a good man – but is he the worst that history has to offer? Should memorials to other controversial figures be removed as well?

Any thoughts? (I also found this piece to sum up many of my feelings about the issues: http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite...ust-fall/17762)

[kev67]

Difficult to respond to this post without discussing politics.

[Lokasenna]

I was hoping more for a discussion of the concept of victimhood, particularly with regard to the idea of inherited cultural tensions and the extent to which memorialising can be problematic. To what extent are we shaped by our past, and to what extent should we celebrate our past if it conflicts with the past experiences of other people? Just how sacred are our sacred cows?

I hope that won't stray into the realms of contemporary politics, but I leave it to the mods to decide if the discussion crosses any lines that shouldn't be crossed. I think discussion historical politics is allowed? If I'm wrong, I'm sorry!

[mona amon]

I saw this news item in our paper the other day. I have no idea about the politics behind it if any, and I thought it was perfectly idiotic of the Oxford authorities to take it seriously. What are they planning to do - get rid of the statue but continue to use the 'tainted' money? And that guy who has a Rhodes scholarship - why doesn't he give up the scholarship instead, as a form of protest? In India we are surrounded by the relics and legacies of our colonial past. I studied in a school founded by Sir Henry Lawrence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Montgomery_Lawrence , and it would've been a fine thing if we had gone about picketing for the removal of his statue because he was a 'colonist' instead of appreciating the fact that we now had a nice school to study in.

I can understand why the statues of Stalin in Russia were gleefully razed to the ground. And I can understand why the countries that were once called Rhodesia now have different names, but to protest against a statue of Rhodes while continuing to take his scholarship money seems unbelievably hypocritical to me.

[kev67]

As Cecil Rhodes is now quite an historical figure, and the statue has been there a long time already, I do not think it should be removed. Likewise, although I do not really like the statues of the Victorian generals in Trafalgar Square, I do not think they should be removed either. OTOH, I disapproved when a statue was erected of Bomber Harris in 1992. I do not think he should have been honoured that way, especially when the results of his decisions were still within living memory.

I must admit I felt irked by the leader of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign. I read that he argued that the French flag should be banned, I suppose for bad things the French did to people of African descent decades, if not centuries ago.

[prendrelemick]

Personally I don't think anybody can be a victim of a statue. (except those scary ones on Dr Who.)

The symbolism is whatever you make it. Students from former colonies can look at the statue and celebrate it as a symbol of a past that has been swept away if they wish.

History should be reinterpreted for each age of course, but if we deny facts or discount the interpretations of a previous age, we are history deniers, and lose the lessons of history. I felt a bit uneasy when those Stalin statues were broken up for that reason. (Though that action is now history too.)

[Lokasenna]

Trevor Phillips, a former Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, wrote a very interesting letter to The Times today, attacking the campaign as 'simultaneously witless, wrongheaded and reprehensible'. He made the point that no one has called for Auschwitz to be demolished - the continued existence of it does not celebrate it, of course, but to efface it from history runs the risk of allowing Auschwitz to be repeated in some new time and place.

As for the student running the campaign, he does come across as something of an unpleasant crank with a lot of axes to grind. But I'm more interested in the concept than in the individual.

That being said, if someone annouced that they wanted to put up a statue of Hitler there would be an outcry. But then there are plenty of statues of evil gits like Stalin and Lenin all over the world, including in some countries that were enemies of the USSR. So if the staute is already standing, and not merely a proposed one, does that make a difference?

[prendrelemick]

I'd like to propose a statue of people breaking up a statue of Stalin.

Each statue is as much a record of the attitudes of the time they were erected, as they are a tribute to the person. So Hitler has no chance and Bomber Harris had to wait 60 years.

[ennison]

Well now it depends. Remember the Americans on arrival in Baghdad pulled down a statue of Saddam. Dozens of statues to Stalin have been knocked down. There are a few in the Highlands I'd like to demolish. I guess it partly depends on the nature of the statue, why it was erected and where it is. It's no skin off my nose if the particular pile is reduced to a fine dust. I don't buy the comparison to the extermination camp. There are some angry folk and there are some defensive folk. And there are destructive folk. Maybe they can build a privy around it.

[Emil Miller]

I have never understood why anyone, apart from students themselves, should take student opinions seriously. Being at the the early stages of life's learning curve, they obviously have an inexperienced view of the world.
If any of them are discountenanced by a statue, they should absent themselves from it by leaving the scene. Statues are an historic reminder of the past whether we agree with person depicted or not and, except in extreme situations, should remain intact.
One of my favourite statues is that of England's greatest parliamentarian, Oliver Cromwell, that occupies a prominent place in front of the parliament he had to close down by armed force in order that it was restored to its original purpose.

[stlukesguild]

While I'm generally on the other side of the political spectrum as Emil, I must agree with him here in that I have little use for Leftist Extremism and the New Political Correctness that has reared its head on Universities and Colleges here as well. There have been any number of instances over the past year or so... for example, the NASA scientish shamed for wearing the hula-girl shirt or the Nobel Laureate shamed for a stupid off-the-cuff remark:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2...rced-to-resign

http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2...nstead-rosetta

There are any number of articles on the "coddling" of students... protecting them from every possible imagined trauma or offence...

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...n-mind/399356/

... to such a point that a number of comedians from very different backgrounds have publicly stated that student audiences are so sensitive that they can no longer tell the least off-color joke.

Personally, I share this guy's POV:



Obviously this guy didn't like the sculpture in question... but at least he had a sense of humor about it:

[Calidore]

Seems to me it's another example of weak people bullying others to acquire power, except now they pretend to be speaking out against bullying and injustice while committing both. To give one example, without being specific, we currently have one poster (Poster A) on this site who, despite actively professing no religious belief himself, flies into an offended rage against religiously-oriented Poster B with the latter's every post, claiming to be defending another religion from defamation.

[prendrelemick]

While I'm generally on the other side of the political spectrum as Emil, I must agree with him here in that I have little use for Leftist Extremism and the New Political Correctness that has reared its head on Universities and Colleges here as well. There have been any number of instances over the past year or so... for example, the NASA scientish shamed for wearing the hula-girl shirt or the Nobel Laureate shamed for a stupid off-the-cuff remark:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2...rced-to-resign

http://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2...nstead-rosetta

There are any number of articles on the "coddling" of students... protecting them from every possible imagined trauma or offence...

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...n-mind/399356/

... to such a point that a number of comedians from very different backgrounds have publicly stated that student audiences are so sensitive that they can no longer tell the least off-color joke.

Personally, I share this guy's POV:



Obviously this guy didn't like the sculpture in question... but at least he had a sense of humor about it:

What if that raising the flag at Iwo Jima statue was Super Heroed ? I hope we could still laugh. The trouble with statues are that they are set in stone, as history moves on they can become a little embarrasing.

[ennison]

Pulling down lumps of stone also soon becomes history.

[Whifflingpin]

"The trouble with statues are that they are set in stone,"
There was a place and period in ancient Greece where memorials were restricted to wood. That custom has much to commend it.

(non sequitur) Anyone who has a knowledge of history could probably stand in any city between Cape Town and Kampala and say of Rhodes, with some justification, "si monumentum requiris, circumspice."