Carlo Petersen
INSPIRED by the Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) movement, which effectively campaigned to have a statue of Cecil John Rhodes removed from UCT, a group of students in the UK have come together to demand that a Rhodes statue be removed from Oxford University.
The Rhodes Must Fall In Oxford collective had stood in solidarity with their Cape Town counterparts throughout their campaign at UCT.
One of the organising members at Oxford, Kirandeep Benipal, spoke to the Cape Times about the movement in the UK yesterday.
Benipal said the movement felt that the statue of Rhodes – which is more than 100 years old and is situated at the university’s Oriel College – symbolises racism and colonialism.
“Our movement is a wave of consciousness and activism which is unified by the desire to defame the celebration of colonial history, deconstruct the legacies of oppression bequeathed by these histories which students of colour continue to be affected by.
“We refuse to allow the colonisation of the minds of young future leaders to continue,” she said.
Benipal said a question RMF in Oxford regularly gets asked is “Why Oxford?”.
“It seems that people believe that the centre of colonial violence and nostalgia is removed from the continued oppression of colonised peoples. It is not.
“Our movement in Oxford is central to the global fight against white supremacy, colonialism and oppression.
“It is central simply because of how the uncritical celebration of colonial history and figures, such as Rhodes, and the Eurocentricity of our curriculum is directly contributing to the colonisation of the mind in an establishment which considers itself to be at the height of academic knowledge.
“Its academic and social cultures are creating unwitting oppressors, and so the cycle of
oppression which built this establishment is perpetuated by its students,” she said.
Asked if the movement had made any official demands to have the Rhodes statue removed from Oxford, Benipal replied: “We have not released official demands to the university regarding the removal of the statue.
“Our movement is no more than six weeks’ old and the aims of the movement extend far beyond the statue.
“Removing the statue would be a first step in a long project of decolonising this university, and such a project extends far beyond Rhodes,” she said. Rhodes’ estate endows the Rhodes Scholarship, a postgraduate award which brings students from around the world to study at Oxford University.
A spokesperson for Oxford University’s Oriel College said: “When Cecil Rhodes died in 1902, he left 2 percent of his estate to Oriel College, where he had been a student. His legacy helped to fund the construction of a new building… Now, over a century after the building was constructed, Rhodes is thought of very differently.
“The college draws a clear line between acknowledging the historical fact of Rhodes’ donation and in any way condoning his political views. Oriel College is committed to being at the forefront of the drive to make Oxford University more diverse.”
UCT student Chumani Maxwele, who flung human excrement on to the Rhodes statue at UCT and spurred the formation of RMF, commended RMF In Oxford yesterday.
“We are inspired by them just as they are inspired by us. One of our aims was for the relevance of these symbols of oppression to be questioned, and now that is happening globally,” he said.
The RMF movement spread to the US recently after an activist – who pledged allegiance to RMF – removed a Confederate flag at South Carolina’s state house. A statue of Christopher Columbus was also defaced in Boston earlier this month.