Book review: The Secret Society

Published Jan 20, 2016

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Poor old Cecil. And, no, I don’t mean the iconic lion whose tragic death caused a global outcry last year, but rather his Zimbabwean compatriot, Cecil John Rhodes, who is currently regarded as a scourge on the planet.

Even being called a “Zimbabwean”, I imagine, would make this much-maligned racist and colonialist “pariah” turn in his grave in his beloved Matabeleland at the thought of how the country he named after himself has thrown off the heavy yoke of the British Empire.

Anyone who comes to the defence of this bigot, as FW de Klerk found out recently, will be jeered. As Rhodes’s head rolls, figuratively and sometimes literally, from its pedestals on campuses in the northern and southern hemispheres that bear testimony to his controversial legacy, it would seem a strange time indeed to publish a book extolling his virtues.

What kind of of “When-we” would write about his master plan for a New World Order, I thought en route to the recent Press Club launch of Robin Brown’s book The Secret Society?

Maybe he’s some kind of nutter, a conspiracy theorist and an apologist for Ian Smith and the glory days of yore, I muttered. It was refreshing to discover that Brown is a respected natural historian, lecturer and award-winning TV producer with links to the BBC’s David Attenborough.

With no particular axe to grind, he has written a meticulously researched account of the time, peppered with little-known facts that, he says, have been “virtually airbrushed from the pages of history”.

For instance, the proposed Secret Society, designed to operate within strict Jesuit-style rules, had humble beginnings in the mid-1870s in Kimberley; by 1891, however, highly placed figures of the day such as Nathan Rothschild, not to mention a coterie of sycophantic courtiers, were drawn into meeting confidentially with Rhodes.

His aim, preposterous as it may seem, was to make the US part of the British Empire.

“He was deadly serious,” Brown reveals, quoting from a draft of Rhodes’s first will that grandiosely decreed British settlers should occupy the “entire Continent of Africa… South America, the Pacific, the Malay Archipelago, China, Japan…”

Outrageous, yes; delusional, definitely. But the underlying arrogance of the man is nowhere more apparent than his assertion in 1877: “I contend that we are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit, the better it is for the human race.”

His racism and belief in white supremacism are well known.

While he was, arguably, the architect of apartheid, his role in the Anglo-Boer War – and his contemptuous attitude towards the Boers – are an equally unpleasant part of his legacy.

But what, to me, is most disturbing is Brown’s assertion that “his sexuality materially affected his decisions”.

The Jameson Raid, the author declares, was among his faulty decisions and could have been stopped. Alfred, Lord Milner, was to inherit many of Rhodes’s mistakes, Brown continues.

The old boys’ network and the now defunct gentleman’s clubs are, thankfully, no longer revered in the 21st century.

In the Victorian era, of course, when imperialism reigned, boys’ clubs and secret societies were commonplace; a “band of brothers” had no other connotations than a group of like-minded people with upper-class backgrounds, public school educations and private incomes.

So it seems that Brown’s preoccupation with a “homosexual hegemony” and the issue of “gay and lesbian control” of British politics at the beginning of the 20th century has a distinct homophobic slant.

While his statement to the Press Club that “this gay thing has to be seen in its context”, sounded discordant to my ears, I have to agree with his other assertion that “we can’t bury history, but must keep digging”, as in archaeology.

Though I agree with the students at Rhodes own alma mater, Oriel College in Oxford, that “we do not share his values or condone his racist views or actions”, the debate around statues of dead racists has no part in this review.

(Although I can’t help but quote Robert Mugabe’s reaction to the #RhodesMustFall campaign: “So we are looking after the corpse and you have the statue. I don’t know what you think we should do. Dig him up?”)

Instead, I would urge young students and older history buffs alike to accept this book for what it is: a riveting, and well-illustrated look at events that affected our heritage in good times and in bad.

Dare I say it, but those students who decline to read or even consider looking at the historic facts could be accused of “cutting off their noses to spite their faces”.

Rhodes, like many leaders, was a fascinating, if deeply flawed, character. I like to think of him as perhaps more humble in his soul than in his deeds, as evidenced in his attachment to the simple life in Muizenberg where he enjoyed staying in his cottage by the sea.

* The Secret Society by Robin Brown is published by Penguin/Random

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