Carlo Petersen
ARTS and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa has intervened in the debate over Cecil John Rhodes’s statue at UCT and said while he has not received any request to have the statue moved or removed, the government was against the violent removal of any statue.
Hours before an emotionally charged meeting at UCT, where students and the institution’s management engaged over the future of the statue and the lack of transformation at the university, Mthethwa said the issue was nothing new.
He said that over the past 20 years the government had pursued a heritage transformation agenda – including making a place for the newly built Nelson Mandela statue at the Union Buildings.
The meeting at UCT last night heard how a Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) campaign has now become a national movement for transformation at universities. “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity. The government’s attitude and policy to all heritage sites – including statues of former imperialists like Cecil John Rhodes, among others – is based on a national policy of reconciliation, nation-building and social cohesion.
“Thus, we neither support nor encourage the violent removal of any statue because we do not encourage people to take the law into their own hands,” Mthethwa said.
“As a government that promotes a transformative national agenda, we also accept that the past cannot and should not be completely wiped out,” he said.
South Africa was a young democracy renowned for engaging in national discourse, and this is why citizen participation was encouraged in efforts to find a resolution to the Rhodes issue, he said.
His department will conduct community conversations, among other programmes, to help find solutions to problems the country faces, he said.
On March 9, when Chumani Maxwele flung human excrement at a statue of Rhodes to highlight “poor transformation” at UCT, the incident gave birth to Rhodes Must Fall – a collective aimed “to end institutionalised racism and patriarchy at UCT”.
In less than a month, calls for transformation, expressed through student protests for the statue to be removed, have inspired students at Rhodes University (Rhodes), University of Witwatersrand (Wits), Stellenbosch University and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT).
At CPUT in Wellington, students have taken issue with five residences which “bear names of previous apartheid-era leaders”, namely Huis Wouter Malan, Huis Bliss, Huis Navarre, Huis Meiring and Huis Murray.
CPUT spokesman Thami Nkwanyane said: “Management is busy with a process of putting together a group of interested parties to look at the whole issue of the naming of new buildings as well as a full review of the names of all existing buildings.”
In Grahamstown, the Rhodes’ SRC yesterday called on the Department of Higher Education to resolve the debate around changing the institution’s name, and at Wits, students will meet today to discuss the slow pace of curriculum and staff transformation.
Maxwele said many Stellenbosch students have contacted RMF to highlight “slow transformation” at that university.
Asked if he regretted the action, Maxwele answered: “No I do not”, before quoting Struggle hero Steve Biko: “They kick us and tell us how to respond to the kick.”