Cape Town - The EFF has called for FW de Klerk to be stripped of his Nobel Peace Prize for speaking out against the UK’s #RhodesMustFall campaign.
This comes after the former president wrote a letter to a UK newspaper slamming the campaign at Oxford University’s Oriel campus.
Much like the RhodesMustFall campaign at the University of Cape Town, the Oxford students say they don’t support the British colonialist’s views.
Cape students had success when the famous statue was removed from the UCT campus earlier this year.
In his letter, De Klerk said it is “regrettable that the Rhodes Must Fall folly has spread from South Africa to Oriel College”.
De Klerk said Rhodes was the architect of the Anglo-Boer War that had a disastrous impact on people “yet the National Party government never thought of removing his name from our history”.
He said Rhodes had a positive impact on more than 7 500 students who benefited from the Rhodes Scholarship.
“Students have always been full of sound and fury, signifying very little,” De Klerk said.
“However, one would have expected an institution as venerable as Oriel to be a little more gracious in its treatment of its most generous benefactor.”
The Economic Freedom Fighters hit back by calling for De Klerk to be stripped of his Nobel Peace prize, awarded in 1993 along with Nelson Mandela.
“The EFF expresses disgust at FW De Klerk for his open rejection of the plans to remove the statue of the colonial anti-black racist expansionist Cecil John Rhodes from Oxford University in the United Kingdom,” spokesman Mbuyiseni Ndlozi says in the statement.
“De Klerk is quoted as saying, ‘We do not commemorate historic figures for their ability to measure up to current conceptions of political correctness, but because of their actual impact on history’.”
“By extension, it means De Klerk thinks there was a time when apartheid or colonisation was politically correct, which renders his apologies for it futile.
“The only reason apartheid would not remove Cecil John Rhode’s statue is because it shared the same ideas of anti-black racism, colonial expansionism and conquest as he did.
“He is effectively saying it was right for Rhodes to be recognised for being a great colonialist because at the time colonialists were politically correct to colonise Africa.
“We therefore call on the Nobel Peace Prize committee to recall De Klerk’s award completely and re-issue it to Nelson Mandela posthumously.
“Therefore, like the statue of Rhodes, he [De Klerk] must go to the apartheid museum.”
Daily Voice
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