Nairobi - Countries
must find more creative ways to depict their history than
statues that glorify racists and colonialists, a founder of
South Africa's successful Rhodes Must Fall movement said on
Thursday.
A wave of anti-racism protests sweeping across the US and Europe has reignited debate about monuments that
glorify countries' imperialist pasts, which many people see as
offensive in today's multi-ethnic society.
Statues linked to colonialism and slavery have been defaced
or pulled down in the US, Britain and Belgium amid
protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, a black man,
after a policeman knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes.
Ramabani Mahapa, who served as president of the University
of Cape Town Students Representative Council and led a 2015
campaign to remove a statue of imperialist tycoon Cecil Rhodes,
said he was encouraged by the movements across the world.
"We've got to find different ways of educating the public
about our history. I don't think these statues are the right way
to go about it - especially given that many of them are about
glorifying oppression and racism," said Mahapa, 28.
"The goal when they were erected was a testament to the
attitudes towards race at the time. As the current generation,
we have different attitudes and the continued presence of these
monuments is problematic."
A mining magnate, Rhodes was a central figure in Britain's
colonial project in southern Africa, giving his name to
Rhodesia, present-day Zimbabwe, and founding the De Beers
diamond empire.
He made his fortune from the exploitation of African miners,
secured power through bloody imperial wars and paved the way to
apartheid with his beliefs and measures on racial segregation.
A statue of Robert Milligan is removed by workers outside the Museum of London Docklands, near Canary Wharf. Picture: John Sibley/Reuters
'SENSE OF LOSS'
In March 2015, Mahapa led hundreds of students at the
University of Cape Town in the #RhodesMustFall protests to
remove the statue from the entrance steps to the university.
Students said it glorified a man seen by many as an
architect of apartheid, and that the university campus should be
more representative of South Africa's diverse history and
culture.
"The statue had a very prominent position right at the
entrance to the university. You couldn't even take a picture
properly of the university with the backdrop of the Table
Mountain because of the statue," said Mahapa.
"When I looked at it, I felt a sense of loss. I felt a sense
of displacement. The statue was telling me that I didn't belong
there."
After more than a month of protests, university authorities
relented and the statue was removed, but not before inspiring a
similar movement by Oxford University students, which has been
reinvigorated by the current global protests against racism.
In recent days, monuments of British slave traders Robert
Milligan and Edward Colston, Belgian's King Leopold II, explorer
Christopher Columbus and confederate leaders such as Jefferson
Davis have been torn down by protestors or authorities.
Mahapa said changing the wording on plaques of monuments to
provide historical context and background, as some supporters of
the monuments have suggested, was not the solution.
"There may be other creative ways that these statues could
be put on display for public education purposes. I think placing
them in museums with appropriate contextual background would be
appropriate," said Mahapa.
"Or even relocating them to less prominent places within a
city or university may also be appropriate depending on the
context and the outcome of the public participation process."
Mahapa, now a researcher with the Land and Accountability
Research Centre in the Department of Public Law at the
University of Cape Town, says the statue's removal has led to
more conversation among students about racial injustice.
But, he added, much more needed to be done.
"If you go around Cape Town university today, it is still
full of colonial iconography. There are plaques and pictures of
old white men who are benefactors or ministers of education from
the apartheid era everywhere."
"There is nothing really African here that we can identify
with. There is nothing that says, 'Black child you belong here.'"