Statues and things that remind us of the bad old days

Prior to the removal of the CJR (Cecil John Rhodes) statue from the UCT campus, there was vociferous debate around it’s defacing and the protests of its existence after 21 years of democracy. There were some thoughtful comments and reflections from Academia, the media and from Industry.

The student protests at UCT and elsewhere, in my opinion, is called "exercising freedom of expression". Let's be clear on one thing, Rhodes was a racist bigot, who just as much admitted it.  What he built in his time at the Cape Colony was done for his settlers and their descendants, as he also admitted.  He very much declared that he “would use the native’s blood sweat and tears, to build his empire”. The Rhodes scholarship found in his name would never have materialised while he was living, and if so would only benefit his descendants.  The main reason this scholarship was founded was to whitewash his racist identity and paint his legacy as heroic and beneficial to all South Africans and Africans in general.

The fact that we are now in a democratic dispensation, with an inclusive society, is enough reason for us to have statues and the like to remind us of those individuals who brought us this dispensation. Those students were protesting exactly this little ignored detail of our new democracy, by demanding that reminders of the past be eradicated and replaced with our heroes of the day. Let the Rhodes apologists rant and rave all they want, and try to ignore his real identity. But the fact remains, the memory of his bigotry was there for all to see through the existence of his statue. That’s why his and all other statues reminding us of our belittled past, should be removed accordingly.

With UCT Chancellors still refusing to acknowledge that this piece of history had  be removed and that student protests had to remind them of it, speaks volumes of their commitment to an open, inclusive and democratic society in campus life.  It gives the impression that they (those reluctant Rhodes apologists) still needs something to cling to their chequered past to remind them of the “us and them” separate worlds from the bad old days.

A typical example comes in the form of an article written by Alistair Sparks, a respected journalist with a string of literary achievements and credentials to his name. See http://www.news24.com/Columnists/AllisterSparks/Lets-leave-the-past-and-focus-on-todays-failures-20150422. Although I acknowledge and respect his opinion on the whole statue debacle, it seems that the purpose of the protests, are taken out of context.  As Sparks suggests the country is in dire straits and have serious economic, social, political and other issues to be resolved, and we therefore do not have the time and energy to debate something as trivial as colonial and apartheid era statues.  That is all fair and well, but we find that there are wide ranging debates of various topics surfacing regularly, with the statue debate just being one of them.  To suddenly discount a very valid topic and write it off as time and intellectual waste, gives one the impression that Sparks is trying to brush off the issue by suggesting it’s not important.  If the students unanimously feel that it is of importance, and does affect their daily lives, then it must be up for discussion and resolution. Especially given the extent they went to, to have their voices heard.

The path to resolving the country’s issues will be littered with speed bumps in different forms which may require the attention of recognised leaders in our society, and the Statue debate was just one of those bumps that required immediate attention and resolution.