Keyword: Cecil John Rhodes

Rhodes Must Fall

Picture: Cecil John Rhodes courtesy Encyclopaedia Britannica Richard Pithouse - If you’re up early in Dakar and decide to take a walk along the shorefront before the day gets going you may see fishermen setting out on a raft cobbled together from the detritus of the city. If you look a little closer you may see, on the rocks, not far beneath the surface of the water, an old cannon. It’s just there, becoming, with the geological patience that operates at an unbridgeable remove from the urgency of the political, part of the sea. For a South African this ease...

Confronting Colonial Discourse

Picture: Statue of Cecil John Rhodes at University of Cape Town courtesy Danie van der Merwe/flickr Mandisi Majavu - It has taken the University of Cape Town (UCT) 15 years to seriously consider the views of its black students concerning the statue of Cecil John Rhodes. Way back in 1999, Melissa Steyn and Mikki van Zyl researched students’ experiences of institutional culture at UCT. Their report concluded that participants “are sensitive to the meanings carried by the statues and names of buildings that reflect UCT’s history”, which respondents viewed as constant reminders of...