The reverence given to some colonial plaques, statues and other Rhodesian memoralabia are symbolic of the effects of colonialism and that our people have a long way to go to decolonise their minds.
Miffed by the brooding presence of Cecil John Rhodes’ statue located at the University of Cape Town (UCT) campus, students held protest marches and called for its removal.
According to the South African City Press newspaper, University of Cape Town vice-Chancellor, Dr Mark Price said he would like to see the statue of Cecil John Rhodes removed from its current position, but not destroyed.
The statue has created a public relations crisis for the institution, which has been forced to explain why it has not been removed 20 years after the advent of democracy.
The paper reported that over the past weeks students staged a number of protests, demanding the removal of the statue arguing that it symbolises racism. Voicing his personal opinion Price said: “I don’t think the statue should be destroyed or hidden away. I just think it should not be there-it should be removed.
“This will not compromise our ability to record and debate the role played in the city and continent’s history. And it will not change our acknowledgement that UCT acquired its site from the Rhodes Estate, and the positive contribution that it has made to our institution and its students,”
Another option he said was to leave the statue but to place a plaque detailing the evils which Rhodes visited on the people of the continent, but he admitted this would not work.
“It is in my view, the particular location and setting of the Rhodes statue that is the problem and it cannot be addressed by contexualising the statue or installing alternative icons.
“Its because the brooding presence of Cecil John Rhodes is located in the pride of place, at the focal point of the campus, that it acquires the connotations of founder, hero, patron, role model, and embodiment UCT heritage,”
Students were frustrated that they are not being heard when they complain about institutional racism.
Nomhla Landani (20), a third-year economics student from Mthatha, believes the student protest against Cecil John Rhodes’ statue was necessary – or nothing would have been done about it.
“Rhodes took the land. He was one of the pioneers in mining and basically used black people as labourers to work in the mines. Black people were enslaved in the process,” she says.
The statue makes her angry, but the ignorance of many white students about South Africa’s history makes her angrier still. “The statue makes me recall the pain our forefathers suffered.
“As a black child, we heard stories in our families of what our forefathers went through under white rule. The statue invokes the pain and those emotions.”
She says the statue should be moved to a “memorial site”.
This issue is a deep seated time bomb that is being faced by African countries who were colonised by Britain, where it removed and destroyed tribal people’s artifacts and erected statues and plaques of their own ‘heroes’. However, as Africa moves towards decolonising the mind it is impressive to note that this resistance was initiated at such an institution of higher learning. This is also an indication that we are on the path of trying to completely liberate ourselves from mental colonialism.
Political and historical scholars in Zimbabwe have argued that the glorification of Rhodesian war history at public sites is further colonising young minds who grow up to see these inscribed ‘heroes’ as the true soldiers in the history of the country.
Instead, analysts argue, efforts should be made through the Department of National Museums and Monuments to put relevant statues and plaques of our own warriors who fought the whites in several battles.
In Zimbabwe’s colonial capital of Bulawayo there are a number of former colonial replicas still revered up to this day, while some of the prominent shrines lie derelict. These include the graves of King Mzilikazi, King Lobengula while that of colonialist Cecil John Rhodes and his lieutenants receive much attention and kept in a clean state.
King Mzilikazi’s grave some 26 kilometres from Bulawayo along the Old Gwanda Road lied derelict for some time.
King Mzilikazi died on September 28 in 1868; his remains were buried on a Hill called Entumbane- a northern fringe of the Matopo Hills on November the same year after a series of ceremonies befitting his royal status.
Despite the fact that the grave has been fenced off it has not received as much attention as Rhodes’s grave in the opposite direction in the Matopo Hills. The King’s grave receives little attention as the family wrangles over who should be the custodian to the grave, as well as lack of adequate resources.
Ironically, Cecil John Rhodes “prohibited” burial of other people at the World View on top of the Matopo Hills “within a radius of two kilometres of his grave”.
Debate has also been raging in the country about the wisdom of keeping a legacy of colonialism in one of Zimbabwe’s important historical sites in the Matopo Hills.
The grave, on a granite outcrop, is covered with a metal lid. It is well kept with trained guides ready to explain the history to visitors in stark contrast King Mzilikazi’s grave.
Near Rhodes’ grave is that of his friend Leander Starr Jameson, a former prime minister of Rhodesia – Charles Coghlan and a memorial site in honour of white soldiers who perished at the hands of King Lobengula’s forces during the historic battle of Shangani in 1893.
University, college and schoolchildren have had countless trips to Rhodes’ grave, thousands of dollars have been spent glorifying a sad part of our history yet barely some two- kilometres from the coloniser’s grave lies one of the Great Ndebele Kings, Mzilikazi.
Although there have been indications from the family that the grave should not be commercialised, analysts believe that sprucing up of the place and allowing educational visits would help guide many young people about the importance of our history.
In another stark contrast the area around the grave has not been spared from veldt fires that ravage the park every year, yet the area around Rhodes’ grave is protected with fire guards.