BS: Cecil Rhodes controversy

Subject: RE: BS: Cecil Rhodes controversy
From: GUEST,R Sole
Date: 17 Jan 16 - 06:10 AM

Perhaps if we judged all statues and other ways of commemorating people against today's standards, we'd rename the whole world, including the months of the year, judging by the antics of certain Romans..

I notice some of the indignation towards the Rhodes statue is coming from African governments and clergy that persecute gays, see women as second class and allow genital mutilation of children.

Yet apparently we are callous for not ripping down his statue.

Subject: RE: BS: Cecil Rhodes controversy
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Jan 16 - 06:07 AM

Try asking the people of Naples, where his memory is still hated for his time as self-appointed governor there, what should happen to Nelson's Column.

Jim -- What point are you trying to make by repeating back to me [twice!] the point that I have just made to you?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Cecil Rhodes controversy
From: Kampervan
Date: 17 Jan 16 - 06:00 AM

I don't think that we 'venerate' any statues. I look at them and see the person and reflect on what I know about them. Some I admire and some I certainly do not.

I just don't think that we should destroy any statues/relics/books/street names.

Subject: RE: BS: Cecil Rhodes controversy
From: Thompson
Date: 17 Jan 16 - 05:56 AM

But a) were the accepted standards so different then?

And b) if we are to allow ourselves to retain venerating statues of people who would nowadays be thought of as criminal, justified by the fact that the standards of their time were different, then how can we justify destroying statues of people from a place whose ideals, standards and norms are different from those we hold?

Subject: RE: BS: Cecil Rhodes controversy
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Jan 16 - 05:53 AM

"It was erected long ago"
It was - it is now being considered whether it should be taken down
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Cecil Rhodes controversy
From: Kampervan
Date: 17 Jan 16 - 05:52 AM

'He also limited it to males' Yes, but this took place many years before women got the vote or were allowed to graduate. So again he was 'of his time' and could be forgiven this.

Look, I'm starting to come across as an apologist for Rhodes, I'm not. I'm just saying that these issues are never black or white and if you resort to taking actions such as removing statues then where do you stop?

Should Penny Lane in Liverpool be re-named because James Penny was a slave trader? I would say not.

Subject: RE: BS: Cecil Rhodes controversy
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Jan 16 - 05:49 AM

Sorry -- don't know why that posted prematurely. To continue

...is the question being considered. Not the same issue at all.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: BS: Cecil Rhodes controversy
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Jan 16 - 05:47 AM

"erecting statues to someone who laid Africa open to worldwide exploitation and the mass destruction of their culture is not the way to do that."
.,,.
No-one is proposing to 'erect' a statue at this time of day, though, Jim. It was erected long ago. Wheteher it should be suffered to remain is the q

Subject: RE: BS: Cecil Rhodes controversy
From: Leadfingers
Date: 17 Jan 16 - 05:45 AM

I do NOT understand the practice of putting todays standards on people and events of a century or more ago !

Subject: RE: BS: Cecil Rhodes controversy
From: Thompson
Date: 17 Jan 16 - 05:40 AM

He also limited it to males; according to the LRB, when Rhodes wrote "race" in that case, he wasn't talking about what he referred to routinely as "niggers", but about Dutch students.

Subject: RE: BS: Cecil Rhodes controversy
From: Kampervan
Date: 17 Jan 16 - 05:33 AM

What then should happen to the £100,000 that he left to the college or the money that funds the Rhodes scholarship each year?

He is also on record as saying 'that no student shall be qualified or disqualified for election to a scholarship on acco0unt of his race or religious opinions'.

I am not saying that Rhodes was an exclusively 'good man' but neither was he exclusively bad. He was of his time. His failings should be recognised, there should be no whitewash; but the removal of visible evidence is a slippery slope to denial.

Subject: RE: BS: Cecil Rhodes controversy
From: Thompson
Date: 17 Jan 16 - 05:11 AM

Isn't this what America did in Iraq, pulling down statues of Saddam, as the London Review of Books points out.

Subject: RE: BS: Cecil Rhodes controversy
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jan 16 - 05:10 AM

"We cannot rewrite history or pretend that it didn't happen."
But we can expose it for what it was and erecting statues to someone who laid Africa open to worldwide exploitation and the mass destruction of their culture is not the way to do that.
I wonder how many people would object to the fact that statues of Stalin were removed in the former Soviet Union when his crimes were exposed, because he was "part of history" - all hand up now!!
Maybe we should encourage Italy to erect statues to Mussolini because he made the trains run on time!!
He was certainly very much part of Italian history (won't even bother to mention that nice Mr Hilter!!)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Cecil Rhodes controversy
From: Kampervan
Date: 17 Jan 16 - 04:39 AM

The statue should stay. If we begin a revisionist review of every statue in the country judged according to the accepted wisdom of our time then we will lose a lot of statues.

Is this not what ISIS is doing in Iraq?

And does it end there? Should we examine the literature that exists and destroy that which promotes values that we now generally agree is contrary to current thinking.

I think not.

These things should be retained but recognised for what they are, relics of a different time when values were different and, probably, wrong.

We cannot rewrite history or pretend that it didn't happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Cecil Rhodes controversy
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Jan 16 - 04:23 AM

If the Americans can name their capital city after a slave owner I think that Oxford can cope with a statue of Rhodes.

Subject: BS: Cecil Rhodes controversy
From: Thompson
Date: 17 Jan 16 - 01:37 AM

'Rhodes Scholars' in Oxford University have caused controversy by saying that a statue of Cecil Rhodes, who founded the scholarship, should be taken down, that celebrating a racist is not a good thing.

Some quotes from Rhodes:

Why should we not form a secret society with but one object, the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole world under British rule, for the recovery of the United States, for making the Anglo Saxon race but one Empire?


==
We must find new lands from which we can easily obtain raw materials and at the same time exploit the cheap slave labor that is available from the natives of the colonies. The colonies would also provide a dumping ground for the surplus goods produced in our factories.

==
In every Colonial legislature the Society should attempt to have its members prepared at all times to vote or speak and advocate the closer union of England and the colonies, to crush all disloyalty and every movement for the severance of our Empire.

==

and what Mark Twain said about him:

I admire him, I frankly confess it; and when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake.