The shameful departure of Cecil John Rhodes

Rhodes Uni was a gem of a place to attend....no doubt all the SA uni's are now a joke.

 You must realize their is a degree of racism - which is exploited by fringe elements in SA such as the EFF - whose policies are in line with those of Mugabe.   In thisc ase racism took over and the leadership of the University buckled under with the least resistance possible.
Rhodes is perhaps an easy target - because there is very little sympathy with him on at least the Afrikaner elements in society that still has some influence with the Government.  
Incidentally the University of Cape Town was initiated by Adv Johannes de Wet - who was one of the driving forces to get it started.   He was a leader of the Cape Society and prominent in the political and social life of the Cape in the period 1850 to 1870.  The Koopmans de Wet House in Strand Street belonged to him and the house is in fact named after his daughter who married a soldier by the name of Koopmans.
Rhodes's contribution to the University came years later and consisted in the main of financial contributions for study bursaries for future students - the so-called Rhodes Scholarships.   
When the issue of donation of the statue was discussed by the University Council in the 1930's there were reservations expressed by some of the Council members about the advisability to erect the statue at the University and it would perhaps have been wiser to erect it in another public place.  
However, that is no justification for the potentially-disastrous racism and race hatred - which is rearing its ugly head more and more in SA.   However, this is one result of having a weak government with deficient moral fibre as is mentioned repeatedly by respected Black university leaders.           

 Half the story, less than half. Rhodes donated the whole tract of land on which the upper campus was built....the campus we all think of as UCT. Students smeared his statue with excrement in the new rainbow nation and succeeded in having it removed. Cowards in University administration supported this endorsement of vandalism.

 

Political views[edit]

Cecil Rhodes

Rhodes wanted to 

expand the British 

Empire because 

he believed that 

the 

Anglo-Saxon race  

was destined to greatness. 

In his last will and testament, Rhodes 

said of the British, 

"I contend that we

 are the finest race

 in the world and that 

the more of the world 

we inhabit the better it is for the human race. 

Just fancy those parts that are at present 

inhabited by the most despicable specimens of 

human beings what an alteration there would be

 if they were brought under Anglo-Saxon influence, 

look again at the extra employment a new country 

added to our dominions gives."[24] He wanted to 

make the British Empire a superpower in which 

all of the British-dominated countries in the empire, 

including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, 

and Cape Colony, would be represented

 in the British Parliament.[25]Rhodes included 

American students as eligible for the Rhodes 

scholarships. He said that he wanted to breed 

an American elite of philosopher-kings who

 would have the United States rejoin 

the British Empire. As Rhodes also respected the Germans and admired the Kaiser, 

he allowed German students to be included

 in the Rhodes scholarships. He believed that

 eventually the United Kingdom (including Ireland), 

the USA, and Germany together would 

dominate the world and ensure peace.[6]

On domestic politics within the United Kingdom,

 Rhodes was a supporter of the Liberal Party.[6] 

Rhodes was more tolerant of the Dutch-speaking

 whites in the Cape Colony than were 

the other English-speaking whites in the Cape Colony.

He supported teaching Dutch as well as English 

in public schools in the Cape Colony and lent money to support this cause. While Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, he helped to remove most of the legal disabilities that English-speaking whites had imposed on Dutch-speaking whites.[6] 

He was a friend of Jan Hofmeyr, leader of the Afrikaner Bond, and it was largely because of Afrikaner support that he became Prime Minister of the Cape Colony.[5][6] 

Rhodes advocated greater self-government for the Cape Colony, in line with his preference for the empire to be controlled by local settlers and politicians rather than by London (see "Rhodes and the imperial factor" above).

This is a tricky situation. Some perspectives are likening Rhodes to Hitler, other perspectives as a founding forefather of our culture and heritage. The prison camps that held the boers were prior to the German prison camps.

Although the human waist over the statue is uncivilized surely.  

A good old bit of diversionary tactics from the Govt.....concentrate on removing statues and forget about current abuses. Sad that the so-called academic elite are falling for it ! Would be nice if they put as much effort into the things that affect their fellow countrymen on a daily basis. 
I see they are removing the Rhodes Scholars scheme too. I should image Rhodes University is in for a name change next !! 
All very sad. 

Zuma's statue will no doubt replace it soon. 

The Germans had used concentration camps like these in West Africa before the British Army did so during the Boer War. An oft airbrushed fact, for some unknown reason. 

And yes, I am sure a very expensive statue will replace the one which has been removed. Being a political pawn is not a nice thing to be.....

Ja Zuma & his 7 wives

Almost every politician of that era had views we would consider unacceptable today. But denying their role in building our institutions and society is promoting ignorance. The Rhodes statue is not an endorsement of everying he stood for, it's a recognition of his remarkable role in the economy of Southern Africa and in education in general. Removing every colonial figure will not reverse  colonialism nor set right the abysmal record of post colonial Africa in caring for it's people.

 Mozart
That is very true and is a problem for SA if there is to be any positive future for this country.  I have become very despondent about the latter aspect and if today I was younger with a potential future career in another country - I would have left SA.  The country is on a self-destructive road to becoming another failed African State.    

You are a better judge of that Mike, I haven't been in the country for 16 months. But  I sincerely hope that is not the case, we all still love the country and it's people. Even if some of them are poor judges of rugby talent

 Mozart
I hope to finalize the sale of my home today.   I have sold my house in Tinley Manor Beach and intends to move back to Riversdale, where I was borne and grew up.  The only outstanding issue for the Bank is the property valuation - the bond application of the buyer has been approved subject to valuation.  That evaluation is to be done today.   
Because of the poor financial climate I am selling the house at a price of at least R200 000 below the previous back evaluation and the evaluation of estate agents.  The housing market in the area is moribund. 
My only escape from misery is to move to the Western Cape - an area which at least is better-governed than KwaZulu-Natal.   
I suppose I will then have to become a Stormers supporter.  
      

Sleeping Beauty and Stilbaai....the place has some charm. Good luck with the change.  

 becs
 
Status: Bok regular 
Posts: 1721RE: The shameful departure of Cecil John Rhodes
April 13, 2015, 01:19:27A good old bit of diversionary tactics from the Govt.....concentrate on removing statues and forget about current abuses. Sad that the so-called academic elite are falling for it ! Would be nice if they put as much effort into the things that affect their fellow countrymen on a daily basis. 
I see they are removing the Rhodes Scholars scheme too. I should image Rhodes University is in for a name change next !! 
All very sad. 

•  0 Likes

Well, people who have demonstrated for "the fall of Apartheid" should be very pleased at how it all turned out, eventually. They wanted to force the issue instead of let it evolve at the pace that the people at "on the ground" knew was the best pace and this is what we ended up with. This goes for those who joined ranks with the ANC as well, in the early days of "the new democracy". Of course my dear old friend will now jump and accuse me of being a racist again but so be it.
If one look at what has happened in hindsight, FW de Klerk and his buddies Pik Botha, Leon Wessels and Roelf Meyer were indeed a conniving idiots. De Klerk got all the shine for the transition and even got a Nobel prize for it as if he was the great instigator of the process. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it wasn't him. It wasn't even his idea to set Mandela free and unban the ANC. PW Botha started that process years before De Klerk came into power. He was the one who sent Kobie Coetzee to Mandela and started talks to set up a process that was to set a transition in motion. Coetzee and Mandela became close friends in the end and Mandela has always commended Coetzee. PW Botha had something different in mind than De Klerk and his buddies. I suspect that it involved period of transition where the changes would be phased in and where the "new people" would be working alongside the "old ones" in a kind of menotorrship situation. This has been in planning for years. 
Some politicians where highly p!ssed off when these plans emerged and the broke away to form the Conservative Party as far back as 1982. There support was mainly due to the fact that they "uncovered the 'sinister' idea of PW Botha to 'give the land to the Blacks' and they had big support because of their constant scaremongering. I am mentioning this to indicate how long before De Klerk's time, those processes were set in place. The one big problem that Botha had was the fact that Andries Treurnicht and his bunch of idiots more or less jumped the gun on the process.
De Klerk was indeed quite devious in the way that he went to work. In the lead-up to the last election "non-democratic" elections, in 1989, he actually BS'ed that voters by denying what was in the pipeline because he did not know how to "get the message across". He was too busy fighting the clowns of the Conservative Party and he was scared that he could lose the election to them and then the transition would not have happened. Nit at that stage in any case. In the lead-up to the Zach de Beer, who was one of the co-leaders of the Democratic Party, was asked in a television program, what he would do if the won the election. His answer was that he would unban the ANC and other banned political parties and free Mandela and other political prisoners and then start a process of negotiated transition. That was in effect what PW Botha had in mind and was planning. De Klerk denied any such plans until 2 Feb 1989 when he "sprung the surprised" on the nation and did exactly what Zach de Beer said that his part would have done.
The only thing that De Klerk managed to do was to alienate a large part of the white electorate from the idea of an end to minority rule when he pussyfooted around the subject in order to keep the Conservatives at bay. He should have tackled the bull by the horns, and sided with the Democrats and convinced the voters of what was intended and how it would work. In that way, he would have had more credibility. He was an opportunist in any case.
He came in and changed a lot of things very quickly to make sure that he was seen as the one who would "turn everything around" and that he was the opposite of PW Botha. His first step was to alienated the Defence Force, which was important to PW. His very first step was to remove Magnus Malan as Minister of Defence and made him Minister of Forestry, IIRC. He was the first one to scale down on the SA Defence force. A process that made it possible for the ANC to reduce it to the heap of rubble that it is today. With Magnus out of the way he got rid of and shuffled the top structure of the SADF around to suit him and his agenda. He was paranoid that the SADF could appose him and saw them as a threat. By doing that he played straight into the hands of the CP.
Then came the negotiations at Kempton Park where Roelf Meyer and Leon Wessels were lightweights and were steamrollered by Cycil Rhamaposa. Nothing came of the checks and balances that De Klerk was also bragging about. Even his period of involvement with the new government was a smoke screen. He was never going to be one of the deputy-presidents for the long haul. That was only done to BS the whites even more. 
I know hindsight is perfect science and I know that it is nice to speculate over what could have been but, in my opinion, the whole balls-up started when Treurnicht and his idiot side-kicks walked out and formed the Conservative Party. It was further hampered when FW de Klerk was too scared to embrace the lefties (the Democrats). He was trying too hard to BS the people into believing that he was slap-bang in the middle and had things under control. 
I also do believe that the early Nationalists (Malan, Verwoerd, Vorster) went about everything the wrong way. They should have abandoned the entire Homeland idea and should have put all those efforts and money into education and there should have been no difference between white and "other" education. The irony is that, IMO, the old "Bantu Education, was probably of a higher standard of the modern SA education system as a whole. Many of the prominent black leaders (political and business) came through that education system. Mandela, Govan Mbeki, Tambo, etc. All of them where educated under the old Bantu Education and got degrees under the Apartheid system.