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Wow, who would have thought that a statue could elicit so much protest? What seemed to start off as a media-fuelled stunt, has become a big debate that has certainly got many people having their say. Even a group of university academics have entered the fray, saying that “Madiba made a mistake creating the Mandela Rhodes Foundation”, and that the merging of the Mandela Foundation and the Rhodes Trust is a “monstrous marriage”.
No-one can ever presume to know what our former president Mandela would have thought or done, but I very much doubt Madiba would agree, deeply committed as he was to reconciliation.
He was equally committed to education. True to his character he would have deliberately built this bridge between two different worlds, so that through education, future generations could build a truly inclusive non-racial democratic South Africa. And since then so many students, who otherwise would not have had that opportunity, have benefited so constructively from the Mandela Rhodes Foundation scholarships.
In all the various comments I've read it is hard to find exactly how racism or lack of transformation has actually manifested itself at UCT. I have lived in several different countries and wherever you are there are those that look beyond race, and those that remain bigots. Bigots can be ignored. And transformation takes time. Black professors are undoubtedly already in the making amongst the black students, but black professors can’t be plucked from thin air, and should also be appointed on merit and not just on race.
I imagine it may be difficult for some black students studying in an environment that used to be dominated by whites, however the Rhodes Must Fall movement have stated that “the only view relevant is that of black students, workers and staff” and that “white students in particular can’t be consulted in such a process because they can never truly empathise with the profound violence exerted on the psyche of black students”. In other words, the views of the white students and staff are irrelevant.
Why entrench this racial division, instead of building a bridge and reaching an inclusive solution? We seem to have drifted further and further from the ideal of an inclusive democratic ‘rainbow’ nation, but this is no accident. Under Nelson Mandela the ANC was a party one could believe in and vote for. Under Thabo Mbeki, despite some of his failings, the ANC still had credibility. But under Jacob Zuma it is falling apart.
The fact that Zuma’s rhetoric is becoming more divisive and more reminiscent of his friend Robert Mugabe is the tip of the iceberg. Besides the various scandals he has been embroiled in, from the arms deal through Waterkloof/Gupta to Nkandla, and everything in between, under Zuma, ‘tenderpreneurship’ and corruption in government departments have proliferated. He is not held accountable, so no-one else is either. But far worse even is his interference with appointments at institutions such as SARS, the SABC, the Hawks, the NPA, Eskom, and worst of all our justice system. The list of those in whose interest it is to stay loyal to him is growing longer by the day. Yet the man in the street, who benefits not at all, keeps voting for him.
If half the energy spent on the Rhodes statue had been spent supporting a vote of no confidence in our current president and his lackeys, we may already have been heading in the right direction. Instead it seems the energy will be spent on running around the country looking for other statues and colonial symbols to vent anger on. Zuma must be having a quiet giggle with his cronies.
At the end of the day Cecil John Rhodes is dead. We can’t change history, but Rhodes or any other dead former villain can’t affect our present or our future. However, Jacob Zuma is very much alive, and as long as he is at the helm of our ship, he will continue to steer us towards economic ruin and further racial division. Rhodes is the least of our problems, it is Zuma who must fall.
