South Africa's "Rhodes Must Fall" Campaign

Northern Son

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I'm consciously not posting on the Coli as much as before, and I'm especially not posting in as many 'race' threads as before, but nevertheless I thought you might want to hear about the Rhodes Must Fall campaign which started in South Africa and eventually found its way to Oxford University, Berkeley University and elsewhere:
‘Take it down!’: Rhodes Must Fall campaign marches through Oxford
In the honeyed-stone square behind Oriel College, a line of school students snaked over the cobbles, listening to an animated tour of Oxford’s heritage. But assembled on the other side of Oriel Square, more than 100 Oxford University students and supporters had gathered for a different tour: a radical retelling of the institution’s problematic colonial heritage, organised by the Rhodes Must Fall campaigners.

Wednesday’s demonstration, a “mass march for decolonisation”, was part of the continuing campaign for the removal of Oriel College’s statue of Cecil Rhodes, the Victorian imperialist who supported apartheid-style measures in southern Africa.

At midday, students gathered for a lively alternative walking tour of Oxford, to mark one year since the Rhodes Must Fall campaign began – originally in protest at a statue at the University of Cape Town and spreading to universities across the globe, including Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard.

“You see the bus tours all the time around Oxford showing them the history of the university and the town, uncritically and unchallenged,” said Kholood Khair, a student of African studies. “So we thought, why not have a different walking tour, showing some of the real roots of the names of the places and the funding and where it came from?”

Khair said she was angry at Oriel’s decision, announced last month, to keep the statue, despite having previously agreed to a longer consultation process.

The college has confirmed it had been warned of the possibility that it would lose about £100m in gifts should the statue be taken down but has insisted financial implications were not the primary motive. “We are hearing that wealthy alumni are more important, and have a veto over the views of students, faculty and staff,” Khair said. “Put it simply: Oriel has sold out. Student welfare is not, and never will be for sale.”

Oxford student Ntokozo Qwabe, a South African-born Rhodes scholar who has been at the forefront of the campaign, said the day was about a bigger picture than the Rhodes statue. “What does it mean to study at a university? Who controls what is taught? Who controls how the space is configured?” he said. “Oxford purports to be one of the best institutions in the world. Is it? Or is it only for a specific thing? What is really going on with donor interference in the academic project?

“Academic inquiry gets undermined when we see that a set of people, just by being very wealthy, get to control this kind of decision. One of our main pillars is about representation of black and minority ethnic people in the curriculum.

“It’s not a coincidence that the people holding on to the old guard are mainly white and male. Here, a lot of students just are not aware that this is actually a problem. That’s the first thing to tackle.”

At the head of the crowd was Athi-Nangamso Esther Nkopo, a master’s student from South Africa, who led the students in call-and-response chants of “Amandla ngawethu” meaning “the power is ours”, a rallying cry from anti-apartheid resistance.

From Oriel Square, the hundred-strong crowd walked down the high street, as an open-top tourist bus crawled on the road behind them. As the march passed the statue of Rhodes, shouts grew louder, with several students waving their fists at the stone, calling “Rhodes must fall, take it down!”

Students and supporters marched through the Radcliffe Camera and to the gates of All Souls College, standing at the entrance to the Codrington library, an unobtrusive wooden door with a sign saying the facility was closed to external visitors.

Under falling pink blossom from the trees, students held up a sheet with the painted words “All white souls, no black minds”. The campaigners have called on the college to rename the library, which is named after Barbadian plantation owner Christopher Codrington, and establish a scholarship for African-Caribbean students.

The tour guide for this section of the march was Jordan Rose, a physics undergraduate at Magdalen College. “Codrington was a notorious and infamous slave owner, for whom men, women and children worked in the blazing sun on his plantation. Yet in the history we are taught, we hear traders and explorers stumbled upon discoveries like sugar, not how they trampled on black bodies to make white men rich,” he said.

Rose said he felt particularly angry at the comments of Lord Patten, the chancellor of the university, who said in a BBC interview that students who did not like the Rhodes statue should consider studying elsewhere.

The mention of Patten’s name drew loud booing from the assembled students. “He has the audacity to tell me, as a direct descendant of African-Caribbeans, that I should go elsewhere,” Rose said. “I was the top student in my class. I didn’t work so hard to be told to go somewhere else, just because I want to challenge and decolonise the university.”

Michelle Codrington, a descendant of one of the slave families who had worked on Codrington’s plantation and now lives in Oxford, sent a message to the campaigners. “My ancestors carry the name because they had their identity torn from them,” she said, in a written statement read out by one of the campaigners.

As the crowd travelled towards Rhodes House, past the Bodleian library, students hung messages of support painted on bedsheets out of the windows of Wadham College, and dangled from the Bridge of Sighs on New College Lane.

At Rhodes House, which administers the prestigious scholarships bequeathed by the Victorian colonialists, scholars who had benefited from the programme stood up to speak against his legacy. Student guides pointed to the bronze bird which stands on the top of the dome of the grand building, a sculpture itself taken from Zimbabwe. Ndjodi Ndeunyema, a Rhodes scholar from Namibia studying law, said: “The scholarship used to be known as the colonial scholarship. It should be known as the decolonial scholarship.

“The scholarship I have is the only Rhodes scholarship available to students from five different African countries, in the area Rhodes made his wealth, but there are 30 for the US. Five more Chinese scholarships have been announced.

“The composition of scholarships should be reflective of the legacy of Rhodes, for how he made his money. We demand that the scholarship address this distribution.”

Rhodes scholar Rachel Harmon, originally from the US, said the scholarship trust could not remain neutral in the debate. “We are here to disrupt the silence, because silence is not neutral, inaction is not neutral,” she said. “We’re asking them to please, for once, be part of the solution.”

As the students made their way through the centre of town to the central administrative building for the university, cars and vans appeared to be honking in solidarity, with only occasional critical remarks from passersby, including one red-cheeked man in a blue jacket who shouted “Cecil forever!” at the marchers.

Though rain and cold winds meant the turnout for the march might have been smaller than organisers had hoped for, Andre Dallas, a 20-year-old economics and management student at St Edmund Hall, said support was growing in the student body, and the campaigners refused to take Oriel’s position as a knockback. “We don’t see it like that because we don’t see it as a legitimate decision,” he said. “I feel like it has galvanised more people than before, because it show exactly who has control over what decisions are taken.

“Once we see how they respond to these new demands, we will take further steps. We are not ruling out anything: we are prepared to take any non-violent means to fight this.”

Princess Ashilokun, a Magdalen College student originally from Nigeria, said making a noise was already making a difference, even if Rhodes had not yet fallen. “Just type Rhodes into your Google search bar and you can see how we created history.”

An Oxford University spokesperson said: “Modern Oxford is a welcoming, tolerant and diverse community. We are working with black and minority ethnic students on many initiatives towards greater inclusion and representation.

“For example, we have introduced a summer conference to encourage more black and minority ethnic applicants from state schools, jointly led by students in the university’s African-Caribbean Society. We are also working in consultation with minority ethnic students on curriculum change, supporting this process with a series of high-profile public lectures on cultural change in higher education. These, and many others, are exciting developments and we would very much like Rhodes Must Fall to be involved.

“We hope they will accept our standing invitation to meet with senior staff and help shape the plans for an ever-more inclusive university.”​
‘Take it down!’: Rhodes Must Fall campaign marches through Oxford
 
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Northern Son

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The symbolic statue dividing a South African university - BBC News

The symbolic statue dividing a South African university

A statue of a person dead for 113 years does not often overwhelm a leading university and dominate national headlines.

But earlier this month, politics student Chumani Maxwele emptied a bucket of excrement over the statue of Cecil John Rhodes at the centre of the University of Cape Town's campus in South Africa.

Mr Maxwele's protest has electrified longstanding resentments about the ways in which the past is remembered and celebrated. It has also crystallised deep and entrenched disagreements about student admissions, the university curriculum and academic appointments.

Rhodes was a British Victorian mining magnate and ardent advocate of colonialism, who gave his name to Rhodesia and became an influential figure in South African politics. Protesters are now demanding that his statue be removed.

Rhodes' brooding image and the University of Cape Town (UCT) campus are framed by Devil's Peak and the World Heritage site of Table Mountain.

They look out over the Cape Flats and its townships and informal settlements, many of which still lack basic services.

Symbols of inequality
Extreme income inequality remains a persistently stubborn problem more than two decades after the end of apartheid. Inevitably, issues that are precipitated by symbols and fought through at the university have a far wider resonance.

Nelson Mandela, who was awarded an honorary degree by the university within weeks of leaving prison in 1990, knew this.

When opening the new national museum on Robben Island, he said: "Having excluded and marginalised most of our people, is it surprising that our museums and national monuments are often seen as alien spaces?

"With democracy, we have the opportunity to ensure that our institutions reflect history in a way that respects the heritage of all our citizens."

Mr Maxwele's protest was in the tradition of guerrilla theatre - unexpected performances in public places designed for maximum impact.

Wearing a brightly coloured safety helmet and two placards - "Exhibit White Arrogance UCT" and "Exhibit Black Assimilation UCT" - Mr Maxwele emptied his bucket in front of the press, who had been tipped off to attend.

Mr Maxwele was already well known for protesting against the privileges of power. Arrested in 2010 for gesturing at President Jacob Zuma's motorcade, he successfully sued the minister of police for wrongful arrest. His university protest has again touched a point of acute sensitivity, setting off widening responses and reactions.

Mr Maxwele's guerrilla theatre referenced an established mode of protest in Cape Town.

Whose history?
While South Africa's 1996 constitution guarantees equity in access to basic services, many in the poorer districts lack basic services, such as sanitation.

In June 2013, raw sewage was thrown at Western Cape Premier Helen Zille while she was visiting a township in the city, and buckets from portable toilets were emptied in the Legislature.

Similar protests have continued, including the arrest of some 200 people travelling into the city with bags of excrement and the dumping of sewage at Cape Town International Airport.

In his protest at the university, Mr Maxwele was taking this form of confrontation to another of Cape Town's iconic places.

Will the fallout from the Rhodes statue protest be one in a series of punctuations in an ongoing trajectory of change? Or will it precipitate the radical shift called for by the university's student representative council and black staff group, TransformUCT?

Pressures for change
Dean of humanities Sakhela Buhlungu thinks that Mr Maxwele has pushed open a door to radical change.

A sociologist and expert on the labour market, Prof Buhlungu has seen how "symbolic moments" can result in the convergence of pressures for change.

Speaking at the Vaal University of Technology a few weeks before the Rhodes statue controversy exploded, Prof Buhlungu expressed the mounting frustrations across a number of universities at employment practices that count against black South Africans.

In parallel, students are increasingly calling for changes to the curriculum, and for academics who are more representative of the diversity of their country.

Student Rekgotsofetse Chikane said: "Why must it be that a student at the University of Cape Town is pushed to the point of having to throw faecal matter over the statue of Cecil John Rhodes in order to have a conversation about transformation?"

Mr Chikane says the issue is the "subliminal racism... that makes you ignorant about your subjugation because you are never challenged to seriously engage on critical matters".

'Rhodes Must Fall' campaign
The University of Cape Town's first response to these calls for action was to convene a discussion about heritage, signage and symbolism.

But before this could convene there had been further protests centred on the Rhodes statue, now swathed and taped in black rubbish bags.

By the time that these first negotiations with the university administration were convened, the student representative council position had hardened.

The students' president Ramabina Mahapa said: "I understand it is part of history, but the institutional representation of black people at this university is negative.

"The SRC [student representative council] has taken the stance that the statue must come down".

The students walked out of the meeting.

From here, the "Rhodes Must Fall" movement escalated rapidly, culminating in a march and the occupation of the university's administration building.

Vice-chancellor Max Price has responded with university-wide debates and a special meeting of the university senate to consider proposals. He has said that he and his executive favour removing the statue, but only the university council can decide.

An emergency meeting of the council has been called for 25 April.

Meanwhile, the stand-off has become a national issue. Students at Rhodes University in Grahamstown have protested in sympathy and higher education minister Blade Nzimande has given his support for moving the statue.

'European university in Africa'

Where next? If Prof Buhlungu is right, then symbolic changes - or the removal of the statue - will not be sufficient. There will also need to be significant changes to the university's curriculum, its staff profile, and its admissions policies.

Because the University of Cape Town is South Africa's - and Africa's - highest-rated university in global rankings, such changes will have implications across the higher education system as a whole.

Mr Chikane sees the university as being in "the unfortunate position of being a European university stuck at the bottom of Africa". This could change.

While views on what should be done to resolve these issues continue to differ sharply, few will have any sympathy with Cecil John Rhodes.

In his 1877 "confession of faith", Rhodes wrote: "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".

Such a set of beliefs puts Mr Maxwele's guerrilla theatre in perspective.

Whether this is a moment that will be remembered for its consequences, or just another flashpoint on a long, slow, road to change, remains to be seen.
 

milli vand

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This is long overdue. They have raped and pillaged then re-write history in their favor like they have done all over the world but these African students aren't falling for it in their own country. No African country or community should uphold the image of their colonizer and oppressor. Imagine Zimbabwe was once named rhodesia the nerve of these invaders is quite something.
 

Northern Son

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One of the leaders of the movement, Ntokozo Qwabe, an actual Rhodes scholar, is getting a lot of heat from angry whites worldwide and the western media for refusing to tip a white waitress in protest :mjpls::mjpls::mjpls::mjpls:

New York Post called him "a racist jackass" :mjpls::mjpls::mjpls::mjpls::

http://nypost.com/2016/05/05/racist-rhodes-jackass-boasts-about-making-white-waitress-cry/


White waitress refused tip by 'Rhodes Must Fall' activist gets $6,000 in 'sympathy' tips

White waitress refused tip by 'Rhodes Must Fall' activist gets $6,000 in 'sympathy' tips


A white South African waitress who was refused a tip by an Oxford student involved in the Rhodes Must Fall campaign has received more than $6,000 in "sympathy" tips after an online campaign on her behalf.

Cape Town restaurant employee Ashleigh Shultz was allegedly told by activist Ntokozo Qwabe that he would not give her any service charge on his bill until her "fellow white people" returned South Africa's land to its black population.

In an encounter that he described on Facebook, Mr Qwabe gleefully recounted that Ms Shultz had "burst into typical white tears", adding that he was "unable to stop smiling" after the incident.

His post drew a furious response online, with Mr Qwabe accused of bullying behaviour. Defenders of Ms Shultz have since raised $6,495 for her, according to a Gofundme page set up in her support.

"The young lady was not declined a tip for her service, she was declined a tip for being white," said one poster on the page, Jonathan Weltman, who accused Mr Qwabe of acting like the kind of bigot he professed to oppose.

The Rhodes Must Fall movement has campaigned for the removal of a statue of colonialist Cecil Rhodes from Oxford's Oriel College.

Mr Qwabe is a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University, and receives money from the Rhodes estate to study.


White people petitioned for his expulsion from Oxford over this :mjpls:, but Oxford refused since doing so would violate his free speech:

Oxford University rejects call for expulsion of Rhodes Must Fall scholar

Oxford University rejects call for expulsion of Rhodes Must Fall scholar

A petition to have Rhodes Must Fall activist Ntokozo Qwabe sent down from Oxford or stripped of his scholarship for verbally abusing a white waitress has been rejected by the university which said it would violate his “free speech”.

Mr Qwabe sparked outrage when he posted on Facebook last week that he and his dining companions had made a waitress cry “white tears” by telling her they would pay a tip when her "fellow white people" returned South Africa's land to its black population.

It emerged that the waitress, 24-year-old Ashleigh Shultz, was nursing her mother who has terminal lung cancer. The episode saw hundreds of well-wishers donate $6,000 to Miss Shultz through an online fundraising page.

Jan Hendrik Ferreira, a South African social worker based in London, started the change.org petition with an open letter to Louise Richardson, the Oxford University vice-chancellor.

“Mr Ntokozo Qwabe and friend violated a person’s dignity, publicly degraded and humiliated her, and created a highly offensive situation which Mr Ntokozo Qwabe has since taken great pleasure in narcissistically boasting over her reaction across social media,” he wrote.

“He clearly does not uphold the values expected of an institution such as Oxford University and his actions have ultimately brought your educational establishment’s image into disrepute.”

The petition was started on Monday and has so far garnered 40,900 signatures.

However a spokesman for Oxford University said the institution encouraged freedom of speech, however offensive it might be.

"Our duty of care to all members of the university means we do not discuss individuals," a spokesman said. "Oxford is a place where non-violent speech, however objectionable, can be expressed and challenged.

"Our students may voice opinions which others believe to be misguided or which they find offensive. They have a right to do this, but in exercising it we expect them to respect other people and the law."

Law student Mr Qwabe was awarded a Rhodes scholarship – funded by the estate of coloniser Cecil John Rhodes - in 2014 and has said his ambition is to become a Constitutional Court judge in his native South Africa.
 

Northern Son

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The leader of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign was right to mock 'white tears' - they're just another form of racism

Opinion piece:

The leader of Rhodes Must Fall was right to mock 'white tears' - they're just another form of racism
White people, stop crying when people of colour talk about racism – this isn’t about you

One of the leaders of the Rhodes Must Fall Campaign, Ntokozo Qwabe, has recently come to the attention of the media after he and a friend made a white waitress, Ashleigh Schultz, cry in a South African restaurant. Qwabe and his friend refused to give the waitress a tip and instead wrote on the bill that she could have one “when you return the land”. This act reduced the waitress to what Qwabe later referred to as “typical white tears”.

facebook-racism.jpeg


The Facebook post which appears to be written by Ntokozo Qwabe. He says later 'go to your fellow white people and mobilise for them to give us our land back.' (Gofundme.org)
Whilst revelling in the upset of Schultz may have been wrong, Qwabe raises a legitimate point about ‘white tears’ and racism. One of the stumbling blocks in getting mainstream society to address racism is the brick wall response received when these issues are raised. Our concerns tend to be either dismissed as something from the past we need to ‘move on’ from; or people are so racked with ‘white guilt’ that all meaningful conversation is stilted.

I have lost count of the number of times when confronted with the realities of racism, white colleagues have become overwhelmed, emotional and sometimes cried. When this happens it completely shuts down the debate and shifts the focus from the issue of racism, to the guilt and anguish expressed by the ‘white tears’. There could be no more inappropriate focus for a discussion of racism. Yes, there is a lot to feel guilty for, both historically and currently, but tears do not solve any of the continuing problems. In fact, ‘white tears’ are a form of racial oppression themselves, a mechanism to attempt to share the pain of racism rather than accepting responsibility and addressing this oppression.

To accuse Qwabe of racism is absurd. We entirely conflate racism and prejudice in discussions today. Even if Qwabe, or others, are prejudiced against white people, racism is a system of oppression. Racism systematically organises society in ways that structurally disadvantage communities of colour. Individual prejudice against any white person can never be equated to this systemic oppression.

Qwabe may have been wrong to delight in the tears of Schultz, but his frustration is understandable. Until we can have a conversation about racism, in the absence of white guilt and tears, there will be no progress towards racial equality.

In his autobiography, Malcolm X famously regretted telling a white student that she had no role in combatting racial oppression. On reflection he argued that the place where “really sincere white people have got to do their ‘proving’ of themselves is not among the black victims, but out on the battle lines of where America's racism really is - and that's in their own home communities”.

‘White tears’ take us further away from doing the important work of confronting the legacy of racism. Racism should be an uncomfortable discussion for white people, but it needs to be addressed openly and move beyond the self-obsession of guilt.
 

milli vand

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The newyork post and all white media toe the line of white supremacy so I am never surprised. I read every white owned form of media with a grain of salt, their propaganda machine is what has kept the masses brainwashed all over the world. If anyone is relying on white owned media for their news and info in 2016 you have already lost if its not factual and science based throw them in the bushes because they are useless for anything else. I haven't watched cnn or msnbc or any of their shyt in years and have missed nothing. no more sensationalized bs to sell you garbage advertisements. When a non black gives me their opinion on black issues I laugh.
 

Afro

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I always hated the idea of South Africa. A white dominated part of Africa just for "them" seemed wrong even when I was younger

I'm happy they are fighting back, it is their damn country.

"Typical white tears" I'm stealing this for later.

:wow:

The entitlement is real. Upset white females are the most dangerous species on the planet. They win, everyone usually loses.
 
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Where next? If Prof Buhlungu is right, then symbolic changes - or the removal of the statue - will not be sufficient. There will also need to be significant changes to the university's curriculum, its staff profile, and its admissions policies.

god_damn_right_breaking_bad.gif


In an encounter that he described on Facebook, Mr Qwabe gleefully recounted that Ms Shultz had "burst into typical white tears", adding that he was "unable to stop smiling" after the incident.

Delicious white tears

FPQqMzg.gif
 

Northern Son

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Imagine if there was a debate over removing a Hitler statue in the 21st century?




South Africa has a lot of problems. Still not sure how they let everything reach to this point


The post apartheid deal was horrible for blacks- over 80% of the arable land was conceded to whites despite being a minority for example. Mandela did a lot of good, but tied his people to systemic racism forever.
 

Afro

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South Africa has a lot of problems. Still not sure how they let everything reach to this point


I find it interesting that you have to go on youtube to watch that video :mjpls:

The comments are typical of course, but it shows again that they are allowed to segregate the very land that they stole.

Then look back and get confused when people are angry.

We have done our own thing before They kill us (financial and literally) every time we try to kick them out of our lives.

Honestly, this stuff gets to me sometimes, I want to help in a big way but lack any resources or know how to do something.

It's extremely frustrating to see this happen over and over again. :snoop:
 
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