Oxford college backs Rhodes statue removal
AN ENGLISH college last night voted to tear down a controver- sial monument to imperialist Cecil Rhodes.
Oriel College in Oxford said its governing body had ‘expressed their wish to remove the statue’ – hours after the UK’s universities minister warned against ‘censoring our past’.
It comes after a series of prominent statues across Britain were brought down or covered up amid huge pressure from Black
Lives Matter protesters.
The decision is a victory for the long-running Rhodes Must Fall campaign, which has been reinvigorated by the anti-racism protests that followed the death of George Floyd in the US.
Last week a big protest was held outside the college’s Rhodes Building where the statue stands, 50ft above the High Street.
In 2016 Oriel refused to remove the statue of its former student and benefactor in the face of sustained pressure. But the renewed protests saw it perform a dramatic U-turn yesterday.
A plaque in honour of Rhodes’ ‘great services’ to the UK on an outside wall of the college is also due to be removed.
In a statement, Oriel College’s 40-strong governing body said: ‘Both of these decisions were reached after a thoughtful period of debate and reflection and with the full awareness of the impact these decisions are likely to have in Britain and around the world.’
The college said its inquiry, which will take evidence from Rhodes Must Fall supporters as well as historians and ex-students, will report back by the end of the year.
Rhodes, who was prime minister of the Cape Colony – modern day South Africa – in the late 19th Century, believed in white supremacy and has become a symbol of racism and oppression.