Wake up and recognise my history
RHODES has finally fallen. For many of us it is a triumph of representation. I condemn all unlawful protest. I condemn the use of faeces to make a statement. It is undignified and abusive. It denies the person who must clean up that mess his or her right to dignity. That person, in all likelihood, is black!
That being said, the counterarguments against the removal of the Rhodes statue have opened festering wounds.
The “Rhodes must fall” activists and supporters were not motivated by a mere dislike of the man or a rejection of his whiteness. The crusade was not a war against white people or a denial of their history.
An analysis of this historic event requires more nuance. To reduce the argument to “it is just a statue”, shows a poverty of discernment.
George Herbert Mead’s persuasive theory of symbolic interactionism explains how symbols are used to communicate and reflect meaning. Symbols are powerful. It is what Rhodes stood for that bars him from enjoying a prominent place on the grounds of the University of Cape Town. We can learn history without publicly deifying those who bequeathed a painful history of oppression and suffering. Immortalising them through towering monuments is imprudent.
Another flawed counterargument is to invoke Nelson Mandela’s reconciliation mantra. I don’t see how removing a symbol of oppression subverts reconciliation.
Like Rhodes, Mandela was a man of his time. He presided over an epoch rife with war talk and bloodshed. His mission was to prevent that. But the struggle for presence and identity did not end in 1994 and will certainly never be silenced by the “let’s move on” brigade.
This group cannot set the terms for “moving on”. I would suggest that part of reconciliation is shedding the superiority neurosis of affording yourself the authority to decide and dictate what our nation’s priorities are and should be.
The “let’s move on” brigade argues: “What about corruption, crime, Nkandla, service delivery?”
What about them? We care and make a lot of noise about them too. Incessantly.
The amputation of symbols that hurt, that elevate the conqueror’s dominion over others, is not an endorsement of other societal ills.
Part of reconciliation is to establish a sincere and equal relationship. This means that when you cry and agitate, I must ask why and try and understand, not dictate.
There was a racket about struggle songs being divisive and threatening. Not every struggle song has “gun” and “shoot” in it, but it was argued that “we have moved on”.
When the De la Rey song was produced, imploring one of the military leaders of the Boer War to lead the Boer nation to triumph over its enemies, the same people argued that “it is part of history and heritage”. They had nothing to say about the guns and military uniforms in the video of the song.
The last counterargument is that black beneficiaries must reject Rhodes scholarships. What for? It is money accumulated off the back of black labour, exploitation and dispossession. The scholarship was not intended as an act of generosity towards black people. It is fitting that, in death, Rhodes makes amends to generations of black students.
A UCT student argued: “If you are a white South African, and you think you can isolate yourself from being African and that statue doesn’t bother you, you need to think twice, because the future is a lot faster than your consciousness.”
The painful journey towards reconciliation did not end when whites voted “yes” in the referendum to end apartheid in 1992. They did the right thing then. They should do the right thing again, and recognise my humanity and the history I bring to our collective identity.