South Africa’s rebels without a cause give Rhodes the last laugh

MOST people would probably agree with the students at the University of Cape Town that the statue of Cecil John Rhodes is an irritant and a constant reminder of unpleasant memories.

But views tend to diverge as to what to do with it or whether it is necessary to expend so much energy and passion on the matter. The sudden eruption of emotions is overdone.

The statue has enjoyed pride of place for years without anybody giving it a second look. Then, suddenly, somebody decides the statue has to go. And lo and behold, everybody else follows like sheep.

I don’t feel inclined to join the chorus or the stampede. It’s a futile exercise.

Not that I’m enamoured of Rhodes. I never met the guy. And unlike some of those bent on lynching his statue, I’m neither a Rhodes scholar nor a likely beneficiary of his loot.

But what will happen, for instance, a day after the statue has been removed? The victors will obviously feel good about themselves.

But will the scars and painful memories of apartheid or imperialism suddenly disappear?

Most of the students are not burdened by such memories. Apartheid is something they read about in books.

Pity they missed the real war. They’re now casting about for something to be annoyed about. Their predecessors had real issues to contend with. They had to battle for every crumb. The current lot are pushing at an open door in comparison.

The statue offers a delectable subject around the dinner table about the rights and wrongs of imperialism. But it’s essentially an elitist obsession.

Whether the statue stays or goes makes no difference to the lives of ordinary people or the course of events in this country. It’s a welcome distraction for the privileged and pampered few who’ve made it to university.

But even those who sympathise with their cause must surely be offended by some of the tactics and sheer intolerance of some of these modern-day revolutionaries.

For instance, removing Barney Pityana as chairman of this week’s meeting simply because he had expressed an opinion on the matter is the sort of bigotry that doesn’t belong in a university environment.

And one of their clever number had the uncanny foresight to empty a bucket of excrement on the statue. That just about takes the cake. The pun is intended.

I guess the statue didn’t mind the poo at all. It’s been collecting bird droppings for years. But one has to wonder about the intellectual sanity of South Africa when one of its bright sparks had to literally sink to the sewer to make their point.

After the statue has fallen, the students will presumably make common cause with Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF to exhume Rhodes’s remains in the Matopos.

That, I suppose, will be the final act in exorcising the ghost. It should make a huge difference in our lives.

It’s still a mystery that nobody has yet hit on the splendid idea of destroying the Union Buildings. The forbidding structure of the Voortrekker Monument still looms, not far from Freedom Park.

These are living memorials to apartheid.

If we were to erase every symbol of apartheid, nothing would be left standing. The whole country would have to be razed.

Even UCT, which our militant students are proud to attend, would have to go. They were probably not around to notice, but it, too, was once a citadel of apartheid.

But then much of politics is humbug. Soon we’ll be burning books because we don’t like their content.

Like our parents, we unfortunately don’t have the liberty to choose our own history. And we can’t only pick those bits of it that we prefer or approve of. It’s a package of painful and pleasant memories. Those are the things, in toto, that make us who we are. Even the things that hurt us belong to us.

Thabo Mbeki made exactly such a compelling case in his memorable speech at the adoption of South Africa’s new constitution almost two decades ago.

“I am formed of the migrants who left Europe to find a new home on our native land,” he said, referring to them, among others who make up our history. “Whatever their actions, they remain, still, part of me.”

The ANC has, for instance, renamed almost the entire country — streets, airports, municipalities— after itself and its friends. Does this mean that the whole exercise will have to be repeated when a new government takes over in future? Where will it all end?

This is not an argument against a radicalised student community. We need radical alternatives for the future, not a preoccupation with the past. We have bigger fish to fry.

It is telling that it is ordinary people in the townships and rural villages engaged in protests against crime, corruption, poor services et cetera, while the cream of our youth obsess over a statue that’s been in their midst for almost a century. Comment on this: write to tellus@sundaytimes.co.za or SMS us at 33971 www.timeslive.co.za