‘We should not be proud of white supremacist Rhodes’

MARK Twain was no fan of Cecil Rhodes and his type of imperialism – “I admire him, I frankly confess it; and when his time comes I shall buy a piece of the rope for a keepsake”.

By the time Twain visited Leek in November 1899, Cecil Rhodes’s meddling in empire building in Southern Africa had flared up into warfare into the Boer War, a conflict that cost many lives- black and white.

Rhodes was an unabashed white supremacist.

He was an exploiter. He violently annexed land in Southern Africa, and reintroduced the torture of black workers into law.

He has been called the Godfather of Apartheid the system that kept the black majority of South Africa suppressed by racist laws for the best part of half a century.

The scholarship at Oxford that bears his name and which his illgotten gains funds was originally meant to go only to white, male and privileged students.

The original terms of the trust were not amended to include black and female students until the 1970s.

To answer Mr Kilburn’s letter (Post & Times July 1), does the tradition that Rhodes represent make me proud this aspect of Britain’s past?

Well, no. The aspects of British history that make me most proud are the rule of law, the tradition of justice and freedom that provided the legal system of most of the former colonies and above all the power of the English Language which supplied ‘the artillery of words’ so skilfully deployed by Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela in their struggle to redress the baleful legacy of colonialism and subjugation.

Since Mr Kilburn asks I will give a name of a freeman of the City of Stoke-on-trent – Walter Sisulu – who at the time was imprisoned in a notorious South African prison for his role in fighting the injustice of Apartheid.

As a young councillor in Stokeon-trent in 1984, I played a role in ensuring that Sisulu gained this honour in 1984.

Walter Sisulu was a peasant boy who late rose to become deputy president of the African National Congress and one of the foremost influences in South African politics.

His firm belief in a non-racist philosophy, at a time when many black activists were arguing differently, proved decisive in shaping the philosophy and political direction of the ANC.

In 1941 he took in a lodger named Nelson Mandela and encouraged him to join the ANC and became his mentor.

As a consequence of his political activism in opposition to the Apartheid in 1964, he and others including Nelson Mandela, were sentenced to life and imprisoned on Robin Island.

After he was released, Sisulu came to Stoke-on-trent and I had the privilege of meeting him in 1996.

Two years earlier, Walter Sisulu campaigned in the first truly multiracial elections in South Africa and he saw his dream of black majority rule fulfilled.

For a man whose life had been devoted to an ideal that had been so dramatically achieved, he shunned the air of a conqueror as I saw for myself.

I am honoured that my role in the Stoke-on-trent ‘freeman’ achievement is briefly mentioned in his biography which has a foreword by Nelson Mandela.

I am featured in the index between Fidel Castro and Joseph Chamberlain.

Councillor Bill Cawley Leek West