RHODES STATUE ‘BEHEADED’
POLICE are investigating a case of vandalism after most of the head of a bronze bust of Cecil John Rhodes at Rhodes Memorial on the slopes of Table Mountain in Cape Town was removed.
Provincial police spokesperson Colonel Andre Traut said a case of malicious damage to property was opened at the Rondebosch police station on Tuesday after the damage to the statue was discovered on Monday.
“The circumstances surrounding the matter are being investigated and no one has been arrested yet,” Traut said.
Rangers from the SA National Parks, who were on foot patrol on the slopes of Table Mountain on Monday, noticed the bust had been vandalised.
There were reports on social media at the weekend suggesting it had been “decapitated”.
The head was broken off just above the chin.
The bust is located in an arched nook at the end of steps lined with bronze lions and faces out towards Cape Town’s Southern Suburbs and the Cape Flats.
It was vandalised in the past, notably in 2015 when the nose was broken off. It was restored in 2018.
The damage in 2015 coincided with the ultimately successful #FeesMustFall campaign to have the statue of Rhodes removed from the campus of the University of Cape Town.
On Wednesday, the Black People’s National Crisis Committee (BPNCC) welcomed the vandalism of the bust in flowery terms.
“The BPNCC welcomes the work of the godly-sent angels who, with utmost precision and resolve, beheaded the bust of the evil imperialist Cecil John Rhodes,” the group said in a statement.
“The bust at Rhodes Memorial forms part of a scandalous project of idolisation and memorialisation of a man with a sordid history of pillaging African resources and its peoples for the benefit of the British nation and its descendants.
“We hope that these angels will continue implementing the work of God in so far as colonial public monuments are concerned.”
Rhodes, a 19th century champion of British colonialism who made a fortune in mining in Africa, is a particularly reviled figure for protesters agitating to have symbols of racial and colonial oppression removed from public life.
Students at the UK’s Oxford University have been campaigning for four years to have a statue of him at Oriel College removed and have urged the institution, which more than a century ago began the Rhodes Scholarship programme, to examine its ties to colonialism.
The campaign has gained fresh impetus as Black Lives
Matter protests emanating from the US swept through the UK in recent months.
Protesters targeted statues of historical figures ranging from slave trader Edward Colston to former British prime minister Winston Churchill. The governing body of Oriel College last month voted to remove the Rhodes statue.
Cape Town’s Rhodes Memorial was designed by British architect
Sir Herbert Baker and carries the inscription: “To the spirit and life work of Cecil John Rhodes who loved and served South Africa.” |