Rhodes statue may fall with council backing
Oxford college urged to remove monument of 19th century colonialist as hundreds gather in protest
A STATUE of Cecil Rhodes should be relocated from an Oxford college to a museum, the city’s council leader said yesterday as she invited a planning application for its removal.
Susan Brown wrote to Oriel College as a newly revived campaign to have the monument taken down saw hundreds of protesters gather in the city last night.
Focus has again alighted on the statue of the 19th century imperialist after activists tore down a bronze figure of Edward Colston, the slave trader, in Bristol on Sunday.
Within hours of the slave trader’s effigy plunging into the Avon, a sign saying “Rhodes, you’re next” was taped to University Church, opposite the monument in Oxford.
The statue of Rhodes was erected after he left £100,000 in his will to Oriel College – where he had been a student – of which £40,000 was earmarked to construct the Rhodes Building, which was completed in 1911.
The monument has survived previous eviction attempts. A campaign to have it toppled was thwarted in 2016 when donors threatened to withdraw gifts and bequests worth more than £100 million if Oriel removed it.
Supporters of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign claim the mining magnate, who was instrumental in Britain’s colonisation of southern Africa, left a legacy “of genocide, of exploitation, of subjugation”.
Yesterday, 26 Oxford city councillors signed a letter telling the university the statue was “incompatible” with the city’s “commitment to anti-racism”.
Ms Brown was not among the signatories, but the council leader said in a separate statement: “It would be better for the statue to be placed in a museum, such as the Ashmolean or the Museum of Oxford, to ensure this noteworthy piece of the story of our city isn’t lost to history.”
She added: “I have today written to Oriel College to invite them to apply for planning permission to remove the statue, as it is a Grade II* listed building. Typically, such actions are only allowed in the most exceptional of circumstances.
“But these are exceptional circumstances, and as a city council we are keen to work with Oriel to help them find the right balance between the laws that protect our historic buildings and the moral obligation to reflect on the malign symbolism of this statue.”
Her intervention came as Boris Johnson told his Ccabinet that damage to public monuments during the protests would not be tolerated.
Police were criticised for failing to stop the scenes in Bristol on Sunday, with the Home Secretary reported to have had a “firm discussion” with the Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset Police over the decision. Asked about the protest against the Rhodes statue, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “Police will have to make their own operational decisions based on individual circumstances but I think the PM is very clear that people should not be desecrating public monuments, and where they do so they should face the full force of the law.”
Organisers of last night’s protest had stressed in advance that the event should be “peaceful”. Several hundred protesters gathered below the statue of
Rhodes, which is several storeys above street level, at around 5pm, where they chanted “take it down”. They were invited to sit for eight minutes and 46 seconds at the foot of the monument – the length of time a US police officer held his knee on the neck of George Floyd, the unarmed black man whose death triggered protests globally.
An online petition set up to support the Oxford cause had more than 100,000 signatures by yesterday night.
Campaigners are calling on Oriel College to remove the statue, along with a plaque nearby.
Oriel College said: “As a college, we continue to debate and discuss the issues raised by the presence on our site of examples of contested heritage relating to Cecil Rhodes.”
♦ Last night, the Archbishop of Canterbury said he had been “struck by the events of the last few days” as he said that the Church of England must set its “house in order” and “acknowledge our own historic errors and failings”.
‘[We have a] moral obligation to reflect on the malign symbolism of this statue’