Although widely attributed to Oriel College Oxford, the Rhodes Must Fall movement had its roots at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. The student-led campaign, conceived in March 2015, sparked debate about the relevance of immortalising individual colonial figureheads – and the influence of institutions they represented.
What it means to situate a statue that, for many students, conflicts with the ethos of the university and the spirit of its students was a sentiment not only felt among the students in Cape Town. Navigating how to impose our values on remnants of the past was an issue that Oriel students contended with in June of last year. Two weeks of protest culminated in an independent commission of inquiry that agreed with the demand of students, particularly students of colour, who were advocating for the removal of the statute.
Over the course of the 19th century, Cecil Rhodes’s imperialist ventures in southern Africa led him to modern-day Zambia and Zimbabwe. As one of the founders of the British South Africa company, modelled on the Dutch East India model, Rhodes’s colonial exploration was instrumental in the construction of the apartheid state. Social and wealth divides along racial boundaries in South Africa persist today.
Almost 200 years later, the Rhodes name is a prominent one in academia, most notably as the Rhodes scholarship, first awarded in 1902 – and regarded as the most prestigious international academic scholarship. Established by Rhodes himself, it was awarded to American students at top US universities, allowing them to travel and study at Oxford. The vast majority of Americans at Ivy League schools at this time were wealthy men of Anglo-Saxon descent. Suggestions to change the name of the scholarship on the basis that it represents the enduring remnants of British imperialism have been made. Among the suggested alternatives is Nelson Mandela, in honour of his humanitarian efforts in South Africa, a direct confrontation to the Rhodes legacy as described by the Financial Times.
Suggestions to change the name of the Rhodes scholarship on the basis that it represents the enduring remnants of British imperialism have been made. Among the suggested alternatives is Nelson Mandela
Despite this development, Oriel College made the decision not to “begin the legal process” of removing the statue, citing “regulatory and financial challenges”. As of June 10 2021, 150 academics within Oxford have stopped teaching to protest the statues staying in place. Interim Provost of Oxford’s Worcester College Kate Tunstall signed a joint declaration. “Faced with Oriel’s stubborn attachment to a statue that glorifies colonialism, and the wealth it produced for the college”, it says, “we feel we have no choice but to withdraw all discriminatory work and goodwill collaborations”.
Provost of Oriel College Oxford Lord Neil Mendoza explained that “Oriel has said that it is determined to focus time and resources on delivering the recommendations made by the independent Commission around the contextualisation of the College’s relationship with Rhodes, as well as improving educational equality, diversity and inclusion amongst its student cohort and academic community. The College is committed to taking the action that it believes will have the most impact on the educational aspirations of current and prospective students”.
Addressing the links between the colonial past of the British Empire and leaving the statue as it is, Mendoza said that context is a priority. “The intention with the contextualisation is to prompt people to think further about our colonial history and to learn more about the impact and reach of the British Empire.” In May, a press statement issued by the governing body of Oriel College confirmed that Oriel was to take steps to address the postcolonialism of the British empire including, “enacting a 2016 decision to have an annual lecture on a topic related to the Rhodes legacy, race or colonialism”.
Expressing his thoughts about why he believes statues are so significant, Mendoza concluded: “Statues, in their basic form, are public art. Sometimes they are beautiful, sometimes not and sometimes their significance is measured, for example, by whether or not they are protected by a heritage listing. All sorts of meanings can be ascribed to statues, but a statue isn’t necessarily significant on its own merits.”
The intention with the contextualisation is to prompt people to think further about our colonial history and to learn more about the impact and reach of the British Empire
Dr Simukai Chigudu is a professor of African studies at Oxford who himself originally hails from Zimbabwe. On the topic of what it would mean if the “Rhodes Must Fall” campaign succeeded in removing the Rhodes Statue from Oriel College, he said: “I think one has to understand what the statue represents to begin with and was a founder of a system of racial discrimination. This is not a marginal figure on some noble quest. This is someone who set out becoming one of the richest people in the world off of African resources. Taking the statue down would be an acknowledgement by the institution itself that it was complicit in Britain’s colonial conquests.”
He went on to elaborate on how his discipline of study interrelates with Rhodes as an imperialist individual. “Historically speaking, the study of Africa is wound up with colonial conquest. Africa existed as a blank space. My discipline is focused on a non-Eurocentric vision of the world. Decolonisation is a part of that.” For Chigudu, student engagement is crucial. “They understand the forms of nationalism that are embedded in the statue within the former British Empire”, he explains.
Chigudu says that Oriel College’s decision to not remove the statue “portrays a stubbornness and resistance to have any honest, reflexive and critical dialogue about history and the kind of institution Oxford could be. It’s a preservation of Oxford’s power structure. For black people, it makes it a less desirable place to be”.
As the direct Oxford sister college of Trinity, Oriel College’s decision not to remove the statue may have implications for Trinity. But Ciaran O’Neill, an associate professor in 19th-century history, resists this affiliation. “I don’t think we should be swayed by the decision of Oriel at all, even though it is clear that a majority of staff and students at that college wished for Rhodes to be removed. Trinity may have looked to Oxbridge in the past, of course, but I don’t think Trinity should be following Oxford (or any other institution) in the present or in our future. It is up to us to chart our own course.”
O’Neill is a main contributor to Trinity’s Colonial Legacies Project, a project to research Trinity’s links to the slave trade, colonial ventures and monetary benefits therefrom. “Our project is wider than any one particular statue or building on campus”, he explains.
George Berkeley, after whom the Berkeley library was named, is one figure that has been subject to scrutiny for his ownership of slaves and the potential implications for how his philosophical teachings are understood. Addressing the debate about the renaming of the library, O’Neill said that “it is one of the goals of the TCL project that we help to bring about a critical conversation in the college community on the many and varied aspects of our past that relate to colonialism. So yes, Berkeley’s legacy will be one important aspect of that”.
This is not a marginal figure on some noble quest. This is someone who set out becoming one of the richest people in the world off of African resources. Taking the statue down would be an acknowledgement by the institution itself that it was complicit in Britain’s colonial conquests
Dr Edward Arnold, a professor of French at Trinity, explains the symbolic role that statues play in creating “a visible link with a sometimes troubled past, and a strong symbol of struggle against inequalities and different forms of past and present oppression”. He considers whether it is our responsibility to preserve vestiges of our past, despite their troubling or controversial nature – or because of it.
“Should not the traces of the past be preserved to help us commemorate or excoriate a past through pedagogy?” he considers. Arnold suggests that the statues could be relocated to museums or contextualised with plaques. We should also remember that history, historical narratives and memorialisation are not objective dynamics, or absolute facts or truths, and have often been manipulated.
The manipulation of historical narrative and the role that our shared, subjective histories play in our lives today, Arnold explains, are worth serious contemplation. “Over millennia, historians, and those who govern and have the power and means to impose their vision for posterity have chosen what and how to narrate, and what interpretation we should give these events or phenomena. This, by definition, makes history partial.”
