Rhodes Must Fall

Statue being removed on 9 April 2015

Rhodes Must Fall (#RhodesMustFall) is a protest movement originally directed against a statue at the University of Cape Town (UCT) commemorating Cecil Rhodes that began on 9 March 2015. The campaign for the statue's removal received global attention^[2][3] and led to a wider movement to "decolonise" education across South Africa.^[3][4] On 9 April 2015, following a UCT Council vote the previous night, the statue was removed.

Background

The bronze statue of a seated Cecil Rhodes was sculpted by Marion Walgate, husband of architect Charles Walgate, who worked with J.M. Solomon in designing and constructing the new buildings at the University of Cape Town (UCT). It was unveiled in 1934.^[5][6] Calls for the statue's removal had been slowly increasing for several decades, with Afrikaner students first demanding the removal of the statue in the 1950s.^[7]

Protests

The first protest, and the action that sparked off the Rhodes Must Fall campaign occurred on on 9 March 2015, when Chumani Maxwele threw human faeces onto the statue and toyi-toyi'd with approximately a dozen protesters at the statue.^[8] Maxwele was charged with assault after he was involved in a physical altercation with a security officer during the protest.^[9] It was reported that a UCT security officer had prevented a photographer from taking photos of the protest. UCT announced that it was investigating the incident.^[10]

On 12 March 2015, an open air dialogue took place on Jammie stairs to discuss the statue, with points from all sides being heard. The following week, a march to the UCT administrative building, Bremner, took place, demanding a date for the removal of the statue. On 20 March 2015, students stormed the Bremner building, which houses the UCT offices during a speech addressing the removal of the statue by UCT vice-chancellor Max Price.^[9] On 22 March, it was reported that the students were still occupying the building and that members of the public were supplying them with food. The protesters "renamed" the building Azania House.^[11]

UCT's senate voted in favour of the removal of the statue on 27 March 2015,^[12] and following the vote, the statue was boarded up pending the final decision from the university's council.^[13] On April 9, 2015 the Rhodes statue was removed.^[14]

Protest quickly spread around South Africa's universities,^[15] defacing statues and calling for the "decolonisation of education" in South Africa.^[4]

Issues

The main issues raised by #RhodesMustFall were the removal of symbols at the university which the protesters feel were oppressive such as the statue of Rhodes,^[4] institutional racism^[16] and the perceived lack of racial transformation at the university.^[17]

Students made use of occupation and civil disobedience during the protests. Actions included throwing human faeces at the Rhodes statue and occupying UCT offices.^[10][9] Students also made use of the internet; protesting students created a Facebook page entitled 'Rhodes Must Fall' and promoted and made use of the hashtag '#RhodesMustFall' on Twitter.^[18]

Reactions

On 22 March 2015, a black lecturer, Xolela Mangcu told the Cape Times newspaper that the university was not hiring enough black professors. He said that only 5 out of the 200 senior professors at UCT were black.^[19] A week later, Julius Malema of the Economic Freedom Fighters agreed that the statue should be removed and that the student protests were against not only the statue, but white supremacy itself. Albie Sachs suggested to "keep him [Rhodes] alive on the campus and force him, even if posthumously, to witness surroundings that tell him and the world that he is now living in a constitutional democracy."^[20]

During March 2015, the Faculty of Engineering & the Built Environment at the University of Cape Town ran a poll on whether or not the statue should be moved. Out of 2700 students, 1100 students voted. Sixty percent of them were against the removal of the statue, 38% were in favour of its removal and the remaining 2% abstained. However, the poll did not measure strength of opinion, nor did the poll address the deeper moral dimension of the statue's presence. A consensus in the Senate found that many who are against removal did not feel strongly about the issue.^[21]

Other universities

In mid April 2015, the student and staff led activist organisation Open Stellenbosch was founded at the University of Stellenbosch to promote similar aims, but with more of a focus on the role of language – specifically Afrikaans – in education at the university. The organisation was inspired by the Rhodes Must Fall movement at the University of Cape Town.^[22]

Small student protests in support of the removal of the statue and the Rhodes Must Fall movement also occurred at the University of Edinburgh, University of Oxford^[23] and Berkeley University.^[24] Oxford students also called for a statue of Rhodes to be removed from Oriel College at Oxford^[23] whilst the Berkeley protesters felt the demands of the Rhodes Must Fall movement were relevant to their own grievances of perceived black marginalisation at Berkeley University.^[24]

Other statues

On 22 March 2015, the EFF's president, Julius Malema, called for all other colonialism and apartheid symbols to be removed nationwide.^[25] Following this, a number of colonial era statues were vandalised across the country, including the statue of King George V at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.^[26] The EFF's members were implicated in the vandalism of a number of Anglo-Boer War statues including the Uitenhage War memorial statue for fallen British soldiers on 4 April,^[27] the Horse Memorial in Port Elizabeth dedicated to the animals that served in the war on 6 April,^[28] and the vandalism (green paint) of Paul Kruger's statue in Church Square, Pretoria on 7 April.^[29] The statue of Louis Botha situated outside the Houses of Parliament in Cape Town was vandalised on 9 April.^[30] EFF spokesperson Mbuyeseni Ndlozi said on 9 April that the party would have to take responsibility for its members' actions, but that the EFF was for the removal, not vandalism or destruction, of the colonial and apartheid symbols in the public space.^[31]

• 

  Louis Botha statue, Cape Town

• 

  Paul Kruger statue, Pretoria (2013)

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  Horse Memorial, Port Elizabeth (2010)

See also

• Occupy movement
• Rhodes Memorial
• White Privilege

References

External links

• Media related to Rhodes Must Fall at Wikimedia Commons