By Marlyn Faure Don’t get me wrong I don’t think colonial symbols like the statue of Rhodes should be left uncontested. But blanket calls for the removal and sometimes the destruction of all colonial symbols could perhaps be working against the very issues being fought for: transformation, recognition, acknowledgment and justice. The protests at UCT […]
Equality
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Monty Python and the Rhodes statue controversy
Does the name Monty Python still mean something to those under 20? In my day, Monty Python sketches were an inextricable part of everyday discourse. This was despite the fact that, as a result of the cultural boycott of apartheid, the original BBC programmes were not readily available. Fortunately, Jood maak plan, as the saying […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Leave the Rhodes statue, remove its legacy!
It should be pretty obvious that Cecil John Rhodes would be largely considered a repulsive person by today’s modern moral standards, which favour equality. Anyone who, like Rhodes, acquires insane amounts wealth on the back of mass exploitation of a marginalised people would most likely be considered notorious and not be regarded as a hero. […]
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#RhodesMustFall: ‘Silly, stupid children’
“Silly, stupid children” That’s what some people are calling you on social media. “Silly”, because you had the courage to speak truth to power, demand dignity and recognition for the pain that you feel? “Silly, stupid children” That’s what some people are calling you on social media. “Stupid”, because you dared to allow your […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
Rhodes, Rancière and the politics of aesthetics
The events surrounding the protests for the removal of the Rhodes statue located at a focal point on the Upper Campus of the University of Cape Town (UCT) has provided me with an opportunity to revisit Jacques Rancière’s influential contemporary argument on the politics of aesthetics. The focus on a statue obviously lends an explicit […]
Posted inEquality, General, Health
Fighting TB with prisoners’ rights
By Annabel Raw Today is World Tuberculosis Day, commemorating the discovery of the cause of the disease in 1882. Tuberculosis (TB) is an ancient disease with traces in human remains being recorded since antiquity. Despite advances in public health and treatment, today TB continues to claim over one and a half million lives every year, […]
Posted inEquality
Take it down
I know someone who — shall we say — passed water on Cecil John Rhodes’ grave in the Matopos Hills in southern Zimbabwe. The National Archives of Zimbabwe in Harare removed its own CJR statue in the 1980s and stuck it behind the building with some rusting tractors. Poor CJR. All he wanted was to […]
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Anti-gay attacks on the rise in Swaziland
By Jabu Pereira Kaylo Glover a young lesbian from Nhlangano, Swaziland, stepped into a bar with her friends on the early hours of Sunday morning. She was killed by an enraged man who did not want to be in the presence of lesbians. He left the bar, fetched an axe from his car, returned and […]
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We can no longer deny that #RhodesMustFall
A good seven or eight years ago, when I was an undergraduate at the University of Cape Town, students arrived on campus one morning to find that the statue of Cecil John Rhodes had been defaced with red spray paint. The message read, “Fuck your dream of empire”. I don’t really recall what my reaction […]
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The national question in South Africa
It is not easy to ignore the national question in South Africa, particularly presently, both in the context of 20 years of democracy and also given the troubling discourse by certain seemingly regressive people and or institutions. It is also hard to overlook this paramount issue of the national question when one observes the socio-economic […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
#RhodesSoWhite and the disappointing lack of unity
On Tuesday, this post appeared concerning race on the Rhodes University SRC Facebook page: The post was presumably inspired by the recent issues surrounding UCT and the statue of Cecil John Rhodes, as well as the calls to change the name of Rhodes University. The post gathered hundreds of comments of those either militantly in […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
The Rhodes statue, a swastika and so much offence
Yesterday, after a week of protesting at the University of Cape Town, anti-Rhodes statue activists placed swastikas and photographs of Adolf Hitler on buildings at the university. They claimed (after the fact, it must be noted) that these posters were put up to conscientise students to the offence that the statue of Rhodes represents. One […]