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 […]
UCT
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. […]
Posted inEquality
#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
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 […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
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 […]
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 […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Rhodes University needs a new name
By Welcome Mandla Lishivha The recent incident at the University of Cape Town with students protesting to have the statue of Cecil John Rhodes removed from their campus has sparked debates among Rhodes University students. The discussion about changing the university’s name has resurfaced, at least among students, and the university can’t ignore this discussion […]
Posted inEquality, General, Media, News/Politics
Airbrushing history: Debating Rhodes’ legacy
As the debate raged in Cape Town over whether to remove the statue of British imperialist Cecil John Rhodes, I found myself in a grand house named after him some 6 000 miles away. Rhodes House is the quaint Oxford-based headquarters of the Rhodes scholarships. Named for and funded by Rhodes, the scholarships are awarded annually […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Is there anybody there, beneath the trolling shit?
In 2014 I had a troll who wouldn’t leave me alone. He wrote hundreds of words about me without having ever met me. This troll painted a distorted picture of who I was, while hiding behind the safe anonymity of a non-descript picture and made-up name. He responded to my writing with outrage, and people […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Poo-pooing the Rhodes historical narrative
In two years, Cape Town has experienced two rather rude awakenings in the form of “poo protests” in normally sanitised areas meant to represent the best of the Western Cape’s development. The first protest, organised by the disenfranchised Ses’khona People’s Rights Movement, was meant to highlight the deplorable conditions of toilets in informal settlements and […]