Author Topic: Statue decolonization  (Read 4966 times)

90sRetroFan

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Re: Statue decolonization
« Reply #90 on: October 15, 2021, 10:23:36 pm »
Promises by Westerners mean nothing:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/oct/11/oxford-college-installs-plaque-calling-cecil-rhodes-a-committed-colonialist

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An Oxford college has installed a plaque next to a statue of the mining magnate and politician Cecil Rhodes, describing him as “committed British colonialist” who exploited the “peoples of southern Africa”.
...
The University of Oxford angered campaigners in May by backtracking on its previous decision to remove the statue, ignoring the views of an independent commission.

The explanatory plaque says Rhodes was a “committed British colonialist” who “obtained his fortune through exploitation of minerals, land and peoples of southern Africa. Some of his activities led to great loss of life and attracted criticism in his day and ever since.”
...
“We can’t take down absolutely everything that connects us to colonialism,” said the woman, who asked to be referred to as Rosie. “Are we going to take all the banking system down, all the things that made this country?”

Actually, we have aimed to take down the Western banking system from the beginning.

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An 18-year-old woman who gave her name as Oliver, from Denmark, said the plaque seemed to be an attempt to reach a middle ground. “But the middle ground is more about working around some people’s egos … it [the statement] feels like something I would read in a GCSE textbook.”

“I certainly don’t think it’s too much,” said a young passerby, responding to academic complaints that the plaque had gone too far down the road of vilifying Rhodes. He said: “I think for some people it probably won’t be enough, because if you don’t want to walk past [the statue] every day, you are still not going to want to walk past it.”

Exactly.

The following is not a bad idea, however:

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/may/29/rhodes-statue-should-be-turned-to-face-wall-says-antony-gormley

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Sculptor suggests solution to row over keeping statue of colonialist in place at Oriel College

The statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford, should be turned to face the wall in shame, the sculptor Antony Gormley has proposed.

Gormley’s suggestion, made in an interview with the Financial Times, would be an innovative solution to a years-long battle over whether the 19th-century colonialist and white supremacist should remain in pride of place at the university.

It comes after Oriel decided to retain the statue, despite the findings of an independent commission that backed its removal.

Gormley said the statue should stay, the FT reported. But he added: “If we need to readdress our relationship to him, I would just simply turn him to face the wall rather than facing outwards.”

Turning Rhodes to face the wall would be “an acknowledgment of collective shame” that would also “reassert the fact that Oriel College and many institutions have property from Rhodes’s riches”, the FT quoted Gormley as saying.

The statue: