Rhodes Must Fall Oxford has released an exclusive statement to Cherwell regarding Oriel College’s major new declaration of its intentions for the controversial statue of Cecil Rhodes, and the treatment of BME (black and minority ethnic) students in the college.
“We’re happy to see that Oriel College has started moving in the right direction by announcing their intention to take down the Rhodes plaque on King Edwards Street. At the same time, their decision to maintain the statue but open a 6-month ‘listening period’ seems disingenuous, given that we have invited them to engage us in an open, transparent, and accountable way – and they refused. (Brian Kwoba)
As indicated in the name of our movement, Rhodes Must Fall Oxford has demanded that the statue of Cecil Rhodes should be removed. Commitment to a listening exercise is not the same as commitment to taking the statue down. Our movement is concerned with symbolism as well as other aspects of decolonization, such as curriculum and representation. The action plans that Oriel College has committed to are a starting point in dealing with the process of decolonization, but they are not sufficient.
Oriel College has acknowledged the petition which has finally lead to a public declaration that Rhodes was a colonialist whose values are ‘unacceptable’, a label they resisted using in their previous statements. The college taking a firm stance against Rhodes means we can begin to deal with the legacy of colonialism which continues at Oxford in the form of institutional racism. Oriel College has said that addressing the experiences of BME students is important to the success of the university; hopefully they also see the way that these issues are directly linked to Britain’s colonial history and continuous role in global affairs. Additionally, Oriel College’s mention of fundraising as a core aspect of addressing Rhodes’ legacy means that they understand questions of finance to be central to decolonization. (Tadiwa Madenga)
In the short term, we want to contest and expose those features of Oriel’s statement which fall short of our demands, including their refusal to take down the statue of a colonialist who masterminded the dispossession, murder, and terrorization of countless southern Africans and imposed a regime of labour exploitation for the benefit of mining companies. These companies, such as Lonmin, still extract precious minerals and wealth from the Black African descendants of Rhodes’ victims to this day. In the long term, we aim to continue pushing for the other aims of our movement: decolonization of the Eurocentric and white supremacist academic curriculum at Oxford, as well as transforming the demographic representation at the university to reflect a larger proportion of BME staff and students. (Brian Kwoba)”
A response to this statement from Simran Uppal, Cherwell Comment Editor, can be found here.
