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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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Should Oxford University remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes...?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/35166107
Is it unfair to judge him because he was merely a man of his times....or could it be said that due to his personal actions, he helped define the landscape his era...?
Is it better to educate or expunge..?
I lean towards educate and inform, personally.
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educate and inform by all means, but to have icons which represent what has through time been proven to be repugnant ideas adorning educational institutions that profess to teach ethics and morals is somewhat distasteful and more than hypocritical. they should be removed |
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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"educate and inform by all means, but to have icons which represent what has through time been proven to be repugnant ideas adorning educational institutions that profess to teach ethics and morals is somewhat distasteful and more than hypocritical. they should be removed"
Remove and placed in a museum perhaps..? |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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No they shouldn't, I'm half African, from Zambia, which was formerly known as Northern Rhodesia. We should educate people about the past, an educational institution taking down sculptures of people sets to hide the past, not educate from it. |
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"educate and inform by all means, but to have icons which represent what has through time been proven to be repugnant ideas adorning educational institutions that profess to teach ethics and morals is somewhat distasteful and more than hypocritical. they should be removed
Remove and placed in a museum perhaps..? "
possibly..... deep in the archives or maybe as part of an exhibit which vilifies our history of misguided and disasterous colonial ideology. i'd have no problem with his statue being turned into rubble and used as part of the proposed extention to the college. |
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To be fair if you go back in history you'd struggle to find many people, even venerated ones these days, who didn't have views and ideas that in modern human existence we'd find unacceptable
That's not to accept those views but we need to accept human history was like that
Removing a statue isn't going to alter our history, we should learn from human history not pretend it never happened |
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You must not sanitise history. Societal morals change all the time and we are suggesting that our current ethical standards have to ride rough shod over all of history? Seems a little conceited.
The man did some fairly unacceptable things but we need to know what our past is and have the ability to make our own judgements on how we should act based upon the examples of history. We must not allow ourselves to be told what is acceptable and what is not. We must have the mind to do that ourselves. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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I benefited from a colonial legacy it's how I came to this country. I can completely understand why his statue is removed in Africa.
Here it should be left for what it is. A reminder of the past that cannot be changed but does not have to be repeated.
What next Queen Victoria? |
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"To be fair if you go back in history you'd struggle to find many people, even venerated ones these days, who didn't have views and ideas that in modern human existence we'd find unacceptable
That's not to accept those views but we need to accept human history was like that
Removing a statue isn't going to alter our history, we should learn from human history not pretend it never happened "
so the jimmy saville statue should have remained next to scotstoun childrens swimming pool? |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Perhaps these students would prefer one of the tyrant Mugabe?  "
Will there be statues to Mugabe in 100 years time? Probably not.
Whilst I am not generally in favour of this type of historical revisionism, Rhodes was, even in his time, a controversial figure - and is now very clearly a repellent character who represents the very worst of British Imperial thinking and could arguably be seen as the person most responsible for 100 years of direct persecution based on a deluded philosophy.
He is not someone for whom, as a nation, we should be proud. |
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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"
Whilst I am not generally in favour of this type of historical revisionism, Rhodes was, even in his time, a controversial figure "
That's a potent point. |
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By *inaTitzTV/TS
over a year ago
Titz Towers, North Notts |
The man was an unprincipled rogue. However, just getting rid of statues is wrong - they are potent reminders of the past. 
Unless it is Lenin and there are millions of the buggers cluttering up the place. |
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"Perhaps these students would prefer one of the tyrant Mugabe? "
Just wondering how many scholarships Mugabe has provided for deserving students of all races? Yep, that would be none. Instead he has raped and pillaged a beautiful country making himself wealthy and pushing his countrymen into penury - and that after overseeing genocide of the Matabele. But I never hear the politically correct left demonstrating outside Zimbabwe House to get his mugshot removed from their walls. That's the gutless system of political correctness for you.
Leave Rhodes be or where does it end? Do we smash down statues of Queens Elizabeth the First and Victoria becausefof the role they had supporting people like Walter Raleigh and Cecil Rhodes? |
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"No they shouldn't, I'm half African, from Zambia, which was formerly known as Northern Rhodesia. We should educate people about the past, an educational institution taking down sculptures of people sets to hide the past, not educate from it."
Apart from being half African (although I was conceived in Zambia, oddly enough) I couldn't have put it better |
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"The man was an unprincipled rogue. However, just getting rid of statues is wrong - they are potent reminders of the past.
Unless it is Lenin and there are millions of the buggers cluttering up the place. "
Rhodes was a man of his time. He took an awful lot of bad publicity for his role in the Jameson Raid which kick started the Boer War. However he was just the more visible face if British Imperialism. If you look into both Boer Wars they were both caused largely by British skullduggery. The anexures of the Transvaal and Griqualand West being classic cases. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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There isn't a statue of Mugabe at Oxford University to my knowledge?
The Rhodes statue wasn't put there by the Government or public subscription, he basically paid to have it put there himself.
Pull it down, and let's start being honest about the dark side of British history as well as the good. |
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By *inaTitzTV/TS
over a year ago
Titz Towers, North Notts |
"The man was an unprincipled rogue. However, just getting rid of statues is wrong - they are potent reminders of the past.
Unless it is Lenin and there are millions of the buggers cluttering up the place.
Rhodes was a man of his time. He took an awful lot of bad publicity for his role in the Jameson Raid which kick started the Boer War. However he was just the more visible face if British Imperialism. If you look into both Boer Wars they were both caused largely by British skullduggery. The anexures of the Transvaal and Griqualand West being classic cases."
I can agree with that, but he was still a bounder. I really enjoyed reading Diamonds, Gold and War, which documents this period nicely. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"No they shouldn't, I'm half African, from Zambia, which was formerly known as Northern Rhodesia. We should educate people about the past, an educational institution taking down sculptures of people sets to hide the past, not educate from it.
Apart from being half African (although I was conceived in Zambia, oddly enough) I couldn't have put it better "
Oh really, that is interesting, I was conceived ib Detriot I'd love to go to Zambia and Zimbabwe but seeing as my family have now left there and moved here or SA I wouldn't go alone  |
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I think we weep and wail enough about this "dark side" if British history. It's history. Learn from it and move on. In a way Mugabe and his people have their existence to thank Rhodes for. The arrival of the BSA Company in what is today Zimbabwe put paid to the campaign of murder and terror being carried out by Lobengula and his warriors. Another five years and the Matabele would probably have exterminated the MaShona who they regarded as lower than dogs. A fact not forgotten by the Shona Mugabe when it came time to put his boot down on Matabeleland in the 80's. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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im of the 'educate' camp...i think its a very ivory tower,naive attitude of some, im sure well'meaning students... but i think its important that history isnt whitewashed...i read somewhere recently that britain has more staues erected to military figues than anywhere else...presumably all of them could be removed as they will all be responsible for harm done at some point.Understanding that is important and shouldnt be covered up... |
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