I know, another white guy talking about Rhodes, just what we all really needed. However, there are a few small culture points, and a blog by the Cliffster that I though worth commenting on, so here I go.
Uncle Gareth Cliff’s blog on this Rhodes statue business
points out that “It is a hollow
victory to defeat those already dead”. Of course, if the fight is only with the
dead then why write a blog? He made it with the living the moment he commented.
My own view is that UCT student Chumani Maxwele is winning a cultural
battle, and he’s winning because he played smart. Transforming an entire
university in one fell swoop is such a huge task that taking it on at once in
totality effectively drowns your objective. The powers that be will be able to
throw a million grinding excuses, and the arguments will take so long to carry
through that eventually the media, and the mobilized public will lose interest,
concentration and understanding.
What Chumani did was attack the symbolic heart of the
university, or to be more precise, he endowed a statue with this status, and
then proceeded to do the completely unreasonable. He threw poo at it. Throwing
poo breaks all the rules. It defines his arguments as outside of common good
taste and acceptable debate. Simplistic understandings will see this purely as
populist grandstanding, which it is, but to do so ignores the actual cultural
power structures at play. That’s why it creates so much upset, and in turn
media attention. That is exactly how you create pressure for change.
UCT has been faced with pressure for change for years now.
In fact it’s part of the mechanisms of UCT’s power structure that people loudly
protest about lack of change, then some white liberals who always seem to be in
charge wring their hands, and then nothing changes. The trouble with
subscribing to normal strategies in this is that they all almost always get
subsumed by the Foucaultian logic of the situation: “yes, we all agree, change
should happen faster, sad face, sad face”. The domain of Truth remains
unscathed, or changing with glacial slowness. At least that's how it looks from the outside.
Chester Missing interviewed Chumani for this week’s LNN,
expecting to tease him about throwing poo, as he had done with Ses’Khona’s
Loyiso Nkohla in the past. Chumani’s devastatingly direct answer showed the
genius, intended or unintended, behind the poo. He said it is a reminder of the
truth, the bucket, portaloo and unsafe public toilets the poorest students and Cape Townians face, that their wealthier, and often whiter fellows do not. This symbol,
thrown against the statuesque symbol of white liberal apathy re inequality, and
inherited wealth (in social capital and actual) brings one to the simple brutal
truth of unequal experiences of education in the Western Cape. If you grew up
at the feet of this statue, you are very unlikely to have faced what Chumani
was referencing, which he well knows.
Of course, the cynics will argue that the statue doesn’t
represent anything and that the students are just looking for attention. The thing is that maybe the statue didn't represent anything until a few weeks ago (I think it did), but it definitely does now. That's why this is clever.
This is why Gareth Cliff’s blog post so ‘monumentally’
misses the point. I have had my run ins with Gareth in the past, so I would
rather be less of an insult-troll now, and I like the guy, chronic cultural obliviousness notwithstanding. The problem with cultural obliviousness is that it perpetuates privilege, and eventually racism.
Gareth argues, as many white types seem to be doing, that if we start tearing down
symbols then we should tear down the new statue of King Shaka as well. While
Shaka was his own kind of bastard this argument is ridiculous.
To put it simply, if Shaka had colonized Europe and we were
debating taking his statue down in Leicester Square, while his descendents
still earned on average 6 times the native British people, and their children
were being educated in the language of the conquerors, then we can start comparing. To pretend otherwise is effectively historical denial.
Gareth also argues that many of American historical cultural
icons and first presidents were slave owners. Yes, David Chappelle has a whole
routine about his discomfort with that. We are, and I know this will come as a
surprise to some, living in Africa. Why should Africans accept the cultural
icons of their colonizers? And why should us colonizers expect them to? Cecil John
Rhodes entire concept was about forcing his culture on people. He would quite
happily have pulled down a statue of Shaka, if such statues had been Zulu
culture at the time. Europeans did all they could to separate Africans from
their culture, so let’s get off our high horses. In Rhodes’ case literally.
Another dominant discourse, as seen in newspaper letters
columns from disgruntled UCT alumni, snootily says that these students should
be studying and not moaning about statues. Yup, that’s what you say when it’s
your guy’s statue that’s there. How that isn’t obvious is utterly beyond me.
Of course, if we were the ones whose lives had been
disadvantage by this we would be screaming blue murder. If AfriForum and Steve
H are even remotely a measure of how white people behave when they feel
slightly oppressed, can you imagine how we would have treated a statue of
people who gave us passbooks, a Land Act and Umlungustans?
Another silly example people give is that of the UK being
scattered with statues of William the Conqueror, and they’re not tearing them
down. Before I slam my head into a wall, can we just agree that modern Britain
is not at all, even slightly like South Africa? The 5 million or so white descendents
of William the Conqueror and henchman don’t still own most of that country’s
wealth, like we do here. The conquered are not still living in their millions
in shacks on sand dunes on the edge of the city. Really man. How stupid can
people get?
(Yes, I know the statue isn’t changing that, but if even
transforming a statue is resisted, how long will wealth take?)
Another issue is the idea that taking away the statue will
take away history. That’s just plain offensive. Poor South Africans don’t have
to be reminded of Rhodes’ legacy. They feel it every time they catch trains,
taxis and buses to homes miles from where they work, to live on land that was
taken from them by people like or directly connected to the guy in the statue.
Only a privileged twat would think they need a lump of metal to remind them of
Rhodes’ legacy. Besides, put the statue in a museum. Problem solved. As far as I am concerned the statue itself doesn't remind us of history, it hides it.
Finally, yes, we know there are bigger issues than this.
Yes, we know removing the statue does very little in real terms. The point is
that a cultural shift needs to happen and it needs to start somewhere. Let it
be here. Of course some would argue that this statue thing subverts real
change. What change? Apparently 4% of full professors in SA are black South
Africans. Even that frikking statue is resisting transformation.
Many white people time and time again seem to overlook the
impact of language, social and cultural skills in education, because in cultural
terms higher education in South Africa is calibrated towards our comfort.
Imagine all universities were first language isiXhosa or SiPedi? I am not
saying we are to blame for all education screw-ups in the last 21 years (let’s
not even start on before that), just that it would really help if we stopped
being dicks about it. Yes, I know, not all white people are.
Gareth also suggests that this is a sort of getting even,
revenge type thing a la Stalin, Saddam, etc. That’s plain cultural ignorance. The
extreme poo-throwing lengths, as far as I am concerned, were that of a group of
Black student/s drawing a line in the sand re cultural arrogance and saying ‘up
to here and no further’. Nobody is talking about getting even with Rhodes. That
would be ridiculous. Chumani and friends are trying to send a message to the
people running the Establishment NOW. Agree with his acts or not we need to see
them as a well thought out strategic attack. Sometimes being reasonable and
being controllable are dangerously aligned.
I think they should take the statue down and then debate what to do with that space, because the great thing about being on the couch is that when we debate who should be on the couch you have already won.
In conclusion, this is not “like a child putting a plaster on his wound”, as Gareth calls
it. It’s about a cultural battle, where people are fighting to change 350 years
of enforced cultural assimilation, where Other languages, norms, traditions and
icons were treated as less than next to consciously and strategically planned Western
cultural domination. To be honest, with the bullshit we pulled in this country maybe
the only credible thing white South Africans can do when black South Africans
provoke for cultural changes such as this statue is say: “can we organize the
removal crane?”
The missing part of the conversation, or at least one that
needs more exploration is complexity in Black voices regarding the conversation
on symbolism and change at SA universities. Chumani and friends can’t at all claim
to speak for all Black students, and it would be wrong to assume that he does.
That's what this white guy thinks.