The UCT - Cecil John Rhodes Statue Thread

[ToxicBunny]

I wouldn't put anything past these bloody clowns, have you seen what they have done to the King George VI statue in Durban??

I am OH SO ready to drive to the airport and deface the bloody King Shaka statue!!

If you wanted anyone like Hitler, Shaka was your guy!

Don't come with reality.
Shaka was a hero....

 

[Fazda]

Don't come with reality.
Shaka was a hero....

This is my point - if you want to dig into the actions of any one of these people now sitting as statues, you will find some dirt somewhere that is going to get up someone's nose.

This type of thing really disturbs me, as it is a very clear indication of the mood of the people who will ultimately hold positions of power. They want to rid this country of any memories of the past and if that involves destroying anything or anyone who gets in their way, then so be it!

 

[Albereth]

Don't come with reality.
Shaka was a hero....

A shrivelled-dick xenophobe with an Oedipus complex, you mean?

But I'm guessing that the only ones who view statues in an even-handed manner are pigeons.

 

[AfricanTech]

I had to laugh at the indignation expressed by a student this morning in response to the news that the National Monuments Council (I think) is thinking of moving Rhodes to Johanesburg.

@Fazda, fully agree - you don't destroy history - you preserve and learn from it. These impoverished thinkers don't seem to learn from others - how do we know the full horror of Auschwitz, that's right, it's still there today - so that people can go and see it for themselves.

 

[Fazda]

I had to laugh at the indignation expressed by a student this morning in response to the news that the National Monuments Council (I think) is thinking of moving Rhodes to Johanesburg.

@Fazda, fully agree - you don't destroy history - you preserve and learn from it. These impoverished thinkers don't seem to learn from others - how do we know the full horror of Auschwitz, that's right, it's still there today - so that people can go and see it for themselves.

Thank you - very well said!

 

[OrbitalDawn]

Can we get over the whole 'removing a statue = destroying history' thing, please?

It trivialises actual revisionist history, which is a real threat.

 

[ToxicBunny]

I had to laugh at the indignation expressed by a student this morning in response to the news that the National Monuments Council (I think) is thinking of moving Rhodes to Johanesburg.

@Fazda, fully agree - you don't destroy history - you preserve and learn from it. These impoverished thinkers don't seem to learn from others - how do we know the full horror of Auschwitz, that's right, it's still there today - so that people can go and see it for themselves.

Actually, that might be a good education for this bunch of "rhodes must fall" muppets.. they were using Nazi symbols at one point irrc... maybe we should send them to go and visit Auschwitz.

 

[ToxicBunny]

Can we get over the whole 'removing a statue = destroying history' thing, please?

It trivialises actual revisionist history, which is a real threat.

Which this is just the start of...

 

[AfricanTech]

Can we get over the whole 'removing a statue = destroying history' thing, please?

It trivialises actual revisionist history, which is a real threat.

You may have misunderstood me - I did not say that 'removing a statue = destroying history'.

I've been out of the academic world for a while now so I'm not up on the nuances of academic discourse.

From my pov, destroying (which is what is being called for) is not the same as moving the statue.

Moving the statue preserves history which we can then learn from
Destroying the statue erases history which we then cannot learn from since the physical reminder no longer exists and within a generation, will have been forgotten.

So ja,

I am happy for it to be moved somewhere where it is still in the public eye
I am not happy for it to be destroyed (like those moronic Taliban who bombed a mountainside)

 

[Electric]

I just don't get how these guys asking for the statues to be removed are so focused on maintaining their own heritage but then have no issue with destroying the heritage of this country.
It's amazing how easy it is to forget the wrong doings of one group and just to lump the world's problems on another group.

 

[OrbitalDawn]

You may have misunderstood me - I did not say that 'removing a statue = destroying history'.

I've been out of the academic world for a while now so I'm not up on the nuances of academic discourse.

From my pov, destroying (which is what is being called for) is not the same as moving the statue.

Moving the statue preserves history which we can then learn from
Destroying the statue erases history which we then cannot learn from since the physical reminder no longer exists and within a generation, will have been forgotten.

So ja,

I am happy for it to be moved somewhere where it is still in the public eye
I am not happy for it to be destroyed (like those moronic Taliban who bombed a mountainside)

Yeah, I agree. There are many museums where it can go. It mustn't be destroyed.

 

[Sherbang]

Can we get over the whole 'removing a statue = destroying history' thing, please?

It trivialises actual revisionist history, which is a real threat.

What do you mean? Has the accepted history of this country ever not been revisionist?
In fact, revising the history of this country might actually give us a more accurate history than we had before.

The unending quest of historians for understanding the past—that is, "revisionism"—is what makes history vital and meaningful. Without revisionism, we might be stuck with the images of Reconstruction after the American Civil War that were conveyed by D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation and Claude Bowers's The Tragic Era. Were the Gilded Age entrepreneurs "Captains of Industry" or "Robber Barons"? Without revisionist historians who have done research in new sources and asked new and nuanced questions, we would remain mired in one or another of these stereotypes. Supreme Court decisions often reflect a "revisionist" interpretation of history as well as of the Constitution.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism

Or here we might be stuck with a a picture of Shaka as a degenerate and pathological monster, as described by two eyewitness accounts written by European adventurer-traders. A picture which survives to this day as seen on myBB.

Most popular accounts are based on E. A. Ritter's novel Shaka Zulu (1955), a potboiling romance that was re-edited into something more closely resembling a history. John Wright (history professor at University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg), Julian Cobbing and Dan Wylie (Rhodes University, Grahamstown) are among a number of writers who have modified these stories.[17]

Various modern historians writing on Shaka and the Zulu point to the uncertain nature of Fynn and Isaac's accounts of Shaka's reign. A standard general reference work in the field is Donald Morris's "The Washing of The Spears", which notes that the sources, as a whole, for this historical era are not the best. Morris nevertheless references a large number of sources, including Stuart, and A. T. Bryant's extensive but uneven "Olden Times in Zululand and Natal", which is based on four decades of exhaustive interviews of tribal sources. After sifting through these sources and noting their strengths and weaknesses, Morris generally credits Shaka with a large number of military and social innovations, and this is the general consensus in the field.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaka#Scholarship_on_Shaka

 

[OrbitalDawn]

What do you mean? Has the accepted history of this country ever not been revisionist?
In fact, revising the history of this country might actually give us a more accurate history than we had before.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism

Or here we might be stuck with a a picture of Shaka as a degenerate and pathological monster, as described by two eyewitness accounts written by European adventurer-traders. A picture which survives to this day as seen on myBB.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaka#Scholarship_on_Shaka

Yes, I'm talking about this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism_(negationism)

 

[etienne_marais]

What do you mean? Has the accepted history of this country ever not been revisionist?
In fact, revising the history of this country might actually give us a more accurate history than we had before.

Yeah, like the current curriculum where the Great Trek never even happened. Nobody in this country is going to agree on historical perspective and as distinct cultural groupings we should separate to each preserve his own identity.

 

[Sherbang]

Yes, I'm talking about this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism_(negationism)

But the history of this country has always been distorted and illegitimate.
So you're worried about distorting a history that is already distorted?

 

[etienne_marais]

But the history of this country has always been distorted and illegitimate.
So you're worried about distorting a history that is already distorted?

In your perspective.

 

[ToxicBunny]

In your perspective.

He's not wrong, but I feel the the distortion and revisionism used to be less obvious than it is now..

 

[OrbitalDawn]

But the history of this country has always been distorted and illegitimate.
So you're worried about distorting a history that is already distorted?

Worried about it being distorted further. Revisions of previous distortions are good, further distortions are bad.

Are you being difficult because you're bored again?

 

[Nerfherder]

But the history of this country has always been distorted and illegitimate.
So you're worried about distorting a history that is already distorted?

Its distorted by the current context.

We need the perspective of time to understand history.

So like if no one cared about CJR his statue would eventually rust in to oblivion, the fact that someone has to tare it down means something.

 

[etienne_marais]

He's not wrong, but I feel the the distortion and revisionism used to be less obvious than it is now..

Historical perspective is heavily influenced by socio-political views and affinity or lack thereof to various grouping in South Africa. At least Apartheid-era education included black history and not in a derogatory way. Revisionism will only lead to writing the Afrikaner out of history and further the demonization process. If revisionism is ok, it should be ok to question the holocaust as well.