Not Andy Naylor
Well-known member
I agree. A group of students in Oxford decided that they were offended by a statue of Cecil Rhodes outside Oriel College and campaigned for its removal. Now Rhodes was a white supremacist and exploited black people, no question, but he also did some good things, such as endowing Rhodes Scholarships that enable students from other countries to study at Oxford - including, ironically, the person leading the battle against the statue.
What was strange was that very few people had even noticed the statue before all this blew up as it was very high up on the High Street frontage of the college, but Oriel College agreed to remove it and put it somewhere less prominent. What nobody seemed to think of was the Latin inscription that remains, next to where the statue once was, which explains who Rhodes was and celebrates his life. But I imagine that's because Oxford scholarship isn't what it was and their Latin wasn't up to translating it.
Be that as it may, many then criticised Oriel for surrendering to a few shouty students rather than standing up for the view that history is history and if reminders of inconvenient truths are hidden away then what happened is forgotten. I think I agree with that. Maybe the answer is to keep the statues, but put them in a place where they can be observed but not celebrated - rather like what happened in former communist countries when statues of Lenin and co were removed from plinths in city centres and moved to 'sculpture parks' like one in Moscow, which is full of nothing but images of Marx, Trotsky and the rest of the gang.
