Piemom
1610
230
33
The Brits know how to handle the activists.
"Autres temps, autres moeurs"
other times, other customs
Stop judging past events by current mores
This ludicrous notion you have that a bronze statue of Cecil Rhodes should be removed from Oriel College, because it’s symbolic of “institutional racism” and “white slavery”. Well even if it is – which we dispute – so bloody what? Any undergraduate so feeble-minded that they can’t pass a bronze statue without having their “safe space” violated really does not deserve to be here.
Actually, we’ll go further than that. Your Rhodes Must Fall campaign is not merely fatuous but ugly, vandalistic and dangerous. We agree with Oxford historian RW Johnson that what you are trying to do here is no different from what ISIS and the Al-Qaeda have been doing to artefacts in places like Mali and Syria. You are murdering history.
http://www.snopes.com/oxford-letter-to-students/
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/dec/18/oxford-university-students-cecli-rhodes
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/oxford-rhodes-statue-rewriting-history_us_56967676e4b0b4eb759caef7
Foremole
+
YoSoyMilk
Shut the fuck up and go to class, PC warriors.
apiringLEO
Isn't this similar to taking down Confederate flags?
theblondie1
Someone please tell this to the people in New Orleans
phoenixsphinx
This campaign is headed by the guy getting money from the Rhodes stipendia. He is okay with that....
uponstrangeshores
Pity the south african universities didn't get it. They've vandalised tons of statues. Even some that had nothing to do with imperialism.
Slitch
Some of the students who protested this in South Africa are actually on a Rhodes scholarship.....
FwdReRe
Stephen Fry talks about this in an interview: https://youtu.be/eJQHakkViPo?t=6m10s (Starts 6m10s; Ends 8m22s).
Piemom
Infantilism
IIPhoenixII
They have a right to protest and the uni can tell them no. As long as they're not vandalising anything I don't see the harm in this
Brewster101
If you disrupt other student and classes with your protests it does
HowCanUsernamesBeRealIfMirrorsArentReal
Oh come on! When is it "okay" to protest, then? Between 7 and 8 pm, when everyone is safe at home?
Brewster101
People are paying to be there to learn. You're not getting payed, you're not discriminated against from the staff or students 1/
Brewster101
by a bloody statue than you don't have the mental capacity nor the maturity to be attending higher education 3/
Brewster101
than why are you disrupting a service they are paying for? Not everyone has their parents pay for their education. If you get offended 2/
Regulas
Well safe space is silly, but on the other hand Cecil kind of was an extreme supremacist.
ItTastesLikePurple
None of them are calling it "safe space", it's the new buzzword to talk shit on any college student they disagree with.
Regulas
When the term safe space is used it means they think the person is being overly sensitive.
ItTastesLikePurple
It's still a buzzword, as "overly sensitive" is subjective. You could say some people are too sensitive about keeping it.
Regulas
Overly sensitive in the sense that they lack the ability to tolerate something the presence or usage of something they dislike.
ItTastesLikePurple
No one's saying to erase him from history; they don't want him to still be venerated in such way and have the right to express their opinion
petgoats
Why would you want a statue of a slave owner? That's not exactly something you proudly display to everyone.
LazyPea
Because good accomplishments should always be heralded and not made any lesser by other acts by the same individual.
petgoats
Why not herald the accomplishment, but recognise his obvious mistakes?
LazyPea
Yeah you can recognise his mistakes, but Like Admiral Nelson, he wasn't a nice man but he still deserves his column.
LazyPea
It's like the American or British flag, how many people died for the countries to be successful? The flag doesn't represent those deaths.
petgoats
The flag also isn't a single person.
LazyPea
Just as a single person isn't represented by one action, the statue represents what he did for the uni, not all his actions he's ever done.
DamnedAustin
It's not about "safe spaces", it's about acknowledging that Mr. Rhodes was a key part of something that was incredibly harmful to many (1)
DamnedAustin
people. If we found out tomorrow that Martin Luther King Jr. was a serial baby murderer, you can bet your ass we'd be taking down statues(2)
FwdReRe
False analogue: We always knew what Rhodes did an believed in but if MLK was a known serial killer he would never have gained any prestige.
DamnedAustin
and renaming streets. Not because we are trying to protect ourselves from anything, but because we don't generally idolize people who (3)
DamnedAustin
who super shitty things. (4/4)
unhingedscrew
If somebody does something bad we shouldn't fully support them but you can't just dismiss anything positive they did either (1)
unhingedscrew
They took his statue down in Africa which is fair enough but it's still part of UK heritage so should stay up there. 2/2
BattyWhack
To compare this to ISIS is ridiculous and insulting to people actually suffering under ISIS.
uponstrangeshores
They're not talking about people, they're talking about this.http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/09/world/iraq-isis-heritage/index.html
BattyWhack
I know. It's ridiculous to compare changing values and voluntary change to destruction of one's cultural history.
uponstrangeshores
No no, they're comparing the destruction of monuments to, the destruction of monuments.
BattyWhack
To call the voluntary removal of statute in order to reflect changing values "destruction" is ridiculous.
uponstrangeshores
They've defaced and torched a dozen monuments, burned paintings and coated statues in human excrement.
Wimpymind
no it isnt. This is one of the sorts of thing ISIS are known for. Its a perfectly valid comparison. Dont need full overlap to do comparison.
BattyWhack
Isis is known for unilateral destruction, not asking for change because of changing values.
Wimpymind
I think its a fair comparison. Destruction of monuments that have historical significance. Its barbarism and should be treated as such.
BattyWhack
Removing a statute of someone you don't like isn't "destruction."
Wimpymind
oh fuck off you regressive crybaby. Go burn some more books.
TobySomething
Generally think these campaigns are silly, but why would it be okay to remove a statue of Hitler from a German university but not this one?
slurpuffeveryday
You've just made a lot of reasonable people stop and think, and a lot of unreasonable people defend Hitler. +1
Wimpymind
i doubt there are any statues of hitler on any german unis. If there are though, I would not be for removing them.
CanadianCanadianCanadian1
Because that's a major false equivalency.
BattyWhack
Can you explain?
CaptainDairylea
What Hitler did was not acceptable by his times standards whereas Rhodes was for his time holding acceptable views
petgoats
Does not make him innocent, or anyone of the time innocent.
CanadianCanadianCanadian1
It's not a matter of innocent or guilty. You can't put the past on trial. And comparing Rhodes to hitler is simply stupid.
CaptainDairylea
no but the counter argument to removing his statue is you cannot judge people by today's standards as views and values change
LazyPea
The statue is for his accomplishments, not everything he ever did or stood for.