The Telegraph reports that Oxford’s Oriel College will take down the statue of Cecil Rhodes because of his colonial past:
Oxford’s Oriel College on Wednesday night recommended the removal of a controversial statue of Cecil Rhodes following an outcry over his links with Britain’s colonial past.
Amid an ongoing row over the statue paying tribute to the 19th century industrialist, who donated a huge sum to the College in his will, the governing body expressed their wish to remove the statue, following a five year campaign by students.
The move may pave the way for the removal of dozens of monuments at risk of being torn down in the name of anti-racism following the removal of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol.
Announcing it was launching an independent public inquiry into the key issues surrounding the statue, a statement by the College said: “The Governing Body of Oriel College has today voted to launch an independent Commission of Inquiry into the key issues surrounding the Rhodes statue.
“They also expressed their wish to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes and the King Edward Street Plaque. This is what they intend to convey to the Independent Commission of Inquiry.
“Both of these decisions were reached after a thoughtful period of debate and reflection, and with the full awareness of the impact these decisions are likely to have in Britain and around the world.”
Presumably they will also remove other statues from other Colleges at Oxford, and cease awarding the Rhodes scholarships forthwith.
I wonder too if the woke and the wonderful who are Rhodes Scholars from New Zealand will be approached by media to ask if they will renounce their degrees, and refund their scholarships since their scholarship was funded by a white supremacist colonialist.
Perhaps media could start with Bryan Gould (1962) and Felix Geiringer (1995). While they are asking Geiringer about it they might like to ask if he is thinking of changing his middle name, Egmont, who as First Lord of the Admiralty led the cause for discovery and ultimately colonisation of Australia and New Zealand.
Then they can go and ask Professor Sir David Skegg (1972), Chris Laidlaw (1968), James Belich (1978), Simon Upton (1981) and David Kirk (1985) if they will be handing theirs back too.
And since we are looking at dreadful racists, war-mongers, slave-owning, colonisers and sex pests, when are mosques being shut and torn down, given that their prophet was a war-mongering, slave-owning man who married and had sex with a child bride?
Islamic conquest and slave-owning continued as late as 1962 in places like Saudi Arabia. Why is there no revisionist history of the damage that Islamic colonisation caused, including slavery and genocide?
These woke wombles seem to have a lala-land view of European colonisation that only starts in the 17th Century and ignores all previous and non-European colonisation.
Rome not only colonised, they also conquered, subjugated and enslaved whole nations. But at the same time they brought the rule of law, health advantages and engineering excellence to those same nations, but mostly, a peace lasting for centuries. Do we wind back all human achievement because of a perceived taint in the past?
The destruction of Western Civilisation continues unabated, not by external forces or ideas but by rot and cowardice from within.
Does anyone think that the Chinese care about colonisation from Europeans as they wage economic colonisation right now?
Of course not. Same goes for Islam.
If you don’t fight for your way of life then get used to living under the jackboot of someone else’s way of life.