FIRST they came for the statues. Last year students in Cape Town sparked national protests by calling on the University of Cape Town (UCT) to remove a statue of Cecil Rhodes, a Victorian imperialist who, like most Englishmen of his time, held racist views. The statue was removed but students were still angry. Many marched on South Africa’s parliament to complain about high college fees, among other things. That prompted a cash-strapped government not to raise fees after all.
Protests about statues of dead racists soon spread around the world. Students demanded that Oriel College, Oxford take down its statue of Rhodes. (It refused.) The University of Texas at Austin has moved a bronze of Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy’s president, and will put it in a museum.
Meanwhile, back in Cape Town, UCT students starting a new academic year after the long summer break were quick to resume protests, this time over gripes such as not having enough spaces in university dormitories. They stormed through the campus grabbing artworks and burning them. Most of the paintings they heaped on a bonfire were portraits of white historical figures. They were,...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/1Oi5ITi
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