Oxford University Will Keep Statue of Cecil Rhodes
By STEPHEN CASTLE

LONDON — An outspoken group of students wanted to pull it down, and many alumni wanted it to stay. For months, the authorities at Oxford University have struggled with an awkward dilemma over the fate a statue of Cecil Rhodes, an imperialist benefactor seen by many as an architect of apartheid.

Now, after a vigorous debate, Oriel College, one of 38 largely self-governing colleges at Oxford, has decided it will keep the monument to its famous, if divisive, former student.

In a statement released late Thursday, the college said that it had received more than 500 comments on the subject and that “the overwhelming message we have received has been in support of the statue remaining in place, for a variety of reasons.”

“Following careful consideration,” the statement continued, “the college’s Governing Body has decided that the statue should remain in place, and that the college will seek to provide a clear historical context to explain why it is there.”

The decision represents a defeat for a group of students who had sought to follow the example of their counterparts at the University of Cape Town, who last year achieved the removal of a statue of Rhodes.

The petition and protest in Oxford had provoked an intense discussion about whether Britain’s colonial past should be judged by contemporary standards, and whether Rhodes should be remembered more as a ruthless colonialist or as a benefactor.

The dispute was characterized on one side as an exercise in political correctness and a desire to erase history, and on the other as a test of the university’s willingness to acknowledge the sensitivities and values of minority students.

Rhodes died in 1902, and his educational legacy includes a prestigious scholarship that bears his name. About 8,000 Rhodes scholars — including a former Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, who said removing the statue would be an act of “moral vanity,” and former President Bill Clinton — have studied at Oxford thanks to the program set up with money left by Rhodes.

On Friday, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported that a leaked copy of a report prepared for the governors said that wealthy alumni were angered by the “shame and embarrassment” brought on the college by efforts to take down the statue, and that donations were at stake.

The college now fears that a proposed gift of 100 million pounds, or $143 million, “to be left in the will of one donor — is now in jeopardy,” the newspaper reported.

The group behind the campaign to remove monuments to Rhodes reacted angrily to the college’s announcement, describing it as “outrageous, dishonest and cynical.”

“This is not over,” the group, Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford, said on its Facebook page. “We will be redoubling our efforts and meeting over the weekend to discuss our next actions,” it said, adding that “the struggle continues!”

Last year, Brian Kwoba, a doctoral student, told the newspaper The Independent that Rhodes was responsible for “stealing land, massacring tens of thousands of black Africans, imposing a regime of unspeakable labor exploitation in the diamond mines and devising pro-apartheid policies.”

“The significance of taking down the statue is simple,” he added. “Cecil Rhodes is the Hitler of southern Africa. Would anyone countenance a statue to Hitler?”

But R. W. Johnson, an author who is an emeritus fellow of Magdalen College at Oxford, compared the campaign to remove the monument to what Al Qaeda and the Islamic State “are doing in places like Mali when destroying statues.”

“They are destroying historical artifacts and defacing them,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “I think you have got to respect history. In addition, there are many people in history that are far worse than Rhodes.”

Born in 1853, Rhodes attended Oriel College in the 1870s before founding the De Beers diamond empire in South Africa, where he rose to be prime minister of what was then the Cape Colony, from 1890 to 1896.

Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, was named after Rhodes, but he was also known for beginning racial segregation in southern Africa and for his belief in the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race.

This month, Oxford University’s vice chancellor, Louise Richardson, told The Financial Times that the discussion was “a distraction from the much bigger issues.”

“What’s positive about this whole Rhodes Must Fall movement is that it’s drawing attention to our history,” she said. “We need to confront our history. We can’t pretend it didn’t happen, and I think if this encourages students to go to the Bodleian and look at the archives of the Rhodes period, there are some fabulous archives there both about colonialism and about the contemporary anti-Rhodes movement when he was alive.”

牛津不拆他的雕像引學生反彈 羅德到底是誰？

法新社報導，英國牛津大學奧里爾學院（Oriel College ）不理會學生的抗議，決定不拆除19世紀英國帝國主義商人羅德（Cecil Rhodes）的雕像。

奧里爾學院29日發表聲明說：「在審慎考慮之後，學院的管理當局已經決定，這座雕像應留在原位。我們得到的絕大多數訊息支持雕像留在原位。」

英國每日電訊報之前報導，由於雕像拆除與否未定，奧里爾學院已有1500萬英鎊捐款被取消，一些校友把該學院從遺囑中刪除，因此該學院擔心拆掉雕像後將失去一億英鎊捐款。不過奧里爾學院發言人堅稱「財務影響絕不是最主要考量。」

如同許多帝國主義英國的締造者，羅德為白人至上主義者，創建戴比爾斯（De Beers）鑽石公司，並以他的姓氏為英國領地羅德西亞（Rhodesia）命名，也就是今天的辛巴威和尚比亞。而羅德也是奧里爾學院的捐款人，並設立羅德獎學金，幫助非英籍學生，美國前總統柯林頓和澳洲前總理艾伯特在牛津就讀時都曾受惠。

一項旨在扳倒羅德雕像的運動「羅德必須倒下」（Rhodes Must Fall），去年成功促使南非開普敦大學拆除校園內的羅德雕像。受到這項運動的影響，許多牛津學生反對羅德雕像繼續矗立在牛津市中心。

「羅德必須倒下」團體表示，奧里爾學院的決定「令人憤怒」，「抗爭還沒結束，我們將加倍努力，周末將開會決定接下來的行動。」

主張拆除雕像的2014年羅德獎學金得主、南非籍的夸貝說：「這個決定提醒我們，在牛津，黑人的命不值錢。」反對拆雕像的人士警告，這麼做將改寫歷史。南非最後一任白人總統戴克拉克上月投書英國泰晤士報，稱拆雕像的計畫「愚蠢」，他表示「如果今天的政治正確無限上綱，那麼牛津的偉大人物之中沒幾個通得過審查。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/world/europe/oxford-university-oriel-college-cecil-rhodes-statue.html

2016-01-30．聯合報．A17．國際．編譯田思怡