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Legacy

Cecil Rhodes | Must Rhodes Fall? | 4

Legacy

Wondery

History, News, Society & Culture, News Commentary

3.9696 Ratings

🗓️ 3 January 2024

⏱️ 36 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

More than a century after Rhodes' death students in South Africa and Britain thrust his name back into the spotlight. Should statues of colonialists like him be torn down? And, in Africa, how is Rhodes' legacy felt today?

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello, welcome to Legacy for the final part of our series on Cecil Rhodes.

0:12.7

In our last episode, we told you how Rhodes became Zimbabwe. That should have been the final nail in the coffin of Rhodes' legacy, right?

0:21.5

Wrong. I think it's fair to say. The legacy of Cecil Rhodes almost immediately continues in living,

0:28.9

breathing communities, and not just in Zimbabwe, but in South Africa, too.

0:33.2

In South Africa, you'll find the University of Cape Town, or UCT, as it's more commonly known.

0:38.9

It's a gorgeous, beautiful campus set against the backdrop of Table Mountain National Park.

0:44.3

As you approach the granite stairs leading to the main campus, you'll see a statue of Cecil John

0:50.0

Rhodes, modelled on Roders the thinker. Have you seen that statue afterward?

0:53.9

I have. I've seen that statue afterward? I have.

0:54.7

I've seen that statue at the University of Cape Town before it was pulled down, spoiler alert.

0:59.6

And it really has a presence that's almost difficult to describe.

1:05.5

It feels like he is the intellectual beating heart of the university.

1:10.8

That statue becomes a symbol of a movement that will come to give us a very contemporary conversation, debate, argument, battle, you could even say, over the legacy of Rhodes.

1:25.5

Down roads down!

1:26.8

You should have been discussing the removal of Rhodes. Down roads down! Down roads down!

1:28.9

You should have been discussing the removal of the Cecil John Road statue 20 years ago.

1:34.5

Rose must fall.

1:36.0

Roads must go.

1:37.1

We're here today to protest for the removal of the Cecil John Road statue,

1:42.0

but more importantly because of what it symbolizes, which is a lack of transformation,

1:47.0

and how the statue symbolizes so much of a disruptive violent history.

1:58.0

9th of April 2015, University of Cape Town, South Africa.

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