SA student on Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford: “I’m using money stolen from my people.”
The Oxford wing of the #RhodesMustFall movement recently won a significant victory when 245 out of 457 students voted for the removal of the statue; and despite many people calling him a hypocrite for using Rhodes funding to get into the UK, the movement’s ringleader is standing firm.
Ntokozo Qwabe’s mission to ‘decolonize’ a foreign university seems to be gaining some momentum, with a student vote in favour of removing the Rhodes statue at Oxford’s Oriel College bringing him one step closer to forcing the university to ‘address the structures of exclusion’.
Now, while Rhodes is one thing, Qwabe’s cabal has indicated that the next target would be statues of Winston Churchill…
The #RhodesMustFall movement is coined as “an organisation determined to decolonise the space, the curriculum, and the institutional memory at, and to fight inter-sectional oppression within, Oxford”.
Qwabe, who’s in the UK thanks to the Rhodes Scholarship, has been causing quite a stir in the UK, after calling for the decolonisation of Oxford and the inclusion of more black people as lecturers at the University. During yesterday’s debate around whether the statue should be removed Qwabe came under increasing criticism as attendees branded him a hypocrite for accepting the funding and at the same time calling for the removal of the statue.
His response? “We are here to take back the money. We are here to at last have some dignity. I will not be told that I’m a hypocrite for taking money that was stolen from my people.”
“The statue is an emblem. We find it deplorable that only 24 black British students were accepted last year into undergraduate body. It’s not just about the statue.” It’s unclear whether Qwabe had access to how many black students actually applied for undergraduate positions at the university, but hey…
Last week Oxford University’s chancellor, Lord Patten, said that if students had a problem with Rhodes’ legacy as part of history they “should think about studying elsewhere.” This, unfortunately is not an option for Qwabe as he’s no doubt on a student visa dependent on his studies at Oxford and would be required to leave the UK should he be unable to continue his studies there.
Patten also suggested that those who are not interested in healthy debate should “study in China” where they have no regard for Western Values… perhaps they should try their hand at bringing down the statues of communist China’s heroes and see where it gets them.