Robert Randolph: We came to bury Cecil, not to praise Him
Rhodes statue in Cape Town. It has since been taken down.
We did not know it beforehand, but, once in Oxford, we soon realized that we had come to the 120 Anniversary Reunion to attend the interment of the old myth of the beneficent Founder who created scholarships for the best and brightest of the Anglosphere to study at Oxford. While living in the various colleges with our British peers, we would become anglicized and then “go down” to our countries of origin to wage “the World’s Fight”. In our time, the “world’s fight” was very personal, not global, as we understood that the battle would be waged in the context of a chosen profession or course of action –whether law, business, medicine, academia, science, military service, politics and, even, “social justice warrioring” – where we would strive for achievement in our respective careers and do our part to make the world a better place.
Although the Founder did not realize his ambition to bring the United States into the Commonwealth, the good will generated for Great Britain, and its Commonwealth, probably played some part in our intervention on the side of the British during their two “world’s fight” against the Germans in 1914-1918 and 1939-1945.
When applying for the scholarship and studying at Oxford thereafter, most were only vaguely aware that the Founder had been a ruthless businessman and colonial expansionist who extracted the wealth of Africa, while allegedly keeping his workforce in near-servitude, and used his ill-gotten gains to start wars with the natives, including the Boers, and finance the seizure of African lands from the Cape to Cairo While we scholars may have been cognizant of some of this unpalatable history, one could still be permitted to understand his previous behavior as that of a “man of his time” who had left an enduring educational legacy of inestimable value which would be open to all regardless of race or religion.
Upon arrival in Oxford on June 28, 2023, we were met head-on with the new message that Rhodes’s romanticized “legacy” was problematic and that our new charge was to acknowledge Cecil’s past misdeeds in a spirit of self-abnegation and, then, seek absolution by embarking upon a purifying pilgrimage of “legacy, equity, and inclusion”, occasionally referred to at Rhodes House as “radical inclusion.” To drive the point home, the Rhodes Trust organized “uncomfortable Oxford” tours where the guide would stop in front of the Rhodes statue atop Oriel College to talk about the “Rhodes Must Fall” demonstrations of 2015 and read the indictment of the Founder’s many crimes and misdeeds. We understood then that we had come not to praise Cecil, but to bury him.
Our new journey begins with our realization that Rhodes’s past misdeeds cast a shadow upon the Rhodes Trust which must be acknowledged and repaired, presumably with reparations, before we can move forward with our mission of eradicating systemic racism, white supremacy and the legacies of slavery, imperialism, and colonialism.
The Reunion began with a tour of the reimagined Rhodes House which by design will metamorph into the central convening space of the University with the Trust becoming senior host to a “Fellowship of Fellowships” which is being reimagined to grow beyond the current coterie of partners—The Atlantic Foundation, Mandela-Rhodes, Schmidt Science Fellows, Harris-Manchester College (for mid-career and post career education) and Rise (life-time stipends for high schoolers with “promise”. One might view the expansion as 21 st century “empire building” where “hyphenation” will dispel the shadow created by the legacy.
In the reimagined Rhodes House Garden, attendees encountered a field of four-foot-high globes telling the story of enslavement, imperialism, colonialism, and white supremacy associated with the Rhodes legacy. Attendees were informed by explanatory signing that “Black History is our History,” the embrace of which will enable the Trust and scholars to understand “the difficult reality and legacy of our founding” and join in the struggle for legacy, equity, inclusion and the eradication of systemic racism, imperialism, and white supremacy. The signage suggests that the current purpose of the scholarship is to create a legion of social justice warriors who will leave Oxford on a mission to create a bright new world in pursuit of “racial equity”. These are laudable aspirations, but perhaps not what the Founder had in mind.
In many ways the 120 Anniversary could be likened to a National Congress of the Peoples Republic of China where the delegates are summoned, not to debate and decide the future of the Party, but to get their message and marching orders going forward. The Plenary was opened by Bill Clinton who gave his usual charming overview of his time at Oxford and his reprise of his big tent definition of inclusion where all were welcomed regardless of skin color, ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, or other dividers. Significantly, while celebrating inclusion, Clinton never mentioned diversity or equity. He also did an amusing and instructive riff on democracy where he said that he loved being President and would have loved being President of the USA for life, but knew that “Presidents for life” use coercion and the creation of internal divisiveness to keep themselves in power which ultimately results in dictatorship, disaster, and perdition.
After Clinton finished his speech, we learned more about the “reimagine” initiative to make Rhodes House the central convening institution of the University where a “Fellowship of Fellowships” will establish the interconnectivity that will change the world. Rhodes House “will become a world-class facility for gathering, learning, collaborating and sharing”. The launching of the revolutionary “Exponential Potential” campaign will enable the Trust to assemble the best and brightest “un-like-minded” people from all over the world whose potential will be exponentially magnified by “network effects” to solve the world’s many problems.
The “Exponential Potential” initiative is being driven by the current Warden, now designated as CEO of the Rhodes Trust. We were told that she very rarely interacts one- on-one with the scholars in residence and spends most of her time away from Oxford raising funds for the reimagined concepts. At the end of the Brochure describing the “Exponential Potential” concept, there is a pitch for money for the project. There was no toast to the Founder at the Gala dinner Saturday night.
In closing, let me say that not everyone is happy with the current direction of the Rhodes Trust. During our time at Oxford, the central focus of the educational experience was the college where our tutors taught us how to think, not told us what to think. Now the central focus for the resident scholars is Rhodes House where there is an initial indoctrination in subjects like unconscious bias and sexual assault, an agreement to a code of conduct which all incoming scholars must sign, and an apparent group commitment to the principles of legacy-equity-inclusion. The initial impression is that current scholars are being told what to think, rather than learning how to think. If our era was more akin to the enlightenment; then the dramatic changes taking place currently at Rhodes House look more like 1789 and 1917.
During the last six months a group of scholars have coalesced to form an organization, “The Rhodes Alliance”, to express our displeasure with the current direction of the Rhodes Trust, the denigration of the Founder and deviation from the principle of non-discrimination that was central to Rhodes’s vision of the selection process; and to lobby other scholars, national chairs and the Board of Trustees for a return to the original vision of the Founder.
In our view, there are many at the 120 th who were only dimly aware, if at all, of the wrong turn that the Trust has taken and who will, now, support the efforts of the Alliance “to restore the Scholarship to its traditional purpose of selecting young people who have demonstrated outstanding achievement and have the potential to be leaders in the service of freedom, democracy and peace.”
Robert Randolph - Virginia and Magdalen, 1967