The Rhodes Statue : what’s the big stink?

Guest writer Johan Van Eksteen braves the internet once more to bring us another serving of truth. Today’s topic on the menu: the Cecil John Rhodes statue at UCT. Should it be removed?

Friends, I want to be clear about one thing: when I saw this story pop up in my newsfeed, I had to take a step back, and think logically. You know, emotion is a powerful thing. Ya, sometimes when you’re angry it can be a good thing, like, if you clearly asked for Peppersteak sauce and the chick brings you Monkeygland; but we can’t forget that our emotions can also blind us.

Not literally though. You’d need extensive corneal damage for that to happen, for example from staring at the sun, or accidentally mistaking that bottle of Hydrogen peroxide for the similar bottle of contact lens solution you keep on the same shelf for some reason, or even just from reading the stupid comments on my wall about this story.

And how much emotion there was! It was a real hotpot debate; it mixed all the well-loved elements of many famous South African ‘debates’: Race, history, apartheid, race, privilege, race, racial privilege, politics and race.

So I had to take a few days to think. To let the air clear: not just because I wanted to talk sense to you guys, but also because that kak stank to high heaven, and it needed a day or two for the cleaning staff to get the air on the Jammie stairs breathable once more.

And what I think I’ve decided is that it’s not time to break out the sledgehammers just yet.

It looks nice

So before we ask ourselves what position the inevitable replacement Nelson Mandela statue should be in, we need to ask ourselves: what is this statue all about?

First of all, the statue is "flippen’ kiff" as my son would probably say. Just look at it. I don’t care what people say about his “legacy of horror” and his “merry band of genocidal racist maniac henchmen”, just look at that bronze and brass, set in magnificent foreboding concrete. Look at the eternal expression etched into his face. That’s a face that means business - exactly the kind of person we want our Uni kids to be, instead of flippen’ spending my flippen’ money getting drunk all the time and pretending it’s “because of tuition and expensive textbooks”.

If we ignore what the story books say and don’t think “shit ya this oke was pretty bad”, it’s just a statue.

Change is expensive

Secondly, demolishing or breaking down the statue will be expensive, even if we use the cheapest low-class labour operating without Union protection. Hell, even if we put together a workgang of terrified, easy-to-control illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe and Malawi who won't say boo to a goose for fear of being deported back to their respective hellholes and tell them "enda lapa na breaki lo statue faga naconcrete lapaside", we’re still looking at spending thousands of Rands that could be better spend elsewhere. Like on funding a cool society that throws cool parties.

I myself went to university, and I can tell you that my knowledge and respect for Hellenic Culture and the great legacy of the Greek people grew and grew with every shot of Zorba and each toga party. Do we want to deny our children this opportunity?

Should we ‘photoshop’ History?

Like it or not, Rhodes was a part of our history. I can admit, it would be nice to remove all painful reminders of our past – just like how I wish I could erase my ex-wife’s Facebook profile, or the sms notifications I get from people commenting on stories like this - but painful reminders of our harsh past can make us better people. I remember once I beheaded a beloved family pet using a rusty panga, and I can tell you that the awful dreams mean I probably won't do it to Fido 2.0. Unless he also eats my entire bag of biltong and there's nothing in the fridge by carrotsticks.

But if we do decide Rhodes Must Fall - if we start with this one statue - who knows how far this will go? Ya, lots of people like to pretend that we don’t have to pick between two polarised, binary extreme opposites – that there’s space for a nuanced middleground between the two sides – but we all know that’s a lie.

What’s to stop okes smashing sculptures of past presidents? What will stop them rioting en masse and utterly demolishing the Union Buildings, the Parliamentary buildings, or even beheading someone who shares a surname with any of these notorious historical figures?

And what about the pictures of our esteemed President hanging in every government building? Has there ever been so vivid a daily reminder of how we are less than garbage, a populace of taxpaying buffoons who are subjected to a hateful regime on a daily basis? What about those bloody liberals polluting our country and my Twitter feed? Why do we let these slide; where do we draw the line?

In any case, removing the statue is totally unnecessary – if you want our children to grow up in a South Africa free of reminders of our painful past and our difficult, divided society, well, Zuma and Motshekga are doing a bang-up job by making History books and a decent education a thing of the past. We're entering a bright future where our children won't even know who these people are.

Besides, I think we can all admit: photoshop is hard.

However, I’d be an idiot not to admit that the protestors had some great points. I was reading a survey done by UCT recently, and they found that by simply knocking down this one statue we can end all racism and hatred everywhere. In the past, in places like Iraq and Ukraine, simply knocking down a statue has led to an immediate increase in democracy and peace.

What the protestors did was not only make me ask myself hard questions about the things I don’t like in society, they also gave me the means to get tonnes of media coverage and protest around it. In fact, just this morning I had a huge breakfast, and for lunch I had the Double-cheese-Zinger Double-Down hot-wing combo with extra hot sauce at KFC, and I’m cooking up a pretty huge protest against Woolworths as we speak.

But friends, doesn’t this make you think how it could all escalate out of control? Ya, I know some people think that it’s a worrying sign that it took so extreme a form of protest just to get mentioned somewhere other than the UCT twitter community, that it's a disconcerting indication of how marginalised views can be ignored by mainstream media unless extreme measures are taken - but once throwing poo at something goes out of fashion, what next?

I live in constant fear of what the next step up from “giant bucket of diarrhoea” is. Perhaps the next time we see Mr Maxwele in the news he will be voiding his past three meals though every possible orifice, simultaneously crapping, vomiting, urinating and ejaculating all over the stony, oppressive artefacts of white arrogance.

In conclusion, I think what I’m trying to say is that it’s easy to understand why everyone gets so upset. These are serious topics we're talking about - but like with any other respectful, calm debate on the slow-to-anger, understanding and compassionate Internet, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and we should respect that. It's only right that I treat your wrong opinion with the dignity and consideration that I would give to any other foaming-mouthed vituperative and utterly narrow-minded gibberish-spewing idiot whose opinions make me uncomfortable or force me to ask myself difficult, troubling questions.

But what I can't abide is this childish poo-flinging. I mean, I always thought UCT students liked the smell of their own shit, but in public, on their statues?

Sies. Come now.

Johan is a guest columnist at Muse and Abuse. Widely renowned for his non-nonsense approach to controversial topics, Johan shines a blinding light of truth on subjects like why white people should vote ANC, why Blackface isn't the real racist problem in SA, and how Black Privilege is an ugly truth that no one wants to admit.