RHODES MUST FALL CAMPAIGN – by Dianna Tafazoli

The Rhodes Must Fall Campaign has been successful in having the statute of Cecil Rhodes removed from Cape Town University in South Africa.  Cecil Rhodes is known by many as the philanthropist behind the Rhodes Scholarship and perhaps the naming of the country of Rhodesia after himself.  Cecil Rhodes was a multifaceted man with one of his labels being that of an ardent racist.  For that reason the Rhodes Must Fall Campaign is on a quest to erase his name and image from as many places as possible.  With their success in South Africa a campaign is now being waged to remove the life size statute of Cecil Rhodes that stands in front of the Rhodes building at England’s Oxford University.

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The University has formed a committee to study the request to remove the Rhodes statute and it is not known on which side they will come down on.  Recently, the Mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, led the charge to remove four confederate statutes from Tivoli Circle formerly known as Lee Circle which celebrated the likes of Lee, and G. T. Bauregard.  If the impetus is to remove the statutes of all racist minded individuals who stand in our states, towns, cities, countries and nations, there is a lot of work to be done.  The effort might add to the much needed jobs which would boost the economy, but will it change how people think?

Depending on how far we want to drill down, we might have to remove some U.S. Presidents from the rolls of great Americans along with renaming that huge building that sits on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC – J. Edgar Hoover.  The effort to remove his name has been tried before put it didn’t get much mileage -maybe this is the right time to try it again.  I would be in favor of removing both Hoover and Rhodes from the annals of history but when I began to speak about my very deep animus against Cecil Rhodes then I would have no reference point.

I agree that neither man needs to be memorialized in stone, but they are a part of history be they on this side of the globe or on another side.  How can we speak of or demonstrate the perils of racism and inequality if we erase history.  I am not for celebrating evil men and women at any time in history but I am for identifying them and educating about them so as to avoid their rising again.  I applaud the efforts of Mayor Landrieu because his and the efforts of the Rhodes Must Fall Campaign are clearly an awakening and an awareness that there are good people in the world who sincerely care about correcting an evil and honoring the being of every person irrespective of their pigmentation, their religious beliefs or who they chose to love.

I was wondering what kind of gift could I give to the nation without being uneven.  Mayor Landrieu and The Rhodes Must Fall Campaign solved my problem.  My gift to the nation is “never close your mind to an idea that might just inspire mankind to promote fairness and equality.”

P. S.  Always Remember to Share What You Know.

Dianna Tafazoli

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