Adviser says Rhodes report ‘buried’

Cecil Rhodes caused the deaths of more than 20,000 African people and his statue should come down in light of research findings that he was a ‘‘more brutal figure than previously thought’’, according to one of Oxford University’s leading historians.

William Beinart, a former professor of race relations at the university, and the historical adviser to a commission appointed by Oriel College on whether to remove Rhodes’ statue from its college plinth, said the magnate’s company violently annexed much of what is now Zimbabwe using machineguns, dynamite and scorched-earth policies, leading to the 20,000-plus death toll.

Beinart, emeritus professor at St Antony’s College, wants his research evidence, which he says has been ‘‘buried’’ in an annexe to the commission’s report, sent to all Oxford’s alumni and a vote held on the future of the statue. His intervention threatens to pit the university directly against Boris Johnson’s government.

Asked to consider the historical evidence about claims from activists that Rhodes was responsible for genocide, Beinart found that during the colonisation of Zimbabwe by Rhodes’ British South Africa company,

machineguns were used to mow down Africans, dynamite was dropped into caves where men, women and children were sheltering, and villages and crops were razed to the ground. Beinart studied 11 attacks, but says many more should be investigated.

The historian found that the politician and businessman, who made his fortune from diamond mining in southern Africa, brought in taxes for black people only, backed segregation in sports such as cricket, and advocated policies that cut the number of black voters in the Cape Colony, where he was prime minister.

Now South African-born Beinart says Oxford dons must stand up to the government and apply for planning permission to take down the statue, which he says is ‘‘imbued with a noxious history’’. He says it should be placed in a museum where visitors can read about Rhodes’ deeds. Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, has said he will introduce legislation to protect statues from being toppled by ‘‘baying mobs’’.

‘‘Rhodes was more strongly committed to racial segregation and more brutal than previously thought,’’ Beinart said. ‘‘In the light of the evidence, my view is that the college should not retain a prominent celebratory statue on Oxford’s high street – Oriel’s face on to the world – for someone who was responsible for extreme violence on the land of the people he was conquering and dispossessing. He is directly responsible for racial segregation, violence, conquest and land appropriation, as well as exploitative relationships in the mining companies that he controlled.’’

As a former imperial training ground, Oxford is ‘‘strewn’’ with tributes to the great men of the British Empire, Beinart added. ‘‘In contrast, the histories of conquest, famine and dispossession that these men left in their wake are routinely forgotten.’’

The commission, appointed by Oriel last month, failed to reach unanimous agreement on whether to remove the statue. Most of the commissioners recommended its removal but pointed out the difficulties, including the need to get planning permission and the fact that Jenrick would have the final say.

After reading the commission’s report, Oriel’s governing body announced that the statue should stay for the time being because it would take too long and cost too much to remove.

It said it was establishing a ‘‘taskforce’’ to look at how to ‘‘retain and explain’’ the statue, such as adding a plaque.

Last month more than 150 Oxford dons, including the acting head of one Oxford college and some of the university’s bestknown professors, said they would boycott Oriel in protest at its decision to keep the statue.

This weekend Danny Dorling, professor of geography at Oxford, one of the professors who has joined the boycott of Oriel, said the statue would eventually fall, even if it took a decade.

‘‘For someone like me, supporting the boycott in effect means not taking up invitations to go to events such as conferences held in that college – basically saying no to invitations like that,’’ Dorling said.

‘‘The statue was opposed by academics when it was first put up. People have been protesting about Rhodes in Oxford for 122 years now. I suspect they will continue to do so until the statue is removed.’’

Students began calling for Oriel to remove the Rhodes statue in 2015, inspired by a campaign to topple another Rhodes statue at the University of Cape Town.

The movement was given added impetus after the murder of George Floyd by a policeman in the US in May last year.

The University of Cape Town removed its statue in 2015, a month after its student protest began. – Sunday Times