Anger at Rhodes is disingenuous and misdirected

More than a hundred years have passed since that fateful morning in 1901. But it is not only the years that have passed. The memories have already passed away, as did those who survived to tell the story. Those events now only live on in the knowledge of the descendants who interest their own lineage...

Under a cloud of thick black smoke, a wagon was slowly creaking towards the nearest British camp. Behind it roared the torturing sound of fire engulfing the farmhouse and kraal. The smell of ash would soon be replaced by the stench of decaying livestock, butchered to ensure that the farmer would not be able to continue with life as he knew it, once the war was over. This seemed an ample punishment for this Free State farmer's crime of defending his people by taking up arms against invasion by the mighty British Empire. But at that moment Christiaan Ernst Roets was not aware of the condition of his farm, nor the fate of his family.

As the wagon rolled on, other wagons joined it from surrounding Afrikaner farms. But I can only tell you the story about this one wagon, because it is the only one I know. On this wagon was Kotie Roets, the wife of Christiaan Ernst and the granddaughter of Sarel Cilliers, a well-known religious leader during the Great Trek. She was accompanied by two co-captives, her children. The youngest was about three years old. His name was Sarel Arnoldus Roets, my great grandfather.

As the wagon proceeded, Kotie realised that some of the other wagons were stuck in a ditch in the road ahead, so she devised a plan. She casually reminded her two children of a cave near the banks of the Vaal River. The plan was to jump from the wagon on her signal as soon as she saw that the guards were not watching. They were to run as fast as they could in opposing directions and rendezvous at the cave at dusk.

Miraculously, the plan worked. They found each other that evening and survived from sweet potatoes while living in that cave for an amount of days unknown to me. My ancestors survived. Others were not so lucky. In fact, more than 34 000 women and children lost their lives as a result of starvation in British concentration camps in the two years that followed. This scorched earth policy was implemented by Lord Kitchener, a direct result of British expansionism, as propagated by Cecil John Rhodes. Had the young Sarel Roets not escaped, his entire descendancy would have been obliterated in an instant and I would never have been born.

Needless to say, I did not grow up in a family that taught me about the great contributions that the likes of Cecil John Rhodes had made to make South Africa a better place. I have never laid eyes on his notorious statue at the University of Cape Town (UCT), not because I refuse to do so, but because I have never felt the urge to. I never knew that Rhodes donated his fortune to the setting up of UCT, now recognised as one of the best universities in the world.

But despite this, I knew better than to rejoice in the news that an angry Ikey student defecated on the statue, nor the campaign to have it removed from campus. Instead, I am convinced that the tears that have allegedly been shed as a result of the so-called pain that this statue is causing is a disingenuous attempt to hide a racist agenda - an agenda that results from the immense double standards that have manifested in post-1994 South Africa.

I believe this, because I gather from news reports that campaigns for the removal of this statue have been inundated with racial slogans and anti-white sentiment. In fact, I believe that these students are attempting to commit a deed of cultural plagiarism. It is disingenuous to call for the removal of Rhodes' statue, because you have a problem with his legacy, but at the same time, to continue reaping the fruit of this very legacy by studying at the university that he built. If these activists were truly angry about Rhodes' legacy, they should never have enrolled at UCT, or should have called for the destruction of the entire university, not the statue.

I also believe this because, as far as I could determine, none of these activists, nor any of the university leaders, intellectuals, opinion formers, politicians or commentators that support their cause, have taken the slightest attempt to decry the South African government's recent renaming of streets, stadiums and towns after black leaders whose atrocities were equal to those committed by the likes of Rhodes.

The recent renaming of Amanzimtoti's main street from King Street to Andrew Zondo Street is one case in point. On 23 December 1985, this ANC Youth League member planted a bomb in the street's Sanlam Shopping Centre. Three women and two children were killed and 40 more civilians were injured. Zondo admitted that his motivation was "racial" and was angry about the fact that so few people had been killed. Zondo has since been venerated as a hero of the ANC and while the families of some of his murdered victims still live in Amanzimtoti, he has been honoured by having the main street - the street in which his crime took place - renamed after him.

Another example is the Peter Mokaba stadium in Polokwane, built especially for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Mokaba was known for little else than the fact that he was an angry anti-white activist who campaigned that HIV and AIDS do not exist (a disease of which he died soon thereafter) and for his repeated chanting of a so-called ANC struggle song, "Kill the Boer, kill the farmer". The song has since been declared hate speech and a convicted murderer named Ntuthuko Chuene has even testified that he has been influenced by Mokaba to kill white people simply because of the colour of their skin.

AfriForum's concern about the hero-worshipping of people like Zondo and Mokaba was like a lone voice in the wilderness. None of these commentators who now agree that the Rhodes statue has to be removed, dared to agree on Zondo or Mokaba. This is a blatant case of political double standards, of racism in disguise.

The point is that South Africa has been suffering from a severe case of transformation hangover for the last 20 years. At a recent government summit on name changes, I enquired about the meanings of "cause of pain" and "offensiveness" by symbols and place names, with reference to the pain caused by Andrew Zondo Street to the families of those he murdered. I was told that pain is indeed subjective and consequentially that it would always be up to the "majority" to decide what "pain" is and that the "minority" would have to accept it and keep quiet. This is of course coming from an ANC that has frequently argued that the word "majority" means "black" and that "minority" is a code word for "whites".

That is why, despite my strong personal opinions regarding Cecil John Rhodes, I sincerely believe that the debate regarding the Rhodes statue is not constructive, because it occurs within a milieu of gross double standards, disingenuous "pain", and anger that is misdirected.

Ernst is Deputy CEO at AfriForum

Follow Ernst on Twitter at @ernstroets

An edited version of this article first appeared in City Press.

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