#RhodesMustFall

Significant to Richard Keresemose Baholo’s artwork removals is the #RhodesMustFall movement, during which student activists protested against UCT’s colonial influence on the institution’s black African student population in March 2015. The protests were set off by one student throwing “[h]uman excrement” at the statue, after which “some participants engaged in disruptive behaviour” and violence (Konik & Konik, 2017: 1).

The protests resulted in the statue of Cecil John Rhodes being taken down from its stand and removed from the university campus in April 2015. The student activists posted on the Rhodes Must Fall website that “‘[w]hile this movement may have been sparked around the issue of the Rhodes [s]tatue [,] the existence of the statue is only one aspect of the social injustice of UCT. The fall of ‘Rhodes’ [the statue] is symbolic for the inevitable fall of white supremacy and privilege at our campus’” (quoted in Mudavanhu, 2017: 22).

Entrance to Otto Beit building

The absence of the Rhodes statue, with a shadow of the statue painted on the stairs

#Shackville

Roughly one year after #RhodesMustFall, a group of students closely associated with #RhodesMustFall initiated the #Shackville protests, the name having “an overt intertextual reference to the Sharpeville massacre” (Oxlund, 2016: 9). So entwined are the #Shackville protests with the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall movements, that they can in many ways be seen as a progression rather than as separate or static events. During #Shackville, which occurred between 15-16 February 2015, student activists protested against a lack of university accommodation for black students. The students “erected a shack on University Avenue to demonstrate the reality that often confronts black students who have not been allocated university accommodation and do not have the finances to pay for off-campus lodging” (Mudavanhu, 2017: 22). The protests informed part of the greater “de-colonisation project” (Students cited in Jurgens, 2016), which had been initiated by Rhodes Must Fall. Specifically, the students aimed to put into focus the fact that “white students were given preferential treatment” (Jurgens, 2016) over black students.

During #Shackville, “activists petrol-bombed the vice-chancellor’s office, threw human feces at students who were writing exams”, and “burned down four vehicles” (Oxlund, 2016: 9). Significantly, on the second day of the protest, 23 artworks were taken from various residential halls at the university campus, and publicly burned. Two of Baholo’s artworks are confirmed to have been burned during these protests (Jurgens, 2016). Soon after #Shackville, more than 70 artworks were removed from the university campus, a number of which were by Baholo.

Decolonisation: From a Colonial to a Post-Colonial Interpretation

The denotation of the term “decolonize” is given as follows in the Oxford Dictionary Online:

“(of a State) withdraw from (a colony), leaving it independent” (“Decolonize”, 2018)

The explanation that is given is unusual in several ways. The language that is used appears disjointed – much of the definition is bracketed, and the explanation reads incoherently. It appears to be a draft version of an idea rather than a final, decisive dictionary entry. The definition also ascribes agency to “a State” which enacts the process of decolonization, or “withdraw[al]”, thus leaving the colony in an “independent” state.

According to this phrasing, it is only the colonial power that can withdraw (note the capitalized “State”) and not the colonized territory (written in lowercase, and clearly occupying a passive role), which is also cast as a dependent territory by implication. If we take the dictionary definition at its word, independence is only thus achieved at the behest of the colonial power as it ‘withdraws’. There is no suggestion of revolution here; it is all very orderly and intentional. This is an example of how the totalising power of a dominant narrative can shape the meaning of a term, or set of terms, to match its view of the world.