Here is a disclaimer before you continue reading this article, I am not a politician or an activist or a political analyst for that matter, I am far from a political philosopher or a cultural critic, although I do fancy myself a young SlavojZizek, particularly when I am drunk, in reality I am just a young creative who works in advertising. However, I am also passionate about social justice, and transformation, especially economic transformation and institutional transformation in academic spaces. I also thought I should write this article, first, as a contribution to the national dialogue, secondly, to dispute the myth that young black creatives like myself couldn’t be bothered by social issues and that we just want to drink craft beer at some rooftop party, snort cocaine and fuck white girls. Apparently young black creatives are just white supremacists who espouse gentrification and subscribe to Western ideals, I don’t think that’s true, just last night I got into a heated argument with a colleague about the mining industry and how it was founded on the destruction of peasant agriculture and the conversion of the black male peasant farmer into a migrant worker, destroying the black family and the African civilization. So we are debating current and historical social issues, meaning we do have opinions and ideas beyond “selling stuff”. Alright, now that that’s out of the way, here is my opinion on #RhodesMustFall
I think it’s amazing that young thinkers/intellectuals have mobilised and rallied themselves to confront an issue they clearly felt strongly about, but, yes there is a ‘but’, I don’t think young people should be getting together to fight for removals of statues, there are more pressing issues at UCT in my opinion, I’d rather these young people got together to challenge the university to place African scholarship at the centre of the curriculum, for example. The discrepancy between black lectures and white lectures, black heads of departments and white heads of departments is a lot more of a pressing issue than the statue of Cecil John Rhodes. Of course the statue must go for what it represents, we ought to put that nightmare behind us, but, it shouldn’t be the responsibility of young people to ensure that that happens. UCT should have removed that statue in 1994 as a commitment to nation building and social cohesion, and they didn’t, now my worry is, young people are going to concern themselves with what wasn’t done right and reduce themselves to the “correcters” of those wrongs, which is a noble deed, but, shouldn’t we be prioritising core issues like wealth redistribution, service delivery, rising wages in the civil service, growing an entrepreneurial class with the ability to start new businesses and create jobs for our peers who would otherwise end up at a corner somewhere, playing dice and smoking nyaope?