The Rhodes Memorial - Cape Town

in #travel7 years ago

The second part of our whirlwind tour of Cape Town (it was literally only 2 days), included a visit to the Rhodes Memorial, just outside the city. It is a grand monument to a somewhat contraversial character in South African history, Sir Cecil John Rhodes.

The ediface was a tribute to him and his imperialist views that the Englishman was the most supeior being on the planet.

Although an impressive structure with a magnificent vista of the Cape Town interior and the Ceres mountains in the distance, the monument is a figurative scar of the oppression and injustice he left in his wake. Many may say that the building has also left a literal scar on the side if the beautiful Table Mountain.

Here is an excerpt from a letter written by Olive Schreiner in1897 , about her disdain of Rhodes.

“We fight Rhodes because he means so much of oppression, injustice, & moral degradation to South Africa; - but if he passed away tomorrow there still remains the terrible fact that something in our society has formed the matrix which has fed, nourished, built up such a man!”

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Regardless of the history of the place, it is set within a beautiful natural setting surrounded by large, non-indigenous pine trees.

Even though very close to a busy main road and bustling city, there is a serenity about the place that allows one to sit and truely enjoy the view.

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A statue of Sir Rhodes recently defaced by a group of university students

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Well the students can not change history, Rhodes will remain part of our history no matter what.

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Thanks for the post! I love history and have had little opportunity to discuss South African history for some time...Rhodes was Imperialism and Colonialism personified and is certainly not one of my historic heroes.. He was, however, also the reason that we inherited such a good infrastructure such as roads (and mountain passes) and rail links from the British Colonialists. I also think history is HISTORY and defacing monuments and trying to wipe-out the past is counter-productive. We should learn from the past, not try and wipe it out!

I agree, your history is my history but our future is together is bright. Although I get extremely frustrated with my fellow South Africans, I remain optimistic about the future of our country.
My wife has been teaching South African history and there is so much we don't know.

Welcome to steemit.

Thanks...and thanks for resteeming!
🙌

Maybe defacing ( or bruising) some University Students, might help?

Nice Post, thanks.

Did we learn from history? Some good normally comes out of bad situations. A lot is learned by looking back and history remains just that history we cannot change the past.

Going forward, has it changed? Greed and manipulation of individuals is still alive and well, thriving off of the sweat of another mans brow.

Looking back and forward not much has changed, new tyrants arrive, change their tactics, greed sadly remains @enkulu

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Congratulations! This post has been upvoted from the communal account, @minnowsupport, by enkulu from the Minnow Support Project. It's a witness project run by aggroed, ausbitbank, teamsteem, theprophet0, someguy123, neoxian, followbtcnews/crimsonclad, and netuoso. The goal is to help Steemit grow by supporting Minnows and creating a social network. Please find us in the Peace, Abundance, and Liberty Network (PALnet) Discord Channel. It's a completely public and open space to all members of the Steemit community who voluntarily choose to be there.

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