Rhodes Scholarship

Nigel Biggar, in the Times (£), defends Cecil Rhodes from the charge of racism:

There’s no doubt that Rhodes saw the British as civilised and “native races” as not, in general. But he had good reason to think that. After all, whether in terms of science or technology or communications or commerce or liberal political institutions and mores, late 19th century Britain was light years ahead of any indigenous African society.

And in important respects British civilisation was morally superior, too. Just as we in the 21st century are morally hostile to slavery, forced marriage, the honour-killing of women, capital punishment without fair trial, militarism and despotic cruelty, so our Victorian forbears were outraged at these practices among the Zulu and Ndebele.

But...but...you can't say that! Does the man know nothing of contemporary academic fashion? It's not about what actually happened - objective truth, as we've learned, is purely an expression of the dominant hegemonic discourse - but about which story makes you feel better about yourself, and portrays an oppressed group in the best possible light.

Yes, Rhodes thought that black Africans were generally inferior, but in terms of cultural development, not biology. He believed they could become civilised. That’s why he never sought to overturn the remarkably liberal, colour-blind franchise that had existed in Cape Colony since 1853. And when in 1899 the Cape government proposed legislation that would have disenfranchised most natives, Rhodes protested, arguing that he had “always differentiated between the raw barbarians and the civilised natives” and that the vote should be extended to Africans under the principle of “equal rights to every civilised man south of the Zambesi”.

This explains why, in 1897, Rhodes was willing to give financial backing to a newspaper, Izwi Labuntu, which was the voice of an African political association that, as it turned out, was a forerunner of the African National Congress.

For sure, Rhodes could be patronising towards Africans, frequently referring to them as “children”. But his condescension was racially indiscriminate, since he also referred to the fellows of Oriel as financial “children” when he stipulated that they consult trustees about investing his benefaction to the college.

And children, it seems, is what they still are.

Biggar, Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology at Oxford, has an admirably contrarian record.

Comments

[Martin Adamson]

And let us not forget that the primary bone of contention between the British and the Boers, going back to the early 19th century, was that the British were opposed to slavery which was central to the Boer way of life. qv. the British in Sudan.

[Bob-B]

Probably nobody refers to other races as “children” nowadays, but many who see themselves as progressive say something rather similar about Muslims. Their suggestion that that any attempt to introduce democracy into a Muslim-majority country is doomed to failure and that some sort of dictatorial regime is the most that Muslims can aspire to is not very far from the Rhodes position.