Decolonising education
Friday, December 04, 2015
Last week, in Oxford, a demonstration of around 200 students were also demanding that Britain ‘move on’ from its colonial past – not by forgetting about it, but precisely the opposite – by acknowledging the damage done and atoning for it. The Rhodes Must Fall movement began in South Africa last year, demanding an end to the veneration of colonial murderers like Cecil Rhodes, but has since spread to Oxford.
Rhodes’ statue at Cape Town University was eventually removed this year after protests, and the Oxford campaign hopes to repeat the success in Britain. Cecil Rhodes was the archetypal British imperialist – a tyrannical stealer of land, ruthless exploiter of labour and rabid butcher of men, women and children. By the 1890s, he had conquered around one million square miles of territory in Africa and laid waste to its inhabitants, massacred all those who stood in his way and forcing many of the rest into the living graves that were his company’s diamond mines.
The recent disclosure by the IEC that 2,513 registrations have been turned down due to various irregularities should prompt all Batswana to meticulously review the voters' rolls and address concerns about rejected registrations.The disparities flagged by the IEC are troubling and emphasise the significance of rigorous voter registration processes.Out of the rejected registrations, 29 individuals were disqualified due to non-existent Omang...