Most historians (myself among them) nowadays find little to admire in the historical figure of Cecil Rhodes. His name has come to the fore during three recent centenaries (the centenary of his death in 2002; the Rhodes Scholarships, 2003; and Rhodes University, 2004). And there has been a flurry of recent interest in the pages of the Mail & Guardian, prompted by Adekeye Adebajo’s article “A most unsavoury rehabilitation” (July 21).
How might one remember Rhodes today? The claim of one M&G letter-writer (July 28) that it is “elementary fact” to judge historical figures by the norms and values of their time is more elementary error. The norms of Rhodes’s time were not absolute or monolithic, but highly contested. Rhodes’s imperialism may have earned him popularity in Victorian England, but it also aroused bitter hatred among his victims in Southern Africa. Ultimately, historical figures are judged according to the perspective of the beholder.
Yes, Rhodes was once revered by admiring biographers as a visionary idealist, resourceful entrepreneur, canny politician and generous benefactor. In recent decades he has been seen -- correctly, in my view -- as a crude racist and ruthless imperialist who rode roughshod over the rights of Africans as a political opportunist, callous exploiter and supreme egotist.
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