![]() But Rhodes’ grave remains intact and undisturbed. The old pioneer memorial in Chimanimani, the eastern Zimbabwean village where I grew up, was smashed by a posse of comrades from the ruling party’s youth league shortly after independence. White men’s memorials don’t usually fare well in Africa. His most enduring legacy in the post-apartheid world is the De Beers cartel, which he set up to manipulate the world diamond market, and even that looks increasingly shaky. ![]() Other than that, the scholarships–originally envisioned by Rhodes as part of his plan to create a worldwide, English-speaking ruling elite–which have sent Bill Clinton and thousands of other Americans and Commonwealth students to Oxford, are about all that save Rhodes’ name from obscurity. “Your hinterland is there,” the inscription mocks, as whites flock out of Africa. Standing on a rough-hewn granite pedestal in his trademark crumpled linen suit, he points northward. In the new South Africa, Rhodes’ statue still clings to the side of Cape Town’s Table Mountain, for the moment at least. And when “Southern Rhodesia” was jettisoned for “Zimbabwe” in 1980, the new black government began energetically. Of course, Northern Rhodesia became Zambia in 1964. Only one person topped that, the Italian-born explorer Amerigo Vespucci, who claimed an entire continent. H e was one of few men in history, apart from Simón Bolívar, who managed to get a sizable mainland country named after himself–two countries, actually, Northern and Southern Rhodesia. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |