Following on from the campaign to remove it a friend has forwarded to me the following link to a petition in support of retaining the statue of Cecil Rhodes on the High Street facade of Oriel. I have signed it and urge others to do so.
We do not want to become ( any more than we are already ) the sort of society that seeks to destroy its past by obliterating public statues and images. Should I start complaining about the "Martyr's Memorial" in Oxford and demand its removal because as a Catholic I feel oppressed or reminded of past oppression every time I walk past it by the figures of Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley?
The petition, with background information, can be accessed at https://www.change.org/p/oriel-college-oriel-college-oxford-university-do-not-remove-the-statue-of-cecil-rhodes?recruiter=449659694&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink
Image:www.change.org
Fr Alexander Lucie-Smith has written in The Catholic Herald about the campaign to remove the Rhodes statue in http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2015/12/29/rhodes-must-stay-destroying-the-past-is-a-mark-of-tyranny/
Mary Beard was recently quoted in The Daily Telegraph expressing her criticism of the anti-Rhodes campaign and Harry Mount also had an article in The Daily Telegraph commenting on the story, which can be viewed at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/12073349/Its-time-to-say-No-to-our-pampered-student-emperors.html
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