The statue outside Oriel’s College in Oxford of Cecil Rhodes is set to stay in place until at least next year. Protests had occurred that were calling for the removal of Rhodes. Last month the college’s governing body stated that they wanted to see the statue come down.
However, a commission that was set up by the college to assess the statue’s future will not release its report until January 2021. This group will include broadcaster Zeinab Badawi; former Conservative shadow culture secretary Peter Ainsworth as well as the local Labour councillor Shaista Aziz.
Even though the college’s governing body has said that they want to statue to come down, a spokeswoman for the commission group has said that there are no pre-conditions on what the review group can decide.
The reasoning that Oriel College has given for the statue coming down is that it wants to find how it can assess its “21st-Century commitment to diversity can sit more easily with its past”.
Protesters have argued that the statue of Cecil Rhodes who was a 19th Century businessman and politician in colonial Africa, was a symbol of racist attitudes. A ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ campaign group has previously warned that they would continue to protest until the “Rhodes statue ceases to adorn the facade of Oriel College on Oxford’s High Street”.
One Twitter user @taywil64 said, “A little sense is coming back to the need to retain our cultural history”.
Current Affairs Correspondent | My name is Oliver Down I am 22, and a staunch brexiteer. I am a Bristolian lad who studied politics in Leicester. I believe in free speech and accurate journalism and I won’t be afraid to give you “the other side” of the story!
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