#RhodesMustFall: the politics of misdirection

"A building is a symbol, as is the act of destroying it. Symbols are given power by people. Alone, a symbol is meaningless, but with enough people, blowing up a building can change the world." 

V, from "V For Vendetta" by Alan Moore (New York: Vertigo; 1988)

The #RhodesMustFall campaign was never about knocking over a statue.  The statue, of course, was the perfect focal point - to rouse a rabble and rally them to your cause, follow these three golden rules:

1. Choose an easy target first up, an objective that can be relatively easily attained - this will be your "small win"
2. This target should be identifiable as something tangible, something that can be definitively described and located and, ideally, something emotive - this makes it easier for the Mob to vent their attentions directly onto the target, thus enhancing the likelihood that the Decision-Maker (whoever it is you are trying to influence) will capitulate
3. Use this small win to craft your legend as the Change Agent, the one who can get things done - this will make the Mob more likely to stick behind you (or in front of you when it's time to charge the barricades) as you pursue longer term, more nebulous goals

So, what could the real motivations behind #RhodesMustFall have been?  Could it be that somebody needs a distraction, a brouhaha to divert the public's attention from - oh, I don't know -  the South African government's ongoing failure to deliver meaningful social change, curiously juxtaposed with its unmitigated success in creating überwealthy oligarchs (including, not uncoincidentally, the president)?

Easy to imagine, but...

Professor Jonathan Jansen - whose lucid and rational contribution to South Africa's otherwise rabid national discourse is as rare as it is refreshing - had this to say a couple of days ago.

"We make a big mistake to think this is about a stone statue. This is about the alienation so many people feel on a really great university campus by virtue of being black, or poor or not from that particular culture."

This disenfranchisement, a sense that opportunities aren't available, is nothing new and in no way unique to South Africa.  London, one the world's truly global cities, felt exactly this pain in August 2011.  And Frank Zappa wrote of exactly this in America of the 60s.

Don't you know that this could start
On any street in any town in any state if any clown
Decides that now's the time to fight for some ideal he thinks is right
And if a million more agree there ain't no Great Society
As it applies to you and me our country isn't free
And the law refuses to see if all that you can ever be
Is just a lousy janitor unless your uncle owns a store
You know that five in every four just won't amount to nothin' more
Gonna watch the rats go across the floor and make up songs about being poor

From "Trouble Every Day" (Freak Out!, 1966)

Of course, this economic exclusion in South Africa isn't exclusively borne by blacks, though it's easier for political leaders to avoid the tough questions (and losing their gravy trough) if they paint it as such.

So - notwithstanding the odd hoodwinking by an unethical government - what is the culture that South Africa's youth are demanding?  Rhodes may have been an inveterate racist, but he also believed in education as the vehicle for civilisation.  I really hope that in South Africa's quest for equity and stability, its few remaining seats of academic excellence do not get broken down.  Statues, bricks and mortar will come and go, but hopefully a culture of learning and intellectual rigour can remain.

"We are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail. He can be caught, he can be killed and forgotten, but 400 years later, an idea can still change the world."

Evey, from "V For Vendetta"