As a non-South African, I will make no attempt to claim to understand fully how much Rhodes’s legacy negatively affected Southern Africans. It would be foolish, even heartless, if anyone ever condoned Rhodes’s racist, imperialistic actions. But is it fair or just to reduce Rhodes to the total sum of wrong things he did in his time? Surely there is more to Rhodes than what is highlighted in Adebajo’s article.
South Africa is well ahead of most Third World countries in terms of political and economic stability, and remains one of the world’s most inspiring emerging democracies. This is largely owing to the work of freedom fighters such as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.
But who would deny the role of industrialisation and corporate development in the history of this nation? These have placed South Africa on a totally different and higher economic level on the African continent.
Is it not this aspect of South Africa’s success that was pioneered by creative leaders like Rhodes? Is it not narrow-minded and extremely ungrateful to deny the role played by exceptional entrepreneurs such as Rhodes in shaping the foundation on which this nation is built? Pre-empting this would be stripping South Africa of its essence, which is fortunately impossible.
Mandela is a great leader who embodies reconciliation; Rhodes was a great leader who embodied entrepreneurship. Reconciling both legacies and bringing them together is an ingenious idea. And in putting his great name next to that of Rhodes, Mandela once again demonstrated his ability to transcend judgements and possible feelings engendered by the past. This is characteristic of his extraordinary leadership.
Africa needs Mandela Rhodes leaders — leaders who embody both Mandela and Rhodes’s qualities; educated individuals with the ÂÂability to transcend all kinds of divisions with no exception, but also with exceptional creativity in the quest for lasting prosperity of their people, and who are fully committed to the development of humankind. Identifying and supporting such individuals to be the best they can possibly be is an essential part of the work of the foundation.
Adebajo’s comments about the creation of the Mandela Rhodes ÂÂFoundation show that Mandela’s legacy remains a mystery to many, including to some of the so-called ”thinkers” on this continent. In my opinion, it would be more decent and more progressive to debate what Mandela’s magical intuition in this symbolic gesture means to humanity, rather than questioning the dark side of Rhodes alone, or the gesture itself.
Pie-Pacifique Kabalira-Uwase, a Mandela Rhodes scholar at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, writes in a personal capacity