The second part of our whirlwind tour of Cape Town (it was literally only 2 days), included a visit to the Rhodes Memorial, just outside the city. It is a grand monument to a somewhat contraversial character in South African history, Sir Cecil John Rhodes.
The ediface was a tribute to him and his imperialist views that the Englishman was the most supeior being on the planet.
Although an impressive structure with a magnificent vista of the Cape Town interior and the Ceres mountains in the distance, the monument is a figurative scar of the oppression and injustice he left in his wake. Many may say that the building has also left a literal scar on the side if the beautiful Table Mountain.
Here is an excerpt from a letter written by Olive Schreiner in1897 , about her disdain of Rhodes.
“We fight Rhodes because he means so much of oppression, injustice, & moral degradation to South Africa; - but if he passed away tomorrow there still remains the terrible fact that something in our society has formed the matrix which has fed, nourished, built up such a man!”
Regardless of the history of the place, it is set within a beautiful natural setting surrounded by large, non-indigenous pine trees.
Even though very close to a busy main road and bustling city, there is a serenity about the place that allows one to sit and truely enjoy the view.
A statue of Sir Rhodes recently defaced by a group of university students
