Cecil Rhodes Statue: #RhodesMustFall Timeline

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• April 9 2015 Original Rhodes Statue protest

• March 12 #RhodesMustFall hashtag created

• March 12 Open Air Dialogue, Plan of Action Developed: See Video

  • Significance​

    • Organic: Indicates students already had underlying sentiment about this issue​

    • Several smaller petitions and requests to he University over the years in less dramatic protests

    • Open Dialogue: Democratic because all sudents get the opportunity to speak and express their perspectives and opinions

  • March 20th – students occupied main administrative building Brenner and renamed it “Anzania house” 

    • ​Symbolic Renaming​
      • Parallels symbolic act of defacing and toppling a statue​
    • Occupying the administration building is a symbolic act of directing and self-directing, driving one's own priorities, one's own education and self-determination overall​

    • “We are occupying Bremner!” he cries out in a raspy voice. “Yes!” come the responses from the crowd. Mahapa continues, “at the seat, at the seat of white supremacy, we shall learn, we shall engage,and we shall transform this place” // “We have chosen to occupy the Bremner building, and the ArchieMafeje room specifically, because of its strategic and historical significance – it is the placewhere management carries out its activities, and these are precisely the activities we seek to subvert” (Ahmed).

• October 2015 #FeesMustFall movement begins ​​

• Oct 29 2015 #EndOutsourcing victory Call for insourcing of workers for the University at UCT. “Prior to 2015, workers were demoralized,their organization which was meant to defend them against outsourcing was unable to defend them”. The workers union had lobbied for these changes for years. They finally achieved them in conjunction with #RhodesMustFall movement​​

• Feb 15 2016 #Shackville: Homeless at UCT- constructed “to thoughtfully create an artistic form of protest with the idea to showcase the experience of hardship of black students and their daily pains and struggles” emergence of #Shackville to the broader land issue, as well as the question of who belonged at UCT,

  • https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13527258.2018.1481134?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=rjhs20 (Video limited access NYU) This highlights .spacial symbolism related to the Cape Town region in particular

  • Movemens need effective and creative tactics. Students here draw attention to the issue of people living in makeshift housing in Cape Town while also addressing lack of student housing. The tactic is creative, artistic, unexpected, and creates a question in the minds of the public