Cecil John Rhodes: British Empire Hitman

The Ultimate Storytelling Contest is an open call for submissions, granting African Storytellers from across the continent to share their stories with not only the judges of the contest, but to integrate social media by posting a 3 minute video on their Facebook and Twitter timeliness with the hash tags, #UltimateStoryteller, #HSC and #HadithiyaAfrica.

It was with despair, to receive the dreadful news on Monday morning, 6th of July 2020 that South African Professor Ntongela Masilela, had transitioned to the ancestral realm. At the time of his death, it is noteworthy to read that the faculty directory of Pitzer College (an undergraduate liberal Arts and Sciences Institution), in the United States of America (USA) to date still depicts Masilela, as a Professor Emeritus of Creative Studies and World Literature, whose expertise namely included ‘Third World Literature’, ‘Commonwealth Literature’, ‘Central European Literature’, ‘African Literature’, ‘Latin American Literature’, ‘Literary Theory’, ‘Postmodernism’ and ‘Ancient Asian Literature’

I certainly benefited from the fact that I wasn’t really competing with 50% of the population. I literally was competing only with the white players. You talk about white privilege and it raises a lot of heat and debate on social media but it is the case. I’m very aware of that.

“We fight Rhodes because he means so much for 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 and built up such a man.”

As a former psychometrist at a large multinational public institution, I have an in-depth understanding of working with employees who operated in stressful environments across the world, from Cuba and Venezuela to Algeria and Mauritania. My interpretation is that the lockdown is not far from such environments of war and hardship.

Simphiwe Sesanti (2006:34) argued to “Africanise our education in South Africa”. The ensuing reflection, supports why the latter is justified. In its basic denotation, ‘Philosophy’ is “Greek, love of knowledge or wisdom” (Blackburn, 2008:275).