Tag: Oriel

Furious Oxford Donors: Keep the Cecil Rhodes Statue — or Lose Millions!

Cecil Rhodes

The Associated Press

The #RhodesMustFall campaign by loony entitled race hustlers to topple a statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford,  of one of the university’s most generous benefactors has failed.

Donors were so furious at Oriel College’s cowardice in the face of this student activism that they threatened to withdraw millions of pounds in bequests.

Right decision; wrong reason.

The Oriel College authorities could have said no to #RhodesMustFall because it was orchestrated by a bunch of chippy, ungrateful, politically correct, spoilt, vexatious, posturing bullies with connections to some of the most viciously unpleasant elements in the cess pool of South African politics.

They could have argued that Cecil Rhodes was a man of his time and that it’s quite ludicrous to judge a hero of the Great Imperial Age by the standards of the age of safe spaces, “Islamophobia” and Caitlyn Jenner.

They could have stood up for the principle that students may come and go but the fabric of the University and the generosity of its benefactors must remain inviolate from wanky posturing by early twentysomethings whose frontal lobes haven’t been properly formed.

Instead, though, Oriel College’s decision was motivated not by high principle but by terror and desperation at losing so much money.

At a meeting on Wednesday the governing body was told that because of its ambiguous position on the removal of the statue, “at least one major donation of £500,000” that was expected this year has been cancelled.

One of those who has already cancelled their legacy was going to leave a “seven figure sum” and the college is aware that “another major donor is furious with the College… whose legacy could be in excess of £100m”.

The report warns that there will now “almost certainly” be “one or two redundancies” in its Development Office team because of the collapse in donations. And it has cancelled an annual fundraising drive that should have taken place in April. The report also warns that Oriel’s development office could now make an operating loss of around £200,000 this year.

In addition, a “potential £750,000 donor” has stopped responding to messages from the college, and several alumni have written to Oriel to say “they are disinheriting the college from their wills”.

This may be a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Certainly the man responsible for fundraising at Oriel isn’t mincing his words about the damage that has already been done.

Read the rest at Breitbart.

The Ugly True Story of #rhodesmustfall: Oxford University’s Answer to #blacklivesmatter

Cecil Rhodes
The Associated Press
#Rhodesmustrise

Who will join my campaign #Rhodesmustrise?

The idea is to build in the middle of Africa a gigantic golden statue of the mighty British imperial hero Cecil Rhodes – a really big one, about four miles high, so that Kilimanjaro doesn’t get in the way – to remind all the locals for miles around what a complete and utter toilet their malarial, tsetse flyblown continent would have been if it hadn’t been for all the 19th century explorers, miners and pioneers and nation builders and District Commissioners in their white pith helmets who brought them civilisation, the rule of law and economic progress.

Some readers, I know, will be squeamish about the ethics of such a campaign.

“But won’t all that gold be very expensive?” they’ll want to know.

“And mightn’t such a statue be offensive in the way it privileges Cecil Rhodes? What about all the other great figures from African history who have done so much to enrich the world? Towering figures such as the explorer David Livingstone, the military hero Gordon of Khartoum, the orientalist Richard Burton, the explorer John Hanning Speke, and that amazing rugger player Francois Pienaar who was played in the movie by Matt Damon?”

Well I can answer the first question at least and the solution is very simple: all we need to do is get the Africans to give us back the $1 trillion in aid money we in the West have given them over the last 50 years.

This debt repayment scheme – I call it #AidJustice4Whitey – will serve at least two very important purposes.

1. We’ll be able to buy enough gold to build the Cecil Rhodes statue. (Probably. I haven’t done the maths)

2. It will teach an invaluable lesson to chippy, ungrateful, hoity-toity Africans like the students at Oxford University currently leading the #rhodesmustfall campaign for the removal from Oriel College of a statue of one of its benefactors Cecil Rhodes.

Read the rest at Breitbart.