Rename Rhodes University after Steve Biko — Malema

EFF leader Julius Malema has called for Rhodes University to be named after anti-apartheid activist and Black Consciousness leader Steve Biko.

Malema was delivering a public lecture at the university on Monday night.

He said the university was named after Cecil John Rhodes, who he said was “the most brutal coloniser”.

Malema described Rhodes as a racist, adding he was “an imperialist who will not have wanted you who are seated here to be here today because he hated everything else that looked like us and treated us like slaves and animals”.

Malema said he was shocked that 30 years after the attainment of democracy, South Africa continued to have institutions meant to be “a stage for intellectual contestation” named after the “most brutal individuals who have made our lives pain and misery”.

“Grahamstown has changed its name to Makhanda. Why can’t this university change its name to a better name?” he said to loud applause in the packed auditorium.

“One of the people who has been a part of this institution is Steve Biko. Biko, who came to advance, during those Nusas [National Union of South African Students] days, the argument of why certain white liberals cannot determine our destination, and argued that point from this Rhodes University,” he said.

“When you’ve got a figure like that not only associated with the struggles of the students at that time but equally having an association with the best part of our country, the Eastern Cape, what hesitates you from changing this university from Rhodes to Steve Biko University?”

Malema was at the university to talk about good governance and security in Africa and about leadership in general.

He said it was impossible to talk about security and good governance in Africa without acknowledging the damage caused by colonisers and imperialist forces.

“Africa’s inability to be at peace with herself is necessitated by the fact that colonialists want to exploit our minerals without being held accountable. It is the colonialists who are corrupting the leadership of Africa and making sure those who are not corrupt are replaced by the corrupt puppets who would allow colonialism to continue in the African continent.”

Malema reflected on the roles played by Muammar Gaddafi to transform Libya and Pan-Africanists Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso and Patrice Lumumba in Democratic Republic of Congo before they were assassinated.

“Any battle you can imagine, anywhere in the continent, it has everything else to do with those who colonised us before. Today, they want to choose leaders for African people.”

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