It is a sacred hill where Zimbabweans for centuries have come to address their ancestors. Nestled in Matobo National Park, it is also where British settler Cecil Rhodes, who once imposed his name on the country, Ancient Rhodesia, chose to rest.
This simple tomb which overhangs with arrogance, denounce some, the sumptuous landscape, is contested by a young generation in a hurry to get rid of the last scars of colonialism. But it attracts many visitors, who bring the surrounding villages to life, argue the opponents of any removal of the remains.
You have to climb to reach the tomb, guarded by imposing rocks rounded by erosion and covered with anise green and red lichens that light up in technicolor at the slightest caress of the sun. Up there, the visitor absorbs with his gaze an immensity of trees among which dawdle antelopes and warthogs. A tangle of clouds slides over the horizon to the sound of birds chirping.
In 2015, a group, Rhodes must fall (“Rhodes must fall”), launched a campaign to debunk, first in Cape Town and then in Oxford, statues of Cecil John Rhodes (1853-1902), founder of the company De Beers, still the world’s number one diamond. Often described as a philanthropist but also eminently racist, he dreamed of a British Africa from Cape Town to Cairo, obtaining from Queen Victoria the concession of vast territories in southern Africa.
“Spiritual Colonization”
This grave “enrages” Cynthia Marangwanda, whom she met in the capital Harare. Cecil Rhodes chose this site, of which he knew perfectly the spiritual significance for the local populations. “It’s a final, deliberate and calculated act of domination,” she told AFP.
Robert Mugabe, the country’s former strongman, saw no point in moving the settler’s remains. The 37-year-old activist, on the other hand, says she is encouraged by the different attitude of the current president who, in her eyes, “understands better the heritage aspect of the debate”. For her, the economic argument does not hold: “Matopo is a beautiful park, it does not need a colonial tomb” to attract visitors.
His presence is “an insult”, a form of “spiritual colonization”, adds historian Tafadzwa Gwini, 33. His removal “may not yield tangible, immediate results, but it is a form of reclaiming our identity.”
The visitors met in Matobo misunderstand these indignations. “I took the kids, it’s beautiful here,” comments Nicky Johnson, a 45-year-old white Zimbabwean: “We don’t have to rewrite history. He wanted to be buried here, that’s how it is. Akhil Maugi, 28, who lives in nearby Bulawayo, also finds that “you can’t erase what happened.” And then “no one would come here if there was no longer this grave.”
A cyclical challenge
For local historian Pathisa Nyathi, it was “the grandeur of these rocks” that made it a sacred place, once attracting pilgrims from hundreds of miles around. “But what was sacred for Africans was not for Cecil Rhodes”, regrets the 71-year-old gentleman. “We can’t take that away from Rhodes, he had the eye” to spot the most beautiful locations, jokes David Coltart, former minister and local elected official of the opposition.
The dispute over this burial returns cyclically, notes Mr. Nyathi. “In waves. And it will continue until one day it is removed,” he predicts. At the exit of the park, a market offers tourists T-shirts, woven baskets and sculpted animals. A little further on is a village of a few houses.
Micah Swanda, 82, leans on a stick on the side of the track. Barefoot, he watches over a few cows. Visitors “buy our crafts, it allows us to send our children to school, to eat”, underlines the old man with the irregular white beard. If the grave was moved, “it would be really hard, there’s no work here.” Other sacred places around allow to exchange with the dead, he argues. And basically, these visitors – white – from afar, “also come to talk to their ancestor”.