Radical with Amol Rajan Should Former Colonial Powers Pay Reparations? (Your Radical Questions with Simukai Chigudu)
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Mar 23, 2026 Simukai Chigudu, Associate Professor of African Politics at Oxford and author of Chasing Freedom, explains debates over statues, decolonising curricula and reparative justice. He discusses relocating contested monuments, rethinking visual culture and curriculum ethos. The conversation also explores distinctions between concrete reparations and broader cultural restitution.
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Statues Teach Better When Contextualised In Museums
- Statues alone rarely educate because their public placement often functions as propaganda rather than pedagogy.
- Simukai Chigudu argues moving Rhodes to a museum or contextualised space turns a piece of stone into a teaching resource linked to fuller history.
Refresh Visual Culture By Rotating Portraits
- Show more diverse figures and rotate visual memorials to reflect evolving institutional identity.
- Simukai suggests replacing some portraits at Oxford with underrepresented scholars and commemorating movements like Rhodes Must Fall itself.
Memorials Are Meant To Change Over Time
- Visual culture is dynamic and societies constantly revise memorials to reflect changing values.
- Embracing change injects new vitality into institutions and acknowledges identities once excluded, says Simukai.
