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<\/a><\/p>\nRhodes: closet gay man who hatched a secret society to promote empire?<\/h1>\n
THE CONVERSATION<\/p>\n
Almost 114 years after the death of Cecil Rhodes his memory lives on, with the Rhodes Must Fall<\/a> campaign spreading from Cape Town to Oxford<\/a>.<\/p>\n Once glorified by white colonialists, Rhodes is now more widely viewed as a prime villain in southern African history. Since his death he has been the subject of more than 30 biographies, so one is left to wonder if there is anything new that could be said about him. An attempt is made in the latest book by Robin Brown, The Secret Society: Cecil John Rhodes\u2019s Plan for a New World Order<\/a> \u2013 an attempt that fails.<\/p>\n The main claim of the book is that Rhodes established a \u201csecret society\u201d whose task was to extend British rule across the globe. This society continued to exist in different guises long after Rhodes\u2019 death in 1902. Thereafter the society came to operate within, or under the guise of, other bodies \u2013 the Rhodes Trust operating as the \u201ctop layer of the structure\u201d; in 1909 the society was renamed the Round Table<\/a>; and from 1920 the Institute of International Affairs became its new face.<\/p>\n The book adds another dimension to this central thesis, making a rather startling assertion on page 144:<\/p>\n \u2026 a homosexual hegemony \u2013 which was already operative in the Secret Society \u2013 went on to influence, if not control, British politics at the beginning of the twentieth century.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Rhodes himself, the book alleges, was gay, and because homosexuality was a criminal offence in Britain at the time, he realised that gays only survived if they operated in:<\/p>\n \u2026 a society that remained secret, ring-fenced by wealth and political influence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So it appears that the society\u2019s secrecy was necessitated by both imperial aspirations and sexual inclinations.<\/p>\n The book contains major flaws, the chief of which is the lack of solid, supporting evidence. Brown claims that \u201cRhodes documented everything\u201d \u2013 which was not actually the case in this regard. Just about the only documentary evidence cited to support the existence of this secret society is the codicil attached to Rhodes\u2019 first will, which did indeed proclaim his intention to form such a society.<\/p>\n The problem is that this will was drawn up in 1877 when Rhodes had not yet accumulated great wealth. According to this early will he would leave all his worldly goods in trust to allow for the formation of a secret society, but his limited wealth at the time could hardly have made this possible.<\/p>\n The plan to form such a society also did not appear in Rhodes\u2019 final will. One has to agree with Robert L. Rotberg \u2013 whose biography of Rhodes<\/a> is the most substantial \u2013 that to read Rhodes\u2019 plan today is:<\/p>\n \u2026 to sense the ruminations and even fantasies of a madcap bumbler.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Each chapter of Brown\u2019s book has just a handful of endnotes, and there are hardly any references to source material that might substantiate the claims made. The problem is highlighted on pages 237-38. First it is stated that there is \u201cclear evidence\u201d that Lord Alfred Milner took over and transformed the secret society after Rhodes\u2019 death. But on the very next page Brown writes that during this transformation process Milner \u201ckept things covert\u201d so that \u2018there is little hard evidence\u2019 of the society\u2019s existence at the time.<\/p>\n This is the problem throughout the book \u2013 because the society was so secret it presumably kept no surviving records, meaning that there is no proof of its existence. The book thus comes to be based heavily on surmise and assertion. While critics can argue that it is impossible to prove that the society existed at all, Brown can retort that it is impossible to prove that it did not exist. What cannot be contested is that the book lacks referenced source material to substantiate its claims.<\/p>\n The suggestion that the Rhodes Trust was closely linked to the secret society is not credible. In Anthony Kenny\u2019s massive book<\/a> on the history of the trust there are only three brief references to the idea of a secret society \u2013 and one of those is to a letter by Leo Amery stating that there was no such society.<\/p>\n The book contains some basic errors which undermine one\u2019s confidence in the content and analysis. The cotton farm where Rhodes joined his brother on arrival in Natal in 1870 was not north-east of Durban, but to the west (p.6). Rhodes was not \u201cof the era of British reformers who caused slavery to be outlawed\u201d, nor did he display \u201cliberal attitudes towards blacks\u201d (p.19). Jameson was imprisoned for four months, not one (p.22). Rhodes\u2019 brokers were not John Rudd and Robert Moffat \u2013 they were Charles Rudd and J.S. Moffat (p.57).<\/p>\n George V did not precede Victoria (p.154). Clinton\u2019s presidential nomination speech was in 1991, not 1981 (p.168). Chamberlain was the colonial secretary, not foreign secretary (p.222 and elsewhere).<\/p>\n The book would have worked better had it been presented as an examination of the personal networks that Rhodes developed. There is no doubt that he succeeded in cultivating influential figures in the world of politics, business and finance in Britain, but Brown\u2019s attempt to conjure up a secret society out of these networks is misguided and not adequately substantiated.<\/p>\n
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