Tony Abbott has defended a statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oxford University as a student-driven campaign gains momentum to have it taken down because of the man’s racist past.

Students have already caused a plaque dedicated to Cecil Rhodes, accused of being “the father of apartheid”, to be taken down and the university is consulting on whether to remove the statue from Oriel college as well.

The former Australian prime minister, who was a Rhodes scholar in the 1980s, has weighed into the debate telling the Independent “racism is a dreadful evil ... but it’s hardly virtuous to be against racism today”.

“The university should remember that its mission is not to reflect fashion but to seek truth and that means striving to understand before rushing to judge,” he said in an email to the English newspaper.



“Racism is a dreadful evil but we all know that now. It’s hardly virtuous to be against racism today. Real virtue would have been to oppose racism when it was difficult to do so.



“It’s a pity that Rhodes was, in many respects, a man of his times. We can lament that he failed to oppose unjust features of his society while still celebrating the genius that led to the creation of the Rhodes scholarships. Rhodes was not a campaigner against racism but many of the scholars who are his legacy have been.”

Rhodes was an Oxford student during the 1870s and returned to South Africa after finishing his studies where he became premier of the then-Cape Colony after founding the De Beers diamond empire. He bequeathed part of his wealth to Oxford University to establish a scholarship in his name and recipients are known as Rhodes scholars.

Three of Australia’s prime ministers have been Rhodes scholars: Abbott, Bob Hawke and Malcolm Turnbull, as well as former opposition leader Kim Beazley.

Abbott said the university could damage its standing if it removed the statue.

“Oxford would damage its standing as a great university if it were to substitute moral vanity for fair-minded enquiry,” he said. “The university and its students should prefer improving today’s orthodoxies to imposing them on our forebears.”

Rhodes began the policy of enforced racial segregation in South Africa and has been described as “the Hitler of southern Africa” by one of the organisers of the student campaign.

Opponents to the campaign have said it would be “irrelevant” to remove the statue and it was impossible to single Rhodes out from other celebrated historical figures.