Horsemanship

As statues go, Lusaka's bronze monument to Empire Builder Cecil Rhodes is pretty run-of-the-horse. It weighs seven tons, stands only slightly larger than life size and, with somewhat oxidized symbolism, depicts Rhodes as a naked Apollo, riding fearlessly onward astride a magnificent prancing stallion. Donated to the city four years ago by the Rhodes-founded British South Africa Co., the statue soon became the object of all self-respecting Zambians' hatred.

For one thing, the horse's rump was turned disdainfully on the Ministry of Finance building. More important, as far as Zambians were concerned, it was a monument not so much to Rhodes as to the despised Sir Godfrey Huggins, who, as Prime Minister of the now-disbanded Central African Federation, had offered an ill-considered definition of the ideal relationship between Africa's blacks and whites. The two races, Sir Godfrey had said in 1954, should work together like a horse and rider-- the whites of course being in the saddle and the blacks under it.

Last week, less than two months after Zambia had gained its independence, the Lusaka city council banned the statue. In a secret vote, it gave it back to the British South Africa Co., which will transfer it to Southern Rhodesia--whose white government is still in a position to guarantee that the two races work together as horse and rider.

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