Why do these details matter? Rhodes was certainly a colonialist. He was certainly a believer in the British Empire. Would a critique of this not be enough? Why would anybody need to lie and exaggerate the offense? Certainly, there are people who claim that there is an overdue reckoning or rebalancing needed for historical figures such as Rhodes. But why would they decide to base such a reckoning not on the rights or wrongs of empire, or a weighing up of its human costs and benefits, but rather on an outright lie? Or, rather, on a set of lies? Why would a reckoning with the legacy of empire not
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