Statue of The Trooper, Hatfield House

has description | a une description: Also popularly known as 'The Troopie', 'The Trooper' is a repatriated Rhodesian statue and war memorial situated in the grounds of Hatfield House in Hertfordshire. The statue and memorial is dedicated to the Rhodesian Light Infantry.

The Trooper statue was originally erected in Salisbury, Rhodesia (today Harare, Zimbabwe) in 1979, during the period of white minority rule. It was subsequently smuggled out of the country to apartheid South Africa, and later entered the collections of the now-dissolved British Empire and Commonwealth Museum in Bristol. The statue was erected in its current place in 2008.

The history, memory and symbolism of white-minority ruled Rhodesia has frequently been idolised and drawn upon by white supremacists in the twenty-first century. In 2015, the Charleston Church attacker, who killed nine African Americans in a white supremacist terror attack, was pictured wearing a Rhodesia flag patch on his jacket, and registered his own personal website under the title "The Last Rhodesian". In another white supremacist terror attack in 2023, a white shooter, again wearing a Rhodesian flag patch, killed three African Americans in Jacksonville, Florida.
has current location | a pour localisation actuelle: Hatfield; United Kingdom

has inscription | a une inscription: GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS THAT A MAN LAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS FRIENDS
IN RECONCILIATION AND HOPE FOR FUTURE PEACE IN ZIMBABWE

is referred to by | est référencé par: Tommy Maddinson, 'Repatriating Colonial Statues in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries', Cast in Stone blog post, January 19 2024; AP Archive - 'Unveiling of Light Infantry Memorial in Salisbury' (1979); Reuters - 'Zimbabwe Rhodesia: White Residents Mark Pioneers Day' (1979); Wikipedia - The Troopie; Wikipedia - British Empire and Commonwealth Museum; Wikipedia - 2015 Charleston shooting; Wikipedia - 2023 Jacksonville shooting; John Ismay, 'Rhodesia’s Dead — but White Supremacists Have Given It New Life Online', The New York Times, 2018; Niels Boender, 'The International Far-Right and White Supremacy in UDI-era Zimbabwe, 1965-1979', University of Warwick (2021); The Norwich Radical, 'Rhodesia in Norfolk and the Dangers of Britain's Imperial Amnesia' (2019); Gareth Harris, 'Rise and Fall of the British Empire Museum', The Art Newspaper, 2011; Bill Schwarz, 'Defeated by Friends: The Central African Federation', in Memories of Empire, Volume I: The White Man's World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)

Cast in Stone