JOHANNESBURG — One of Africa’s leading universities is in tumult over a statue.
Last week, protesters at South Africa’s University of Cape Town tossed excrement on a campus statue of British colonialist Cecil John Rhodes, calling the monument a tribute to the white domination of the past. Since then, student demonstrators have demanded removal of the statue and organized a ‘‘Rhodes must fall’’ campaign on social media.
Memories of racial conflict are fresh in South Africa, which shed white racist rule in 1994 after all-race elections.
Rhodes, who died in 1902, was the namesake of Rhodesia, which became Zimbabwe after independence in 1980. He bequeathed land on which the University of Cape Town was built.
Student leader Ramabina Mahapa criticized the university as Eurocentric on Monday during a campus meeting chaired by Crain Soudien, a deputy vice chancellor of the university.
‘‘We, as black students, as African students, need to be able to identify with the institution,’’ Mahapa said. ‘‘Whose heritage are we preserving?’’
Mahapa then led a walkout of students from the meeting.
The university has said it recognizes ‘‘divergent views’’ over the statue and that it is important to debate the matter. The dumping of excrement was ‘‘reprehensible and regrettable’’ and an investigation is underway, the university said in a statement last week.