Walter Rodney, a Guyanese-born African historian, wrote extensively on revolutionary thought and political practice. He was based in Tanzania for many years before returning to Guyana where he was assassinated in June 1980., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Covering 'Walter Rodney Speaks: The Making of an African Intellectual'
By Tachae J. Davis
PANW Editor's Note: This talk was delivered at the 'Africa & U.S. Imperialism' Conference held in Detroit on May 18, 2013. The Conference was organized by the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI). Davis is a student at Macomb Community College outside Detroit.
Today I will speak on the prolific Pan-Africanist, Marxist, and revolutionary intellectual, and that is Walter Rodney Jr. The majority of the knowledge presented in this talk was gathered from 'Walter Rodney Speaks: The Making of an African Intellectual, which was sparked by a program formed by the Institute of the Black World.
IBW contacted Rodney and received confirmation that he would be available for a research symposium on 'African Peoples and the International Political Economy'. Rodney was to serve as the co-director and principal faculty person for the length of the
symposium.
He accepted, and spent six weeks, which spanned July-September 1974 at the Institute of Atlanta where there were to be three achieved objectives :
1. To test the applicability of the frame of reference and the methodology used in 'How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (HEUA)' for
studying the evolution of political and economic relationships between black and white America.
2. To explore the structural link between the social structures of black and white America and the historical evolution of the black struggle; and
3. To explore the question of the requirements of the present and future struggles of black people, especially here in the United States.
To understand Walter Rodney, not just as an activist and intellectual, but his development as a human being, as an African from Guyana in South America, we must first explore his upbringing.
Walter Rodney Jr. was born on March 23, 1942 in Georgetown, Guyana to working-class parents, whom belonged to the People's Progressive Party. Rodney spoke to the party's influence of three principle elements that he recognized early in life and would guide his political socialization.
First, the People's Progressive Party was the only party in the West Indies that had established a scientific, Marxist outlook. Second, was his development of class consciousness, which he stated was more of a “sense of survival” he garnered at only 11 years old by the knowledge of areas to avoid distribution of People's Progressive Party literature. He mentions the avoidance of certain houses due to how they looked, and the skin color of those who lived there and would be inclined to sick dogs upon those who would dare walk into their yard with People's Progressive Party literature.
Third, was the expression of those who you became familiar with in the community through political gatherings where many rousing speakers moved the crowd. He states that secondary school was hostile to this expression of the people for the people.
He felt that he had a grasp on the confidence that the people had the capacity to deal with their own situations, or “take destiny into their own hands”. The encouragement of expression, he noted, was not the function of secondary school, where one debated about nothing as eloquently as possible to receive high marks.
Nonetheless, Rodney attended primary school in Guyana, where he was awarded an open exhibition scholarship to attend Queens College. This made Rodney one of the first working-class beneficiaries of concessions that were formed in the field of education by elites in Guyana as part of the nationalism that reached a fever pitch in the 1950's.
Once in attendance, he excelled in academics as well as athletics. Rodney was awarded an open scholarship at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica where he would graduate in 1963.
He was awarded a first class honors degree in history, and an open scholarship to the school of Oriental and African studies in London.
At the age of 24 years old Rodney was awarded a Ph.D. in African and
Historical Studies with honors.
One of the most critical components of Rodney's political awareness is his study of two texts: C.L.R. James' Black Jacobins [New York: Vantage Books, 1963] and Eric Williams' Capitalism and Slavery [New York: Capricorn Books, 1966]. Rodney states these were the foremost texts that informed a national consciousness.
How strikingly different these books were in the context of everything else they were reading at the University in Jamaica was not apparent at first, but soon became clear. There was a perspective that was laid out that made sense to young West Indians, especially in the case of 'Capitalism and Slavery.'
Later, as Rodney studied the history of the Haitian Revolution, and the conceptual and ideological tools utilized- a Marxist methodology, he realized this informed James' work and was mainly responsible for raising the quality of analysis over several other formulations on the revolution.
These works served as a model image for many young West Indian progressives. The simple truth that Rodney states is that even before one had fully come to terms with the question of Marxist ideology, he had to stand out in the Trinidadian situation as the person who seemed to be making more sense than others.
His academic experiences, of course, were not without political struggle. This was demonstrated on October 15th, 1968 when, upon return from a Black Writers meeting in Montreal, Canada, Rodney was barred from re-entry into Jamaica.
By this point in time Rodney was well respected in his alma mater as a faculty member and lecturer on the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies. Upon the university's decision to ban Rodney there was a militant protest, which boiled over into a full fledged rebellion in the capital city of Kingston.
This proved an opportune moment for the U.S. embassy to flex its muscle by intervening in what was labeled the“Rodney affair”. However, the Black Power nature of the rebellion was of keen interest to the U.S. who had already ignited domestic war against the Black Power Movement.
Documents released by the U.S., demonstrate the surveillance of Rodney by Jamaican intelligence during his undergraduate years at UWI from 1960 to 1963, and resumed this surveillance upon his return in January 1968. A particular line included in the summary of the seven year “investigation” of Rodney by Jamaican spies was recorded as follows: “[..] convinced communist with 'pro-Castro' ideals, and latterly to have taken an interest in Black Power.”
Rodney was a blatant threat to the Jamaican government for his lack of will to engage with the People's National Party or the New World Group. It is explicitly stated that Rodney felt“The former, would wish to have nothing to do with him, and the latter was too academic and not sufficiently in touch with the masses.” He surpassed arm-chair revolutionary debates, and went directly to the “toilers”.
He was quoted as saying he wished to meet the working people anywhere and everywhere in Jamaica. He expressed interest in the Rastafarians.
Additionally, the leaked files indicates that Rodney took a keen interest in two other groups: urban youths, including gangs, and a heterodox religious movement led by the Rev. Claudius Henry. Rev. Claudius Henry had already been under the scrutiny of the Jamaican government for organizing and uprising in 1960, for which he was imprisoned for six years, and upon release continued the jeremiads against the regime.
There was clearly an agenda to form and strengthen black allegiance across Jamaica since the grounds were fertile for revolutionary action.
Rodney highlighted four goals of 'Black Power':
1. Creating an awareness of blackness
2. Mobilizing black people to act in their own interest
3. Rejecting white, cultural, Imperialism
4. To ensure the rule of blacks in society
These all suggested a formal break with the capitalist system that Rodney vehemently denounced, and the Jamaican creed , “Out of many, one people.”
With his expulsion, Rodney returned to Tanzania where he visited and continued to lecture from 1968 to 1974. Upon visitation to other African countries and familiarity with each struggle, he determined it was the intellectuals responsibility to deepen their knowledge, and make it available to further the struggle for the emancipation of the people.
This basis of thought was to be used as the guide for the final draft of one his most influential works, How Europe
Underdeveloped Africa, which was published through the Tanzanian Publishing House in 1972.
In this critical analysis, Rodney makes use of common language to discuss historical development of society, and the economic development of humanity throughout the world.
As extracted directly from page 27 of this analysis, the major concept is characterized as: “ The question as to who, and what, is responsible for African underdevelopment can be answered at two levels. First, the answer is that the operation of the imperialist system bears major responsibility for African economic crippling by draining African wealth and by making it impossible to develop more rapidly the resources of the continent.
"Second, one has to deal with who manipulates the system, and those who are either willing agents or unwitting accomplices of said system.”
In 1974 he returned to Guyana and accepted an appointed position as a Professor of History in the University. The position was soon rescinded by the Burnham government.
Despite this Rodney continued to lecture on African history and continued to awaken oppressed people and liberate them from the stranglehold of the Burnham government and his party.
Other literature Rodney had published earlier was now circulated on campuses for the consumption of students, these included: A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545-1800, a Ph.D dissertation published by Oxford University Press and The Groundings with My Brothers, a collection of talks he gave while in Jamaica.
Walter also worked diligently within the campaign to free People's Progressive Party Activist Arnold Rampersaud who was held on a trumped up charge of murder. Soon after Rodney joined the Working People's Alliance, which was established in 1974, and became a political party in July 1979.
Rodney would face multiple battles with the Bunham government starting from July 11th, 1974 until his assassination. One of the most notable was an arrest Rodney and several others faced on July 11th, 1979 on alleged charges of arson in reference to the burning down of two government offices.
In increased degrees Rodney's dedication to struggle and empowerment of the people highlighted him as a target of the Burnham government, who many times over sought him out to harass and persecute, and even attempts to kill him.
Burnham was not timid in his desires and even urged Rodney to write himself a will. On June 13, 1980 agents of the government succeeded in the carrying out of the will of Buhman. Walter was assassinated by a bomb in the neighborhood of his childhood haunts.
Burnham and his oppressive regime had hoped that with the assassination of Rodney that the revolutionary spirit of the people would be crushed and ultimately defeated.
However, Rodney, in his short years had left his impression on many people across the world where his works are scattered.
He also is survived by his wife, Pat, and three children, Shaka, Kanini, and Asha. Rodney's death was commemorated in Martin Carter's poem titled, “For Walter Rodney” and by dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson in “Reggae fi Radni, and Kamau Brathwaite in his poem titled “Poem for Walter Rodney”.
He has also received numerous honors from the Universities of Warwick, the West Indies, Atlanta University Center, and Clark Atlanta University. Every year since 2004 there has been a Walter Rodney symposium held on March 23, his birthday, under sponsorship of the Library and the Political Science department of Clark University and under the patronage of the Rodney family.
There is a resurgence in the development of the theory of black economy based on a Pan-African model that Rodney has significant impact on.
No doubt, there are brothers and sisters out there in different positions in the economy who have gotten hold or caught word of his ideas, his words and will use them to lift their political consciousness and unify themselves as a people against the system which keeps them so horrendously divided.
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