Walter Rodney, born in Guyana on 22nd of march in 1942, Pan-African, Marxist intellectual who was assassinated by the Guyanese government in 1980 at 38 years old.

Rodney attended the University College of the West Indies in 1960 and was awarded a first class honors degree in History in 1963. He later earned a PhD in African History in 1966 at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, England, at the age of 24.

Rodney traveled extensively and became well-known as an activist, scholar, and formidable orator. He taught at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania from 1966-67 and 1969-1974, and in 1968 at his alma mater University of the West Indies.

On October 15th, 1968, the government of Jamaica declared Rodney a “persona non grata” and banned him from the country. Following his dismissal by the University of the West Indies, students and poor people in West Kingston protested, leading to the “Rodney Riots”, which caused six deaths and millions of dollars in damages.

In 1972, Rodney published “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”. Historian Melissa Turner describes the work this way: “A brutal critique of long-standing and persistent exploitation of Africa by Western powers, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa remains a powerful, popular, and controversial work in which Rodney argued that the early period of African contact with Europe, including the slave trade, sowed the seeds for continued African economic underdevelopment and had dramatically negative social and political consequences as well. He argued that, while the roots of Africa’s ailments rested with intentional underdevelopment and exploitation under European capitalist and colonial systems, the only way for true liberation to take place was for Africans to become cognizant of their own complicity in this exploitation and to take back the power they gave up to the exploiters.”

On June 13th, 1980, Rodney was killed in Georgetown, Guyana via a bomb given to him by Gregory Smith, a sergeant in the Guyana Defence Force, one month after returning Zimbabwe. In 2015, a “Commission of Inquiry” in Guyana that the country’s then president, Linden Forbes Burnham, was complicit in his murder.

“If there is to be any proving of our humanity it must be through revolutionary means.”

Walter Rodney

How Europe Underdeveloped Africa

Decolonial Marxism Essays From The Pan African Revolution

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  • JD_Vyvanse [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    3 days ago
    curhsposting efforpost/accountability-post

    i have a rlly big crush on my new gf and i want to put as much effort into this relationship as possible to make it the best it can be and i want to be as accountable to her as possible and i hope/think the feeling is mutual. but i also recognize that focusing too much on the long-term horizon can take you out of what you have in your hands in the moment and it’s important to practice gratitude in the present otherwise you’re gonna be fucking miserable and all the inherent joys of life are going to pass you by without you realizing it and before you know it you’re going to be closer to oblivion than not and will feel like you haven’t had enough love or fullness in your life because you could never stop to slow down and breathe and really (i mean really) see what was in front of you.

    • Rojo27 [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      4·
      3 days ago

      but i also recognize that focusing too much on the long-term horizon can take you out of what you have in your hands in the moment and it’s important to practice gratitude in the present otherwise you’re gonna be fucking miserable

      Feel you on this. I’ve often had to catch myself and kind of reset myself over the course of a week or two because its so easy to fall into that trap and once your in it freaking sucks.