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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  • peppersky [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    I really really really don’t feel like self-censoring myself in the closest relationships I have. I want to rip open my heart and let everything flow out freely. I know that doing that would be a stupid idea, but I want to have friendships that work like that. I want to have social bonds that are strong and not weak, where I do not constantly have to worry whether I feel too strong about them, where I can be sure that they prioritize me when I need them to. I’d like to be there for them too. I don’t have any money when there’s no social safety net your friends are the only thing you can have.

    She knows I’m not doing well these last few weeks, that’s what our last messages were about. I always answer any message I get basically immediately because I do not find these contacts to be a bother I find that enjoyable and because I’m very rarely too busy and do not get as many messages as I’d like anyway. I sometimes get jealous when I know she’s doing shit without me and I’d really like for that not to be the case. Believe me I feel fucking terrible for feeling so fucking terrible about this. I’m already in therapy for depression and anxiety but this all encompassing feeling of loneliness has never been this strong.

    Edit: I’m really struggling with not just writing her a message saying that I feel terrible when she’s ignoring me when she knows I’m having a mental episode and that if she’s already prioritizing other people and things over me that I’d feel better if I didn’t have to wait for any messages from her ever again. But I can’t do that, she’s the only friend I have in this town and as such the only one I see and do stuff with in the flesh on a regular basis. I can’t do without that.