Walter Rodney on HOW EUROPE UNDERDEVELOPED AFRICA
Details
Walter Rodney (1942-1980) was a socialist historian and educator from Guyana. His activism and organizing in Jamaica led authorities to refuse him re-entry into the country, sparking the "Rodney riots" in 1968. While working as a professor in Tanzania, he wrote the influential book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (1972), for which he is best known. Later, having returned home, he was murdered by the Guyanese state in 1980; as Wallerstein wrote, "[Rodney's] intellectual analysis has clear political implications for the organization of the working people. Rodney tried to live out these implications, and was assassinated because of them."
His birthday was a few days ago (March 23rd). Let's bear witness to Rodney's legacy by learning some more. If you can read the first article below, great! If time is tight, Angela Davis' foreword below might be a good place to start for an overview. Or browse the videos, if you like, for a sense of Rodney the public speaker. But as always, feel free to join even if you don't get a chance to read/view any of these. Respect!
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TEXT :
- "COLONIALISM AS A SYSTEM FOR UNDERDEVELOPING AFRICA" by Walter Rodney (from How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, 1972).
- "Walter Rodney's Legacy" by Angela Davis (2019)
- "The Revolutionary Legacy of Walter Rodney's 'Groundings'" by Kevin Okoth (2019)
- "Walter Rodney: The Historian as Spokesman for Historical Forces" by Immanuel Wallerstein (1985)
VIDEO / AUDIO :
- "Crisis in the Periphery: Africa and the Caribbean" (Speech by Walter Rodney, 75 minutes; alternative link here)
- "In the Sky's Wild Noise: A Documentary on Dr. Walter Rodney" (29 minutes; alternative link here)
- "Reggae fi Radni" by Linton Kwesi Johnson (Reggae dirge lamenting the loss of Dr. Rodney, 4:20 minutes)
- "Walter Rodney!" by Louie Lepkie (Dancehall tribute to Rodney, 3 minutes)