The bomb that exploded in
Georgetown, Guyana on June 13, 1980 may have snatched
Walter Rodney from the physical, but it couldn't kill the Brother's words. Though they tried to blast away what was deemed a threat to the powers that were, you can't snuff out inspiration. You can't stop words nor songs of freedom. You can't assassinate conversation.
Martyrdom fueled Rodney's voice. Walter cried out about injustice. Walter lectured about social imbalances and inequalities. Walter informed about OUR history.
Walter grounded.
Walter spoke.
Walter speaks.
"By what standard of morality can the violence used by a
slave to break his chains be considered the same as the violence of a slave
master?"
"I
would go further down into West Kingston and I would speak wherever
there was a possibility of our getting together. It might be in a sports
club, it might be in a schoolroom, it might be in a church, it might be
in a gully. (Those of you who come from Jamaica know those gully
corners.) They are dark, dismal places with a black population who have
had to seek refuge there. You will have to go there if you want to talk
to them. I have spoken in what people call ‘dungle’, rubbish dumps, for
that is where people live in Jamaica. People live in rubbish dumps. That is where the government puts people to live.
Indeed, the government does not even want them to live in rubbish dumps. I do not know where they want them to go, because they bulldoze them off the rubbish dumps and send them God knows where. I have sat on a little oil drum, rusty and in the midst of garbage, and some Black Brothers and I have grounded together.
Now obviously, this, first of all, must have puzzled the Jamaican
government*. I must be mad, surely, a man we are giving a job, we are
giving status, what is he doing with these guys. [The newspaper] calls
them all manner of names… you know: ‘criminals and hooligans’. What is
he doing with them? So they are puzzled and then obviously after that suspicion, he must be
up to something, as the paper will try to imply. But we spoke, we spoke
about a lot of things and it was just the talking that was important,
the meeting of black people.
"
~ Groundings With My Brothers
*at that time Hugh Shearer was Prime Minister
“I trust that my use of the words such as ‘capitalism’, ‘imperialism’, and ‘neocolonialism’
will not be deemed as a cover for sinister intent. My indulgence in
those terms is aimed at opposing a system which is barbarous and
dehumanizing – the one which snatched me from Africa in chains and deposited
me in far off lands to be a slave beast, then a sub-human colonial subject, and
finally an outlaw in those lands. Under these circumstances, one asks nothing
more but to be allowed to learn from, participate in and be guided by the African
Revolution in this part of the continent; for this Revolution here is aimed at
destroying that monstrous system and replacing it with a just socialist society.”
Rodney in letter in the Nationalist newspaper (
Tanzania) 17th December, 1969;
cited in Issa Shivji, 1980
"I was brought up not very far from here, in a typical range yard in Bent Street.
And there, amidst the poverty, looking back now, I can see in my mind’s eye
ordinary black people who were worth everything, who were human beings who
had strength, who had character. Never mind he may have been a cartman,
never mind the woman may have been taking in washing. When you stop to think
about it, they had character. Some of them were miracle workers, because it’s a
miracle how they used to bring up families on what they earned.And now I
cannot accept that such people must be put to do some dirty political
skullduggery – coming to court, lying, to get another man convicted of murder...
…as I said before, you start with one thing, you end with another. The system
doesn’t stop at racial discrimination. Because it is a system of class oppression, it
only camouflages its class nature under a racial cover. And in the end, it will
move against anyone irrespective of colour. In the end, they will move even
against their own. Because, don’t believe if you are a member of that party today,
that you will be protected tomorrow from the injustices. Because when a monster
grows, it grows out of control. It eats up even those who created the monster.
And it’s time that our people understood that."
From speech in 1977,campaigning in defence of Arnold Rampersaud who was accused of the murder
of policeman James Henry.
"I try to find some meaning among the mass of the population who are
daily performing a miracle, they continue to survive! Kingston is meaner
then when you left it, and when you left it you probably did not know
how mean it is… Today, all th
at matters,
is the question of action, determined, informed and scientific action
against imperialism and its cohorts. Just as Leonardo Da Vinci is the
archetype of Renaissance Man, so Che Guevara is the ideal of
Revolutionary Man. All that is required is that one should extract the
essence of his life's experiences, rather than attempt to embrace his
numerous suggestions concerning guerrilla warfare. The latter course has
the serious limitation of being irrelevant to many objective situations
(as Che knew).. I doubt whether the situation is explosive, and I doubt
whether I will be here long enough to witness the explosion; but as a
matter of integrity I must address myself to that question so long as I
am here. Otherwise, what will distinguish me from the Philistines?"
"I was doing some paper on the
Russian Revolution
and it struck me that this
Lenin was a person who had a tremendous
capacity for intellectualizing and at the same time doing. In my own
naïve way, I called this phenomenon ‘a revolutionary intellectual.’
But the professor was very hard on this statement. He said: ‘There is
no such thing. One can be an intellectual or one can be a
revolutionary. You can’t combine the two. Lenin may at one time have
been a revolutionary, at another time an intellectual, but the moment he
moves into practical activity he must abandon intellectualism.’
This was a most curious argument. I just sensed that something was
wrong about it. And I felt that somehow being a revolutionary
intellectual might be a goal to which one might aspire, for surely there
was no real reason why one should remain in the academic world – that
is, remain an intellectual – and at the same time not be revolutionary."
| "Lenin as a Revolutionary Intellectual," from Walter Rodney Speaks |
