By Kenneth Persaud
Guyanese should be educating themselves not just how to vote for democracy, but also how to govern themselves democratically.
Walter Rodney, Guyanese revolutionary and intellectual, was assassinated in June 1980 in Georgetown, the capital city of Guyana.
As a university professor he served with distinction at many foreign universities but he was prevented from doing so in his own. In his own country, as a militant revolutionary, his visionary influence was recognized by all classes and groups. He was recognized as the shock elixir necessary for the overthrow of the debilitating dictatorship of Samson Burnham. And, Burnham so recognized, as well.
And, as planned, Rodney was murdered, late in the evening of Saturday June 13.
Indeed, the physical man was taken out! But, the essence of Walter Rodney – his thoughts, his vision, his passionate oratory, his infectious love for country have remained – etched indelibly in the collective breast of the nation.
Walter Rodney was a formidable foe to a small but powerful few: his teaching, his writing, his revolutionary activism were anathema to the international imperial order ensconced in their plush Wall Street citadels. He vigorously and steadfastly continued to alert the colonial world that imperialism was not only a thief of their economic well-being but also a racist cretin bent on genocide. India, the Jewel of the British Crown, for instance, was stymied and left to rot as the cream of her best minds were Abu Ghraibed and killed by the mentors of today’s crop.
I recall one of my discussions with Rodney on the topic of imperialism in which I was then very interested. At that time (like nowadays), it was taught that the foreign occupier was merely trying to educate the locals, to teach them the art of democracy which was the best and only form of good government, as Churchill was often quoted to say. Somewhat amused, Walter handed me a sheet of paper to read aloud. I have kept a part of that paper and used it in my classes ever since. It quotes (Sir) Winston Churchill, the epitome of Western Civilization, giving evidence to the Peel Commission of Inquiry (1937):
"I do not agree that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."
Imperialism is not only thievery, and thuggery, and racism; more dangerously also, it is a belief system, a philosophy, a way of life, an ideology, for which people claim to have a higher support. Imperialism, as its history demonstrates, is the underpinning of genocide. It is naked, unadulterated fascism, practiced even by the largest institutions of state and church.
The practitioner is infectiously amiable. He is a shrewd worshipper. He is a great philanthropist. And, he uses his accrued wealth to monopolize the institutions of pedagogy cum punditry, thus receiving praise all the way to the gates of somewhere.
But Rodney, with tentacles spanning the globe, used his tremendous skills to expose that fakery. And, the beneficiaries of that imperialist alchemy, local and foreign, brought in their mercenary contractors to do what they relish best. Murder! Yes. Murder, they wrote!
The murderer, operating in the domestic scene of Guyana, in collusion with, and his partners, the bosses of the international arena, have, so far, been successful in ‘busting’ the progressive movement. Recall Martin Carter: “the mouth is muzzled by the food it eats to live” Guyana had done away with Churchill, the man – not with his heirs, not with his thieving impulses, not with his racist ideology. In fact, the heirs have become blatantly gutsy, militarily mighty, and more ready to pounce in more sophisticated ways.
Against this backdrop, the political heirs of Rodney’s have organized a Conference which, according to Wazir Mohammed of the International Committee, will examine the way forward by extending Rodney’s philosophy and analyses. Mohammed, graduate student in Toronto, observes that the conference will bring together “women, men and youth from grassroots organizations and academia of Guyana, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa and beyond who share Rodney's core principles to examine today's social, economic and political environment and to renew our commitment to the struggle for another world. … another world is necessary – and achievable.”
The details of the five-day conference which will be held at three locations, Georgetown, Port Mourant and Linden, June 8-13, can be found on the website. According to the website the format of the conference will be collective discussions and deliberations, not pontification from experts. As Nigel Westmas, another member in the international brotherhood and based in Binghamton, NY, observes, “…we will creatively tap into the essence of Walter’s legacy which have sustained us well and which will be the keystone to working for another world, a more humane world.”
Walter Rodney had seen, and taught, that the international and local are reciprocally reinforced – and needs to be confronted as such.
The world has undergone tremendous change these twenty-five years since the 38-year old Rodney was ‘taken out’. The wordsmiths have worked on the language and made certain that words which invoke bad images are made obsolete or, at least, more palatable. Imperialism is now never used – ‘globalization’ is preferred. Globalization takes on the aura of the United Nations – we are all in the same boat and working to solve common problems. Consider this sentence: The United States as the only remaining superpower is leader of the globalization movement for the eradication of AIDS in the world. The implicit thought appears very uplifting, but it is important to understand that, in the words of a former President, the USA does not have friends; it has interests. America is business and is in business to make a fast buck. American corporations spend a lot to control American imperialism, for one and only one reason.
Because today’s imperialism is the business arm of the huge corporations, they make sure that governments (local and foreign) toe their business line. Unlike the earlier imperialist world, today’s globalization does not need vast spaces of virgin territory. The earlier imperialism mainly bled you dry of your natural raw materials; today’s globalization exploit nature’s disasters or create conditions more conducive for instant payoffs. A descriptive definition for the new phenomenon is ‘Crash Imperialism’.
Naomi Klein in ZNet describes Crash Capitalism/Imperialism thus:
Last summer, in the lull of the August media doze, the Bush Administration's doctrine of preventive war took a major leap forward. On August 5, 2004, the White House created the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, headed by former US Ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pascual. Its mandate is to draw up elaborate "post-conflict" plans for up to twenty-five countries that are not, as of yet, in conflict. According to Pascual, it will also be able to coordinate three full-scale reconstruction operations in different countries "at the same time," each lasting "five to seven years."
Fittingly, a government devoted to perpetual pre-emptive deconstruction now has a standing office of perpetual pre-emptive reconstruction.
Gone are the days of waiting for wars to break out and then drawing up ad hoc plans to pick up the pieces. In close cooperation with the National Intelligence Council, Pascual's office keeps "high risk" countries on a "watch list" and assembles rapid-response teams ready to engage in prewar planning and to "mobilize and deploy quickly" after a conflict has gone down. The teams are made up of private companies, nongovernmental organizations and members of think tanks--some, Pascual told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in October, will have "pre-completed" contracts to rebuild countries that are not yet broken.
Doing this paperwork in advance could "cut off three to six months in your response time."
The plans Pascual's teams have been drawing up in his little-known office in the State Department are about changing "the very social fabric of a nation," he told CSIS. The office's mandate is not to rebuild any old states, you see, but to create "democratic and market-oriented" ones. (05/15/05) (Op Cit)
Indeed the plan is to make money in destroying and then make money in rebuilding. Rebuilding means "tearing apart the old." “There is,” says the commentator, “plenty of destruction – countries smashed to rubble, whether by so-called Acts of God or by Acts of Bush (on orders from God). And where there is destruction there is reconstruction, a chance to grab hold of "the terrible barrenness," as a UN official recently described the devastation in Aceh, and fill it with the most perfect, beautiful plans” of hotels, say, rather than the fishing villages (and their inhabitants) which have been lost.
Haiti in the Caribbean Sea nearby is an excellent showcase for Corporate Imperialism’s modus operandi.
The interlocking of international and local gangsterism is the main factor for the annihilation of “our prophets”. That fact was foremost in the political strategizing of Walter Rodney. He realized that the only possible chance a revolutionary had for survival was a mass movement of the whole population. He worked on it, and achieved it. But, with hindsight, we see that the complete mobilization of the people, all races and colors – at that time – was not sufficient for his survival. Notice that Hugo Chavez has scraped through next door this time.
I recall that while talking to Rupert Roopnarine on my pet subject, he introduced me to Marighella, the Brazilian revolutionary of an earlier period. It was at the height of the IMF and World Bank’s “Brazilian Miracle”. Rather sanguinely Rupert told me “Marighella will return”. And, true enough, Carlos Marighella has arrived, creatively and with gusto at Porto Allegre. In Brazil, they are educating themselves not just how to vote for democracy, but how to govern themselves democratically.
This Rodney conference must, in Walter’s memory, bring about Guyana’s Porto Allegre.
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