In defence of Annan Boodram

Jan 24, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
One of these good days we will learn to debate issues rather than hurl personal attacks against those with whom we disagree. The recent responses to Annan Boodram are a case in point.
Boodram, who himself sniped at me recently, wrote an article that raised some questions about the legacies of Walter Rodney and C.B. Jagan. His arguments boil down to the following – (a) starting in the late 1970’s Rodney and the WPA embarked on a naïve strategy best described as ‘any means necessary’ to bring about change in Guyana; (b) Jagan and the PPP were not willing to engage in ‘armed struggle’ because in the language of the party, the objective conditions were not in place for such a strategy.
These are issues of real historical importance and they ought to be debated. Sadly, rather than deal with the matters at hand, a slew of writers went after Boodram at a personal level.
Before I proceed to some substantive issues let me say this – Walter Rodney was a brilliant mind and a gallant leader. Those qualities, however, do not permanently absolve him from scrutiny. I rather doubt that Rodney himself, if he were alive today, would bar critical reflections on his activism and leadership.
I also want to note that I personally heard CLR James critique Rodney for his strategies and tactics. In a lecture at York University, James specifically said that Rodney was a General who had behaved like a Corporal.
Boodram simply alluded to a perspective that was already out there, something that is perfectly legitimate in our political discussions. Let us move on.
The critics have held on to one thing, namely, that Jagan was a Marxist-Leninist who was more interested in the big issues of the world, rather than the pressing issues within Guyana.
The people who write this kind of stuff have probably never followed Rodney’s activism overseas, and/or have never read his work. Allow me to elucidate.
Walter Rodney was a Marxist intellectual, and specifically, a Marxist historian. The leitmotiv of history for him was class struggle.
More than that, the path to liberty was to be found in class analysis, and then class struggle.
A key element of his Marxist historiography was the ways in which racialised structures, processes, and institutions, are imbricated in the diachronic development of historical capitalism. Nonetheless, ‘race’ as a concept, is secondary to class. Simply put, race is a kind of cultural and political technology used to instantiate ‘divide and rule’ in order to advance global capitalism and imperialism.
Rodney brought that perspective to his political activism in Guyana. Below are some quotations from “People’s Power: No Dictator” (October 1979):
“A dictator is representative of some class other than the majority of exploited workers and peasants. Class domination itself is sometimes called dictatorship.”
“The Constitution of independent Guyana was a product of class struggle waged partly in Europe and partly inside Guyana itself.”
“Clearly, there could never be full justice under colonialism, capitalism and imperialism because of the deep-rooted class inequalities.”
“So long as there are classes, there must be some degree of class conflict. Nevertheless, it is necessary to build a broad unity across existing class lines.”
“The middle class understands that it can never monopolise a Guyanese Government.”
“Indian sugar workers and African bauxite workers are making common cause” (Emphasis mine).
You should get the point by now. Rodney was no different from Jagan with respect to capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, classes, class struggles etc. What boggles the mind is how the current writers depress the Marxism of Rodney, while they amplify other aspects of his work. Do not forget that Rodney called socialism a ‘beautiful thing’ – destroyed by Burnham.
One quotation from Rodney can aptly demonstrate the strategic direction he envisaged in Guyana. Here it is – “Few individuals want to willingly invite their death. Yet many will be found who are prepared to fight fearlessly for their rights even if their lives are threatened. The human spirit has a remarkable capacity to rise above oppression; and only the fools who now misrule Guyana can imagine that our population alone lacks such capacity.”
These were not mere words. The statement, and others like it, served to reconstitute the ‘nature of the struggle’ as the WPA saw it. One could read from this statement that the WPA had indeed chosen a different mode of resistance. That, essentially, is what Boodram has argued.
I must of course note that Boodram himself did not paint a complete picture of the WPA and specifically of Rodney’s vision of what should be the path to liberation. In People’s Power: No Dictator” Rodney made a huge appeal for non-violent struggle. A substantial part of the section “Expose the Burnham Dictatorship” is dedicated to civil-disobedience and non-cooperation.
If Boodram had paid sufficient attention to this aspect of Rodney’s work he could not have come to the conclusion that Rodney was a political novice of the first order. Moreover, others should try to reconcile the non-violent and ‘fight fearlessly’ aspects of Rodney’s strategy.
The folks who were directly involved in WPA strategy discussions can really help here.
We have some real issues to reflect on here and we should do so in a manner that is constructive. We should avoid emotional outbursts that only serve to shift our views from simple differences to implacable hostility.
In closing I would really like to know why the WPA replaced ‘assassinated’ with ‘killed’ and ‘death’ when in June 2005 the PPP sought to begin an inquiry into the assassination of Walter Rodney. For the record Sheila Holder was the WPA parliamentarian who insisted on these changes.
Randy Persaud

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