Iconoclastic revelations on Walter Rodney 

Nov 05, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – No researcher will see the holistic picture of a political actor until time passes. It is with the passage of time that hindsight, new facts and studious reflections bring more objective assessments into play.

This entire world was emotional when Barack Obama became president. There was one foundational thought only – he was a Blackman who came from a race of people that were terribly mistreated and America would now see a different leader never seen before.

Reflections in 2022 would reveal that Obama was no different from the rest of presidents that ruled the US. In stayed 8 years in office and there was no attempt to solve the Palestinian-Israeli land conflict.

Obama bankrolled Wall Street during the financial crisis while income deterioration for the lower and middle classes continued under his rule. The US stayed in Iraq, and Afghanistan under Obama.

It was left to Trump and Biden to pull out of those countries. You would have expected a Black president like Obama to pardon Edward Snowden after all the spying and false charges perpetrated against a generation of African-American leaders of which Martin Luther King heads the list of victims.

Obama was and will remain a celebrity president. If Kamala Harris is made the president, she will not get the same emotional greetings from the world. Obama has dissolved the ebullience that once existed in the thought of most people that Black leaders will make America better. I doubt Harris will win anyway.

This is a long introduction to an iconoclastic review of the activism of Walter Rodney. When scholars come to Guyana and contact me for an interview, I always arrange the rendezvous in the morning hours at the National Park when I am with my dog, Princess.

My dog would sleep in the car while my guest and I sit under a tree and record the conversation. The circumstances were no different last Wednesday when UK-based Walter Rodney scholar, Chinedu Chukwudinma (CC) interviewed me on Rodney.

I gave CC all my reflections on Rodney after 48 years of rethinking. I had these revisionist/iconoclastic waves in my head a long time now and I finally expressed them in totality to CC.

One of the weaknesses, and a monumental one in Rodney’s praxis, was his activities were frameworked in a pure middle class outfit. Rodney was surrounded by pure middle class leaders that he trusted infinitely. Rodney did not keep the close company of working class leaders.

He never found a close ally in any trade union leader and never had a revolutionary comrade from the rural peasantry and rural proletariat in Guyana. Rodney was prepared to make a revolution in Guyana without the collaboration of the most resourceful opposition entity with enormous reach into the working class’ ramparts – the People’s Progressive Party.

Here now is the iconoclastic revelation of Mr. Ralpk Ramkarran in the Kaieteur News of October 25, 2022 that is bound to find fascination among Walter Rodney researchers.

I quote: “The final meeting between the PPP and the WPA was held at the beginning period of what the WPA called the “civil rebellion.” The PPP was concerned that its objectives were not defined. The PPP felt that in the absence of planned activities leading to a defined potential outcome the movement could invite repression. Before Jagan left to go abroad, he asked me to raise the issue of the upsurge of WPA’s activity to get a sense of what was on the agenda. He (Dr. Clive Thomas) responded that the whole objective of the movement was to keep everyone guessing. Thereafter the PPP was not invited by the WPA, to participate in the “civil rebellion.” Dr. Thomas’s response was discussed in the PPP leadership and it determined the PPP attitude to the “civil rebellion.” It was clear that the WPA wanted to own the event and was not looking for PPP support since we were also supposed to be ‘guessing’ at the WPA’s objectives. The “civil rebellion” failed as the PPP anticipated that it would.”

This was Walter Rodney for you. A revolutionary so convinced of his extraordinary power that he felt he could topple a repressive government without the logistical and strategic presence of other powerfully placed revolutionary groups.

There needs to be further iconoclastic interpretations of Rodney’s praxis. When Rupert Roopnaraine revealed the WPA was stockpiling arms for a violent overthrow of Burnham, Rodney’s wife and Eusi Kwayana rejected Roopnaraine’s candour. I remember doing a column in support of Roopnaraine’s contribution to the historical record

No admiration of Rodney is worth the twisting of historical facts. He was involved in violent revolutionary planning and that was commendable. But history should not be distorted by denying that fact.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not this newspaper.)

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