Caribe

Walter Rodney lives

Norman Girvan

24/06/2012

Opinión

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Introduction to a Panel Discussion on How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, June 13 2012 (extract).

The first point I want to make is that Walter Rodney was not a racial chauvinist. He did not support racially based politics. In the current racially polarised political climate of certain Caribbean countries, it is important to emphasise this in learning the lessons of Walter’s work. Walter was a Pan-Africanist, yes, but as a Marxist he believed in the unity of the working people, both of African and Indian descent. This was the cause on which Walter worked in the last years of his life. After writing How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, Walter relocated to his home country Guyana. He was prevented by the government from taking up his appointment as Professor of History at the University, but he was not deterred. He established his home base there and gave lectures and speeches abroad to earn the income to provide for his family. It was then that he did his research on the History of the Guyanese Working People and published his book by that name. He co-founded the Working People’s Alliance. In 1980 the WPA was attracting a growing following, due in large part to Walter’s spellbinding oratory. It was this that led to his assassination at the hands of a government agent in 1980. Today June 13 marks the 32nd anniversary of his assassination.

Unity of the working people of African and Indian descent was the cause for which Walter Rodney lived. It was the cause for which he died.

The second point I want to make is that this is not a history book. It is a book about history, of course; but Walter did not believe in history for its own sake. History for him was a tool to understanding the present and a guide to praxis for building a better future. The book explains the underdevelopment of the African continent as a consequence of its relationship to the capitalist system over 500 years of the slave trade and colonial rule—the depopulation of a large part of its skilled farmers, craftsmen and artisans; the abortion of its embryonic science and technology; the destruction of its domestic food economy; the obliteration of its nascent manufacturing industry, the carving up of the continent. It is not the white man, as such, who is the villain in this book. The villain is the international capitalist system based in Europe and the United States, and its local allies—“the gentlemen who dance in Abidjan, Accra and Kinshasa when the music is played in Paris, London and New York”. As he says at the end of chapter one, ‘the ultimate responsibility for development rest on the shoulders of Africans (for) Not only are there African accomplices inside the imperialist system, but every African has a responsibility to work for its overthrow”. And it was his belief that the principal protagonists would have to be the majority classes, with the active participation of intellectuals who embrace the cause of the people.

There is no way in which we could do justice to a book of such range and depth in one intervention or even one panel of speakers. I commend to you as an introduction the excellent synopsis written by Nigel Westmaas. But you have to read this book for yourself. In reading it, bear in mind that the African experience is part of the wider story of the 500-year spread of Euro-American capitalism over the Global South. The Caribbean, Latin America and Asia each had their own dose of Western-organised trade and colonial, semi-colonial or neo-colonial rule. In our case, there is a companion story that could be called How Europe Underdeveloped the Caribbean. That story has been told in the work of people like Eric Williams on Capitalism and Slavery; by Lloyd Best, Kari Polanyi Levitt and George Beckford on Plantation Economy, and by C.Y. Thomas in The Poor and the Powerless.

I am very concerned that a younger generation of Caribbean students is being deprived of exposure to this work as well as to that of Walter Rodney. This is a serious deficiency that must be remedied as a matter of urgency. You cannot understand the Caribbean situation today of economic dependency, uneven development, political fragmentation and social exclusion; without understanding how we came to be what we are. It is of the utmost importance for these texts to be revisited, updated and employed as tools of political education.

Rodney held that development was only possible by means of a radical break from the international capitalist stem. That was forty years ago. Since then the world capitalist system has entered its most profound crisis of the modern era. Economists point to interlinked crises of inequality, debt, food, energy and the environment. Approximately 925 million people in the world suffer from hunger—that’s one in seven of the world’s population¹. During the time that it takes me to read these remarks, approximately 90 children around the world will have died as consequence of under-nutrition. Yet there is enough food in the world to feed everyone.

In 2009, the combined wealth of the 400 richest Americans was $1,270 billion². This is about the same as the annual income of 1 billion Africans³. This means that the wealth of each of America’s 400 richest people, on average, was over 2 million times the annual income, on average, that of 1 billion Africans. Between 2009 and 2011, the combined wealth of the richest 400 Americans increased by 20 per cent, to $1,530 billion⁴. The average wealth per person of the richest 400 was $38 billion. How much can a man or woman eat, drink and otherwise consume in a lifetime?

The environment

In March of this year a group of the world’s leading scientists warned that: “Research now demonstrates that the continued functioning of the Earth system as it has supported the well-being of human civilization in recent centuries is at risk,”⁵. They speak of the risk of a “humanitarian emergency on a global scale.” The key to changing the situation is not merely through technological innovation, but through the transformation of values, beliefs, and goals toward sustainable growth. Such aspirations will likely require sweeping and major reforms.”

The question we need to ask is: can such a transformation of beliefs, values and goals be accomplished within the framework of a system that values private profit over the social good, individualism over cooperation, greed and acquisitiveness over caring, immediate gratification over acting with consideration for the future, and indefinite material accumulation over living in harmony with nature?

There is now a worldwide movement calling for a transformation of the world capitalist system in the interests of the majority of humanity and of Planet Earth, the ancestral mother of us all. The fate of Africa is inextricably linked to that of the Caribbean; as well to that of Latin America and to that of the African and Asian Diasporas in the Americas. A new generation of activists is certain to welcome Walter’s book for its timeliness and its contemporary relevance. (…)

You can destroy a man’s body, but you cannot kill his ideas, his thought, his spirit and his example. Walter Rodney lives!

- Norman Girvan is Professorial Research Fellow at the UWI Graduate Institute of International Relations at the University of the West Indies in St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. http://normangirvan.info

1. http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world hunger facts 2002.htm. The same source reports that five million children die annually from the consequences of poor nutrition. This works out at 9 child deaths per minute.

2 http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/003455.html

3 The aggregate GDP of the African continent in 2009 was put at $1.3 trillion or $1,300 billion. http://www.theafricagroup.com/static/django-sites/consulting/cms_page_media/10/KENS v. BRICs.pdf

4 http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2011/0921/Forbes-400-fuels-class-warfare-fire-The-rich-yes-are-getting-richer

5 http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/world/scientists-warn-of-global-humanitarian-crisis-ahead-of-rio-summit-212718.html

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