by Julian Lahai Samboma
Image source: Guyana Times
The author reports on the Walter Rodney conference, which took place in March 2019 at the London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and whose theme was “On Walter Rodney: Pan-Afrikanism, Marxism and the Next Generation”.
“Learn from life, learn from our people, learn from books, learn from the experience of others. Never stop learning. ” – Amilcar Cabral, freedom fighter.
Walter Rodney’s How Europe Underdeveloped Africa had a profound influence on my ideological development growing up in Sierra Leone. It exposed neo-colonialism as a process of active, on-going underdevelopment, a process with an historical starting point and an end, i.e. a motive, which is the theft of Africa’s labour and material resources for the development of Europe and North America. Although I have re-read it on many occasions since then, I must admit that I have not paid this great teacher the proper attention he deserves.
Journal of People 