Walter Rodney: Writing a proud story

She could have forged a career in politics, but Dr Patricia Rodney is her own woman: an independent mother and grandmother who has made nonsense of the stigma attached to single parenting, and one who has kept the legacy of her husband alive without going near a campaign trail.

Having just formally retired from the prestigious Morehouse School of Medicine as assistant dean for public health education, director of the Master of Public Health (MPH) programme and professor in the department of community health, the widow of slain Guyanese political activist and historian Dr Walter Rodney is preparing to finally write her husband’s story.

CLOSER PERSPECTIVE

“A lot of the writings done about my husband have been from a male perspective. A lot of men have written about him. I want to write about him as a woman and as someone who has lived with him,” she said in an interview with the DAILY NATION.

“I think I’m ready,” was how she put it. “I also want to work on the Walter Rodney Foundation that we [she and their three children] established in 2005 as a result of the donation of his papers to the Robert L. Woodruff Library in Atlanta, Georgia.”

The Georgia institution received those papers in 2003. So why not a Caribbean university?

“It’s not that we haven’t tried. For years I tried to donate his papers to the University of the West Indies in Jamaica but nobody was interested.

“Papers deteriorate, so we found a home. The Caribbean still has access to those papers; researchers do as well,” she explained. “But we needed to find a place for them. They [at Woodruff] were excited about it. I could have sold the papers, but I wasn’t interested in the money. I was interested in his work being preserved.”

The donation led to a symposium featuring Rodney’s work, also in Atlanta, and involved a consortium of historically black academic institutions. It was a watershed for the annual Rodney symposium, which is slated for March 19 this year, four days before his birthday, under the theme of Natural Disasters: The Further Underdevelopment Of Marginalized Communities.

But it was a conference commemorating her husband’s death that led her back to her birthplace, Guyana, in 2005 – 25 years after the assassination that rocked the Caribbean and echoed around the world.

Of her homeland today, she said: “People in Guyana are trying to make sure that his writings – he wrote children’s books as well – get into the schools because if you ask an average child who Walter Rodney is, they may not know, which is sad.”

Rodney’s children’s books were featured in a radio series in the 70s, but he himself was not allowed to read them, and only two such books were published: Kofi Out Of Africa and Lakshmi Out Of India. “The whole reason he was writing those series was so that the children of Guyana could begin to understand their history and each other . . . to create not just tolerance but an understanding of people and their lives,” his wife explained.

With this in mind, she also wants to publish the other series of children’s books. But her labour of love has gone way beyond symposia and writings; she has also retained her husband’s legacy in his children, all now adults – Shaka being an entrepreneur, Kanini a medical professional and Asha an attorney.

DIFFICULT ROAD

“It’s been a struggle,” Dr Rodney said, “and one of the things I hate is when people bash single parenting and blame it for every evil that occurs.

“I didn’t plan to be a single parent. It wasn’t part of my design when I got married but I became one by force. It’s not easy and I had to put my own education on hold because my children were my responsibility,” she added.

Determined that nothing would interfere with the rearing of her children, she said she even gave up thoughts of being married again.

“I wanted to develop my own potential, my own professional life . . . I couldn’t do that – focus on my children and then on a personal relationship – and give all those things equity, so I decided to do two of them: my children first and then my development,” she said, noting that Walter had also supported her development and had encouraged her to pursue her Master’s shortly before his death.

One is almost forced to see her husband as irreplaceable, since he had qualities she still misses 30 years on. In fact, one of her few regrets is “that I don’t have a husband!”

“Someone who was at his peak . . . 38 years . . . I cherish the fact that I had that time with him. One never knows how long you’re going to be on the earth,” she said wistfully. “But the magnitude of what he produced, the kind of person he was and the lives he touched is something that gives me a lot of solace.”

“They [his opponents] certainly silenced a movement. They thought at the time that the WPA [Working People’s Alliance] was very instrumental in bringing the races together, because people were very divided, not just Indians and Blacks but Portuguese, Chinese . . . . Then you saw a re-emergence of the Guyanese spirit. I think this is what frightened the government, that people were uniting,” she said.

Of his car bomb assassination, she recalled: “You’re never prepared for something like that. I never thought in the Caribbean that was our style of resolving issues. I knew there were attempts on his life but I never thought that the government would be so desperate.”

Noting that students, researchers and pan-Africanists still pay homage to the man who was banned by the Jamaica government – causing a riot there in 1968 – Rodney said her husband’s mission was focused on what he could give to the society – “things that can’t be bought”.

“He couldn’t be bought,” she added. “So he might have been dangerous to many people because people assume that everybody is for sale, and he wasn’t.”

HAVEN FROM HOME

Having sought refuge in 1980 in Barbados, which she still calls “the most stable place in the Caribbean”, she has only returned home twice in 30 years.

“Guyana was home, but it was also the hardest period I had in my own home. In a sense I’ve lived around the world and people have always been welcoming, but here we were in a country where we were both born and we were being harassed continually, so it wasn’t the best of experiences to be living in Guyana,” was how she put it.

Calling it a place of “false divisions”, she said, however, that there remained much hope since many Guyanese were committed, and it was a rich country that had wasted resources, human and otherwise.

“But I’m not willing to be involved in any political way,” she was quick to add. “I would give my skills to assist any society, but I’m not interested in party politics. My forte is not politics. I’m an educator.”

REGIONAL UNITY

Speaking of human resources, Rodney is saddened at immigration policies that mainly seem to target her country folk.

“I think it’s sad because, growing up as a child, people came to Guyana from everywhere. Our next door neighbour was a Barbadian. In Guyana nobody ever asked where you were from.

“We knew your accent was different but nobody questioned whether or not you were Guyanese, and it’s a shame to see that happening in the region where people don’t open their arms to each other,” she said.

But why welcome them in fragile economies? “People have skills,” she answered. “People don’t sit around and not do anything. People are likely to say, ‘Oh, somebody’s coming to take away my job’, but if that person is creating a job for themselves and paying taxes, why would they be a burden on your society?”

BROAD EXPERIENCE

Her curriculum vitae spans areas ranging from public health to domestic abuse – another area about which she is passionate.

“I think [the term ‘domestic abuse’] is a misnomer and places the violence within a family, personal context. When I lived in Canada, we [women’s organizations and health professionals] were successful in renaming the issue ‘violence against women’. This makes it a societal problem . . . . It is about relationship of power and affects the most vulnerable in our society: women and children,” she stated.

Having spent 15 years at Morehouse, Rodney has also been a recipient of various honours and awards, including three Outstanding Faculty awards, two Meritorious Teaching awards and a Service Award for excellence in teaching.

In 2001 she was the editor of two issues of the American Journal Of Health Studies on The Health Of Women Of Colour; in 2003 she was given a Regal Award for Excellence in Health and Wellness Advocacy by the Spelman College Health and Wellness Initiative; and was awarded a two-year (2002 to 2004) health partners fellowship by the International Centre for Health Leadership Development, University of Chicago.

In 2008, Rodney was honoured by the Cuban Society of Educators in Health Sciences; in 2009 she was recognised by the Lonard Tim Hector Memorial Committee in appreciation of her lecture at the seventh annual Leonard Tim Hector Memorial Lecture in Antigua and Barbuda.

She also received the Faculty Award at the annual Independence University of the West Indies/Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners/Caribbean College of Family Physicians’ continuing education conference in Barbados.

“My stint at Morehouse was a good fit for me in terms of helping to develop its public health programme. It’s the longest job I’ve ever had in my life,” said Dr Rodney with a chuckle.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* This interview was conducted by Ricky Jordan.
* This article was first published by Nation News.
* © Nation Publishing Co. Limited 2011
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at Pambazuka News.