The Walter Rodney Anniversary Commemoration Committee yesterday announced a month of activities to mark the 30th death anniversary of Rodney with a focus on finding the relevance of Rodney’s works and teaching to the present.
Committee members Rupert Roopnaraine, Dr David Hinds and Desmond Trotman shared with members of the media activities for this year’s commemoration at Ram and McRae’s office on Waterloo Street. A month of activities beginning Sunday is expected to be extended throughout the year as the committee remembers the political activist who was assassinated on June 13, 1980.
Major activities for the month include the dedication of the memorial site at Hadfield Street and Austin Place on June 13. The ceremony will include an art exhibition, readings poetry and music. Prior to this, on June 11 there will be an exhibition of paintings by the Guyana United Artists at the Venezuelan Cultural Centre and a musical commemoration at the Sidewalk Cafe featuring various artists on June 12.
There will also be discussions and lectures on the life and work of Rodney on the television programme “Walter Rodney Groundings” on June 6, 13, 20 and 27.
Further efforts include incorporating Rodney’s books into schools but Roopnaraine stated that talks with the Ministry of education to include Rodney’s publication in the curriculum have proved futile. He noted that two books were published and distributed by the Guyana Book Foundation to schools. “But I don’t think there has been a systematic integration of Rodney’s work and thinking into the curriculum,” he added.
Meanwhile, reading a statement, Trotman stated that Rodney “saw with astonishing clarity the degradation that awaited a society that could not summon the energy and courage to root out the corruption that threatened to blight the lives of generations to come.”
Trotman further stated that, “Walter Rodney’s life and example stand as a rebuke to all those who have come to accept that the collapse of values, the sordidness of public life, the increasing pauperisation of the already poor and the squalor of everyday life are our lost as citizens of the republic.”
