Karim F. Hirji
20 February 2022
Walter Rodney – The Lover
Walter Rodney was a consummate lover. He loved his family, comrades, homeland, Africa and humanity. He loved historical and intellectual inquiry and exchange; he loved teaching and his students loved him. He loved life— Reggae music and more, dance, cricket. He was enamored by reading, both frivolous and ponderous. His love of humanity was so profound that he could and did sacrifice his life for it. Walter Rodney aptly exemplified Ernesto Che Guevara’s emblematic dictum: `At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.’
The Walter Rodney I Knew
Walter Rodney was an exemplary human being. Rarely without a smile on his face, this erudite academic humbly mingled with people irrespective of their station in life. To us, the oft clueless students at the University of Dar es Salaam, he was an elder brother, a guide. An activist infused with abundant energy he always kept his word. He enjoined his comrades to savor the finery of human culture as well as delve deeply in intellectual matters, to base the struggle for human dignity on a scientific foundation, and not refrain from questioning because it would irk the powerful. Life is struggle and struggle is life—that was his most profound message for his fellow comrades. And he lived and died by his words.