D.K. Duncan "Burn UWI, Burn UWI, Burn..."
AS PRIME Minister Hugh Shearer emphasised these words to Parliament on October 17, members of the House sat transfixed. The Prime Minister was reading from a pamphlet which was circulated 35 years ago during a massive demonstration in Kingston on October 16, 1968. The specific event which triggered those demonstrations was the banning of Walter Rodney from re-entering Jamaica the day before.
Rodney had gone to Montreal, Canada in early October to participate in a Congress of Black Writers. After making his presentation on Sunday, October 13 he returned to Jamaica two days later. The Government of Jamaica prevented the Guyanese lecturer from re-entering the country where he was employed.
PROTEST
On October 16, hundreds of university students gathered on the campus to protest this action. As word spread, hundreds of citizens in the capital city joined the students on the streets in a day of militance which drove fear into the hearts of the MPs who listened to the P.M. the following day. Among other activities - over 50 buses belonging to the privately owned bus service (JOS) were either damaged or destroyed. Over 14 major fires were started in different parts of the city.
A 1963 graduate of the University of the West Indies (UWI), Dr. Walter Rodney returned to lecture in history in January, 1968. The catalyst for the demonstrations, some ten months later, lay in his activities across Jamaica during that period. The real basis lay in the conditions existing in Jamaica at that time.
A COMMUNICATOR
Very soon after returning to the UWI, Walter Rodney began giving open lectures on African History on the campus. During the course of the ten months (January-October) he extended these activities across the island across social classes. It was his interaction with the masses which however, gave the Government the greatest concern. It was that interaction which was also his greatest strength. An outstanding orator, he had the gift of communicating the most complex issues to all regardless of their academic background. In small groups or large audiences he was equally effective.
A REVOLUTIONARY
A revolutionary, Rodney saw the knowledge of African History as being "in the service of Black Revolution". At age 26 he was part of that impatient group of young Caribbean persons who empathised with the question "If not now when"? He had seen persons in Jamaica unable to travel to countries like Cuba because their passports had been taken away. Most books, newspapers, or documents which contributed to black or revolutionary consciousness were prohibited by the Jamaican State at the time.
Challenged for embracing violence as a revolutionary tool, David Hinds reminds us that Walter Rodney "taught us there is no greater violence than when a mother cannot find breakfast for her children in the morning, or when young people cannot find work, or when our education system under-educates and mis-educates our children, or when our elderly cannot live on their pension, or when our women are driven into the bosom of the night in order to make ends meet, or when half of our population are told that they do not matter because of the party they vote for".
It was sentiments like these, along with his presentations on African History as a liberating force, that was the catalyst for the demonstrations. The Vice Chancellor of the University, Sir Phillip Sherlock, who objected to the Government's actions was the subject of " outrageous and venomous attack". The attacks on the students at the University were unending.
The events gave rise to the formation of the Abeng Newspaper and the Abeng Movement. The newspaper, first published on February 1, 1969 had its last issue its 35th in October of the same year almost one year after the Rodney demonstrations. One month earlier another Guyanese 33-year-old Economics Lecturer Dr. C.Y. Thomas was also banned from entering Jamaica to teach at the University.
ALUTA CONTINUA
Following the euphoria of Independence in 1962, Jamaica was in ferment from the Chinese riots to the Black Power riots. State repression was rampant. The Council for Human Rights was stretched. Young people were infected by this ferment. Ideas contended. Academia contributed to this ferment through a Think Tank the New World Group. An activist PNP associate the Young Socialist League was confident and outspoken.
It was into this cauldron in 1968 that Walter Rodney stepped. Speaking in Montreal on October 18, on the topic "The Groundings with my brothers" he reminded us that "the struggle was there long before I went and will continue long after I have left". One Love One Heart.
Dental Surgeon , Dr. D.K. Duncan, is a former General Secretary and Cabinet Minister in the PNP Administration of the 1970's.
