Thursday, July 5, 2012
Sunday, July 1, 2012
HAPA ZANZIBAR IJIFIKIRIE UPYA.
Zanzibar hata muungano ukivunjika
leo haitakuwa na usalama wala Tanganyika haitakuwa na amani naamini hivyo
Znzibar. Dhana ya ubaguzi ni dhana endelevu kama ilivyo uhuru usawa, mwanzo wa
uhuru wa kitu Fulani ni mwanzo wa madai ya uhuru mwingine tufikirie uhuru
uliodaiwa wakati wa uhuru ni uhuru wa zama hizi?
Je wakati tunadai uhuru miaka ya 1950 tulidai uhuru
tulidai wa habari, tulipodai usawa ulikuwa usawa wa jinsia, tulipodai umoja
ulikuwa wamisikiti au makanisa? Tulipodai umoja ulikuwa wa makanisa? hapa
tunaweza kuona kuna dhana pana sana na zinazobadilika kutokana na zama je ni
nini lengo. Leo binadam ukiwa na sababu sahihi anaweza kudai apate mabadiliko
Fulani kesho aktaka kuwa na mabadiliko hapa ndipo dhana ya ubaguzi na uhuru na
usawa zinapofanana ila mwanzo wa kuchoma makanisa umeleta dhana ya kudai kuuvunja muungano. Kwa mtazamo wangu
kilichopo nyuma ya pazia ni kuuvunja muungano ili kupata zanzibar itakayokuwa
jamhuri ya kiislam.
Nasema hivi kutokana na mfululizo wa matamshi, nani
wanataka muungano uvunjike, ,mitazamo yao, misimamo yao, na ‘prediction’ yangu.
Ila hata muungano ukivunjika bado ubaguzi hauwezi kuwaishia hapa utaendelea
kwasababu ni asili ya ubaguzi kuendelea kawsababu watu hawafanani, hajawahi
kufanana, hawatafanana, watatofautina na wataendelea kuwa hivyo.
Waafrika hatugawanywi kwa misingi ya kiafrika
‘dhana za kiafrika, mitazamo ya kiafrika, fikra za kiafrika’ ila kwa misingi
wasio waafrika ambazo kama waafrika hatupati faida zaidi ya kutuumiza hivi
tunazoamini udini, rangi, mipaka kwa faida ya nani yetu? Ya kiroho? Kwa maisha
ya nani yetu na vizazi vya nani? Vyetu? Kila ni nini asili ya chuki tulizonazo
sio mawazo yam bongo zetu ni picha tulizojengewa na wao ni tamaduni zao. Huwa
najiuliza kwanii zitugawe Waafrika nadhani naweza kupata leo majibu kupitia
makala hii.
Kama Afrika inanielewa inatakiwa iwe na uwezo wa
kusikia nakutambua kupitia milango yake ya fahamu hivi dhana
Mwanzo wa dai la kuuvunja muungano utazaa kutaka
kuivunja pemba na Unguja
TO BE CONTINUED
WATER RODEY
WALTER RODNEY: A BIOGRAPHY
Walter
Rodney was born in Georgetown, Guyana on March 23, 1942. His was a working
class family-his father was a tailor and his mother a seamstress. After
attending primary school, he won an open exhibition scholarship to attend
Queens College as one of the early working-class beneficiaries of concessions
made in the filed of education by the ruling class in Guyana to the new
nationalism that gripped the country in the early 1950s. While at Queens College young Rodney excelled academically, as well as in the fields of athletics and debating. In 1960, he won an open scholarship to further his studies at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. He graduated with a first-class honors degree in history in 1963 and. he won an open scholarship to the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. In 1966, at the age of 24 he was awarded a Ph.D. with honors in African History.

His doctoral research on slavery on the Upper Guinea Coast was the result of long meticulous work on the records of Portuguese merchants both in England and in Portugal. In the process he learned Portuguese and Spanish which along with the French he had learned at Queens College made him somewhat of a linguist.
In 1970, his Ph.D dissertation was published by Oxford University Press under the title, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545-1800. This work was to set a trend for Rodney in both challenging the assumptions of western historians about African history and setting new standards for looking at the history of oppressed peoples. According to Horace Campbell "This work was path-breaking in the way in which it analyzed the impact of slavery on the communities and the interrelationship between societies of the region and on the ecology of the region."
Walter took up his first teaching appointment in Tanzania before returning to his alma mater, the University of the West Indies, in 1968. This was a period of great political activity in the Caribbean as the countries begun their post colonial journey. But it was the Black Power Movement that caught Walter's imagination.
Some new voices had begun to question the direction of the post-independence governments, in particular their attitude to the plight of the downpressed. The issue of empowerment for the black and brown poor of the region was being debated among the progressive intellectuals. Rodney, who from very early on had rejected the authoritarian role of the middle class political elite in the Caribbean, was central to this debate. He, however, did not confine his activities to the university campus. He took his message of Black Liberation to the gullies of Jamaica. In particular he shared his knowledge of African history with one of the most rejected section of the Jamaican society-the Rastafarians.
Walter had shown an interest in political activism ever since he was a student in Jamaica and England. Horace Campbell reports that while at UWI Walter "was active in student politics and campaigned extensively in 1961 in the Jamaica Referendum on the West Indian Federation." While studying in London, Walter participated in discussion circles, spoke at the famous Hyde Park and, participated in a symposium on Guyana in 1965. It was during this period that Walter came into contact with the legendary CLR James and was one of his most devoted students.
By the summer of 1968 Rodney's "groundings with the working poor of Jamaica had begun to attract the attention of the government. So, when he attended a Black Writers' Conference in Montreal, Canada, in October 1968, the Hugh Shearer-led Jamaican Labor Party Government banned him from re-entering the country. This action sparked widespread riots and revolts in Kingston in which several people were killed and injured by the police and security forces, and millions of dollars worth of property destroyed.. Rodney's encounters with the Rastafarians were published in a pamphlet entitled "Grounding with My Brothers," that became a bible for the Caribbean Black Power Movement.
Having been expelled from Jamaica, Walter returned to Tanzania after a short stay in Cuba.. There he lectured from 1968 to 1974 and continued his groundings in Tanzania and other parts of Africa. This was the period of the African liberation struggles and Walter, who fervently believed that the intellectual should make his or her skills available for the struggles and emancipation of the people, became deeply involved.. It was from partly from these activities that his second major work, and his best known --How Europe Underdeveloped Africa - emerged. It was published by Bogle-L'Ouverture, in London, in conjunction with Tanzanian Publishing House in 1972.
This Tanzanian period was perhaps the most important in the formation of Rodney's ideas. According to Horace Campbell "Here he was at the forefront of establishing an intellectual tradition which still today makes Dar es Salaam one of the centers of discussion of African politics and history. Out of he dialogue, discussions and study groups he deepened the Marxist tradition with respect to African politics, class struggle, the race question, African history and the role of the exploited in social change. It was within the context of these discussions that the book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa was written."
Campbell also reports that " In he same period, he wrote the critical articles on Tanzanian Ujamaa, imperialism, on underdevelopment, and the problems of state and class formation in Africa. Many of his articles which were written in Tanzania appeared in Maji Maji, the discussion journal of the TANU Youth League at the University. He worked in the Tanzanian archives on the question of forced labor, the policing of the countryside and the colonial economy. This work-- " World War II and the Tanzanian Economy"-- was later published as a monograph by Cornell University in 1976".
Rodney also developed a reputation as a Pan-Africanist theoretician and spokes person. Campbell says that "In Tanzania he developed close political relationships with those who were struggling to change the external control of Africa He was very close to some of the leaders of liberation movements in Africa and also to political leaders of popular organizations of independent territories. Together with other Pan-Africanists he participated in discussing leading up to the Sixth Pan-African Congress, held in Tanzania, 1974. Before the Congress he wrote a piece: "Towards the Sixth Pan-African Congress: Aspects of the International Class Struggle in Africa, the Caribbean and America."
In 1974, Walter returned to Guyana to take up an appointment as Professor of History at the University of Guyana, but the government rescinded the appointment. But Rodney remained in Guyana, joined the newly formed political group, the Working People's Alliance. Between 1974 and his assassination in 1980, he emerged as the leading figure in the resistance movement against the increasingly authoritarian PNC government. He give public and private talks all over the country that served to engender a new political consciousness in the country. During this period he developed his ideas on the self emancipation of the working people, People's Power, and multiracial democracy.
On July 11, 1979, Walter, together with seven others, was arrested following the burning down of two government offices. He, along with Drs Rupert Roopnarine and Omawale, was later charged with arson. From that period up to the time of his murder, he was constantly persecuted and harassed and at least on one occasion, an attempt was made to kill him. Finally, on the evening of June 13, 1980, he was assassinated by a bomb in the middle of Georgetown..
Walter was married to Dr Patricia Rodney and the union bore three children- Shaka, Kanini and Asha.
How
Europe Underdeveloped Africa is a book written by Walter Rodney, which takes the view that Africa was deliberately
exploited and underdeveloped by European colonial regimes.
Rodney
argues that a combination of power politics and economic exploitation of Africa by Europeans led to
the poor state of African political and economic development evident in the
late 20th century. In the book's preface, Rodney praises the state of Tanzania, which had pursued the sort of Marxist political ideology that he advocated.
First
published in 1972, the book was enormously influential in the study of African history. In the late 1990s many academics
became more sharply critical of the book's central thesis and argued that the
book oversimplifies the complex historical forces surrounding the colonial era.
This
book was groundbreaking in that it was among the first to bring a new
perspective to the question of underdevelopment in Africa. Rodney's analysis
went far beyond the heretofore accepted approach in the study of Third World
underdevelopment and it was met with heavy criticism.
Rodney
had determined that the only path to true human development and liberation for
the majority of the people of his country was through the transformation of
their own lives in a struggle to replace and reshape the neo-colonialist
government that dominated their society and prescribed their existence.
Rodney on Power
"The
decisiveness of the short period of colonialism and its negative consequences
for Africa spring mainly from the fact that Africa lost power. Power is the
ultimate determinant in human society, being basic to the relations within any
group and between groups. It implies the ability to defend one's interests and
if necessary to impose one's will by any means available. In relations between
peoples, the question of power determines maneuverability in bargaining, the
extent to which a people survive as a physical and cultural entity. When one
society finds itself forced to relinquish power entirely to another society,
that in itself is a form of underdevelopment.
The Walter Rodney Foundation was formed by the Rodney Family in 2006 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The Walter Rodney Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization.
Walter Rodney is recognized as one of the Caribbean’s most brilliant minds. His scholarly works and political activism engendered a new political consciousness. His PhD thesis, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, illustrated his duality as an intellectual and activist as he challenged prevailing assumptions about African history and put forth his own ideas and models for analyzing the history of oppressed peoples. His seminal work, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa, provided a new construct for development theory and established framework for analyzing current global socio-economic and political issues.
The Foundation is committed to sharing the life and works of Walter Rodney with students, scholars and community activists around the world.
Principal Objectives
- Contribute to a more equitable society
- Promote and facilitate literacy and education
- Promote and facilitate health and development initiatives
- Promote and facilitate civic involvement and leadership skills;
- Provide resources for the marginalized, especially women and youth
- Promote scholarly use of the Walter Rodney Papers housed at the Robert W. Woodruff Library of the Atlanta University Center
- Consolidate the intellectual property of Dr. Walter Rodney
- Promote his legacy by holding seminars, conferences and symposia in schools, colleges and universities and communities
Read a Brief Overview of The Walter Rodney Papers...
WANAPENDA KUJUA JUU YA MAPINDUZI
Theories of social movement states,
Social protest and movement are likely to occur not when people are in
dire poverty but there is some improvements in their living conditions
and their expectation start to rise i.e
Now how and why different
groups mobilize to achieve change? IT IS BECAUSE THEY WANT THEIR VOICE
TO BE HEARD or when their voice repressed by governments.
HERE WE NEED SOCIAL Activism to make changes we need to achieve.
"to those who see in it a theoretical character we should recall that
every practice has a theory, and that if it is true that every practice
has a theory, and that if it is true that a revolution can fail even
though it be based on perfectly conceived theories, nobody has yet made a
successful revolutionary theory.
Because people thoughts are divergent in nature. But SOCIAL ACTIVISTS
are moved by ideas and USE ideas to move mass. the consideration in
social revolution and activism is not only it success or not but to in
what sense it is concertize the mass
Revolution in history of human being only REVOLUTIONALISTS and SOCIAL activists are staying 4ever in the hearts of people.
"Activism comes with a lot of pain a lot of frustration a lot of
discomfort. But I think that at the end of the day you will realize that
progress has been made"
Whn revolution comes no system becomes
strong, neither governments, army forces, or intelligence units bt only
revolutionarists. ITS THE WAY 4ward 4 who belives to be a source of
revolution in the land.
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