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Fascinating 'WAR Stories' at UWI
Published: Thursday | November 19, 2009
Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer
Rodney
The name of the documentary eventually shown (after an extensive delay due to technical difficulties) in N1, University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona campus, last Friday is a happy coincidence of fact and sensation - a sensational fact, even.
WAR Stories: Walter Anthony Rodney, created by Clairmont Chung, traces the life of Guyanese Walter Anthony Rodney, academic and activist, who was murdered in Georgetown, Guyana, in June 1980.
His life was personally relevant to a number of the persons in the approximately three-quarters capacity audience last Friday who knew Rodney when he lectured at UWI, Mona. And one particular battle in WAR Stories was relevant to Jamaica in general because of the Hugh Shearer-led government's refusal to allow him re-entry into the country after attending a Black Writers' Conference in 1968 led to protests by the UWI students and riots.
Panel discussion
The expected order of the evening, the documentary being screened before a panel discussion with Richard Small, Jerry Small, Rupert Lewis and Chung, was upset and reversed by the technical difficulties. In the discussion taking place before the screening, Chung said the idea of the documentary came up in 2004, and while it give the facts, it does not purport to tell anyone what to think. "You come to your own conclusions," he told the audience, the Institute of Cultural Studies' Professor Claudette Williams doing the introductions and thank yous.
"I tried to capture an ideological path of transformation in the person. I realised in the process it was not all about him," Chung said.
First-hand accounts
He pointed out that "one of the things missing from the film is the perspective of UWI students on the day at the time" and opened the floor to persons who gave first-hand accounts of their experiences during the protest against Rodney being effectively banned from Jamaica.
In putting Rodney's ban into context, Richard Small gave a mini-history of the People's National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), dubbing them the same thing and declaring the JLP "the NDM (National Democratic Movement) of the PNP". He also referred to a few past student leaders at the UWI, Mona, saying that they had been co-opted by the major political parties.
Professor Rupert Lewis spoke about how Rodney would travel to different parts of the island on weekends, listening, talking, studying, and this was the basis on which a major file on him was created by the Special Branch. Significantly, United States Embassy reports about problems in Jamaica at the time made it clear that they were not caused by Rodney, who had no weapons and was not involved in any form of armed struggle in Jamaica.
The case about Rodney, then, represented the paranoia of the time.
WAR Stories: Walter Anthony Rodney takes a straightforward, chronological approach to Rodney's life in Guyana, Jamaica, Tanzania and England, footage of various physical locations interspersed with interviews of persons who knew and worked with him, as well as his daughter Asha. Michael O. West said that Rodney was under surveillance almost all his adult life and there were also interviews with researchers Horace Campbell and Robert Hill, among others.
Substantial treatment was given to Rodney's political activities in Guyana in the final few years of his life in which he formed the Working People's Alliance. Included in those years was his 1979 trial for arson, along with colleagues, after two government buildings were razed. Robin Small was involved in his defence.
Bomb disguised
Rodney was killed on June 13, 1980, when a bomb disguised as a walkie talkie, given to him by Sergeant Gregory Smith of the Guyana Defence Force, exploded in a car in which he was being driven by his brother Donald Rodney.
Close to the end of the documentary, there was the all too common testimony of collective amnesia, as it was said "there is so much ignorance in the country. You ask young people about Walter Rodney and they don't know".
Poets Takura, Neto and Dexter Malawe relieved the tedium of waiting to see WAR Stories: Walter Anthony Rodney with poetry performances.
'I tried to capture an ideological path of transformation in the person. I realised in the process it was not all about him.'
More Entertainment E-mail this story
Published: Thursday | November 19, 2009
Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer
Rodney
The name of the documentary eventually shown (after an extensive delay due to technical difficulties) in N1, University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona campus, last Friday is a happy coincidence of fact and sensation - a sensational fact, even.
WAR Stories: Walter Anthony Rodney, created by Clairmont Chung, traces the life of Guyanese Walter Anthony Rodney, academic and activist, who was murdered in Georgetown, Guyana, in June 1980.
His life was personally relevant to a number of the persons in the approximately three-quarters capacity audience last Friday who knew Rodney when he lectured at UWI, Mona. And one particular battle in WAR Stories was relevant to Jamaica in general because of the Hugh Shearer-led government's refusal to allow him re-entry into the country after attending a Black Writers' Conference in 1968 led to protests by the UWI students and riots.
Panel discussion
The expected order of the evening, the documentary being screened before a panel discussion with Richard Small, Jerry Small, Rupert Lewis and Chung, was upset and reversed by the technical difficulties. In the discussion taking place before the screening, Chung said the idea of the documentary came up in 2004, and while it give the facts, it does not purport to tell anyone what to think. "You come to your own conclusions," he told the audience, the Institute of Cultural Studies' Professor Claudette Williams doing the introductions and thank yous.
"I tried to capture an ideological path of transformation in the person. I realised in the process it was not all about him," Chung said.
First-hand accounts
He pointed out that "one of the things missing from the film is the perspective of UWI students on the day at the time" and opened the floor to persons who gave first-hand accounts of their experiences during the protest against Rodney being effectively banned from Jamaica.
In putting Rodney's ban into context, Richard Small gave a mini-history of the People's National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), dubbing them the same thing and declaring the JLP "the NDM (National Democratic Movement) of the PNP". He also referred to a few past student leaders at the UWI, Mona, saying that they had been co-opted by the major political parties.
Professor Rupert Lewis spoke about how Rodney would travel to different parts of the island on weekends, listening, talking, studying, and this was the basis on which a major file on him was created by the Special Branch. Significantly, United States Embassy reports about problems in Jamaica at the time made it clear that they were not caused by Rodney, who had no weapons and was not involved in any form of armed struggle in Jamaica.
The case about Rodney, then, represented the paranoia of the time.
WAR Stories: Walter Anthony Rodney takes a straightforward, chronological approach to Rodney's life in Guyana, Jamaica, Tanzania and England, footage of various physical locations interspersed with interviews of persons who knew and worked with him, as well as his daughter Asha. Michael O. West said that Rodney was under surveillance almost all his adult life and there were also interviews with researchers Horace Campbell and Robert Hill, among others.
Substantial treatment was given to Rodney's political activities in Guyana in the final few years of his life in which he formed the Working People's Alliance. Included in those years was his 1979 trial for arson, along with colleagues, after two government buildings were razed. Robin Small was involved in his defence.
Bomb disguised
Rodney was killed on June 13, 1980, when a bomb disguised as a walkie talkie, given to him by Sergeant Gregory Smith of the Guyana Defence Force, exploded in a car in which he was being driven by his brother Donald Rodney.
Close to the end of the documentary, there was the all too common testimony of collective amnesia, as it was said "there is so much ignorance in the country. You ask young people about Walter Rodney and they don't know".
Poets Takura, Neto and Dexter Malawe relieved the tedium of waiting to see WAR Stories: Walter Anthony Rodney with poetry performances.
'I tried to capture an ideological path of transformation in the person. I realised in the process it was not all about him.'
More Entertainment E-mail this story