Honorable Zakia Hamdani Meghji
My late husband Ramadhan Meghji and I knew Walter Rodney when we were students at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. Ramadhan Meghji was a student of economics while I majored in history the subject that Walter Rodney taught. However, we were both active in Hill politics. The name Hill was a reference to the University. We were both students there from 1968 to 1971.
I can say that I knew Walter Rodney first as my lecturer but also later as a family friend together with his wife Pat and their children. At the university, Walter taught history and I was one of his students. Walter exposed us to a lot of ideas, ideas that lingered on and influenced my whole outlook to society and political life. I did history in High school; African history. With Walters lectures I realized that we were greatly misled by our former teachers in high school showing that Africans were underdeveloped because they were lazy, not initiative and they were poor because they were poor-Africa the Dark Continent style. When I came to the University, Walter woke us up. We discussed and analyzed the draft of his book” How Europe underdeveloped Africa”. We discussed how rich Africa was in all aspects political, economic and social and how it was plundered by imperialism through his influence I became strong in my analysis and outlook whether it is to do with financial, social, economic, political or other matters.
Walter Rodney was not only a lecturer but he was a highly committed scholar, a very good and articulate speaker. It didn’t take long for Walter Rodney to be a very popular lecturer inside and outside the campus. Walter Rodney while at the university of Dar es Salaam started an informal Sunday discussion group by the name of Sunday ideological class. These Sunday classes brought together lecturers, students and activists every Sunday morning to discuss various burning issues of contemporary development. These seminars and lectures helped to deepen a more understanding on issues pertaining to class struggle, African and world politics, Marxian theory and many other issues.
At the university Walter and his wife Pat were easy to get along; it is not surprising therefore that even after we graduated Walter and his family became our family friends. Walter visited us on several occasions and gave lectures to our students at the cooperative college in Moshi Kilimanjaro where my husband and I were working now a university. He always stayed in our house. Walter was a down to earth person. I remember my first assignment when I graduated was to teach at Jangwani secondary school in Dar es Salaam. The school is still there and it is a girl secondary school. I was teaching history the subject that Walter taught me at the University of Dar es Salaam and Walter several times agreed to give lectures to my students and added great value to their understanding of African history.
On our part as students at him University we were always invited to their home which was on the campus. And after good dinner we would sit down and talk until very late at night. I remember how free and hospitable we felt with Pat ,Shaka, Kanini and Asha and their maid Mashaka, if I am not mistaken. One thing I noted on the way they treated Mashaka the helper was like part of the family very different from the way other people did. Walter Rodney will always be remembered by all of us, left a legacy that can never be forgotten. May his ideas continue to live on.
Zakia Hamdani Meghji is a Tanzanian politician who served as the Minister of Finance from 2006 to 2008. She was the first woman to hold this post. She also served as a Tourism minister, still the longest serving Tourism Minister in the country, who brought many positive changes in the Ministry.