Joseph Peltier
Walter Rodney - my friend, confidant and teacher. I was introduced to Walter by his wife Pat. Our friendship took off from that date till today.
Walter was an iconic figure in the liberation struggle in Guyana, and as much as he was misunderstood by the existing regime, he was also feared by them, especially the leader Forbes Burnham.
Our friendship blossomed and we began to meet very often at our respective homes which quickly brought the entire families together. My wife Patricia would cook up a storm using the recipes she learnt from her mother in our native Dominica and embraced the Guyanese goodies. Our children became very fond of each other.
Soon we began taking our families to lime with us in Georgetown and other locations. A friendship quickly developed between Kwabena our son and Shaka, Kaninni and Asha. One of the highlights of this friendship was determination to teach them to swim, which we did at the Colgrain Pool in Georgetown.
Walter and I used to travel to Linden every Saturday morning where he held education classes for the members of the Bauxite workers union, which also enabled me to provide the economic analysis of the current Guyanese situation and understand the political dynamics. As a young lecturer at the University of Guyana, we often discussed the issues impacting the political and economic dynamic facing Guyana and the Caribbean at that time.
When I was deported from Guyana, I later became involved in organizing development organisations that took me to Tanzania where I met some of Walter’s colleagues and past students and they were overjoyed to know that I knew him.
The most important thing I recall about Walter was his love of our people and the efforts he made to link our struggle in the Caribbean with that in Africa, resulting in his seminal work How Europe Under Developed Africa. Coupled with that was his selflessness, always placing the people ahead of his own issues and struggles.