POLITICAL SANKOFA: THE AFRO-ATLANTIC ROOTS AND ROUTES OF WALTER RODNEY\S INTELLECTUAL FORMATIONS

Abstract

This essay broaches the historical concept of Political Sankofa. For West Africans, and the larger African Diaspora, the Akan concept of Sankofa engenders a look into the past to remember what has been lost. This step towards Africaness, whether physical or psychological, was strengthened by peripatetic Pan Africans, however, that era of collaboration is over, and Pan African politics has transformed. This unique collaboration reached its climax in the 1960s when most colonial territories in Africa and the Caribbean began to achieve political independence, however, independence was not enough to secure sustainable socioeconomic and spiritual progress. Political Sankofa attempts to fill that void in which positive values from an African past are used as a gauge to determine vigilance and vision. This essay attempts to offer an analysis by securing the voices of those who were directly responsible for coalescing the diaspora into a Pan African community. Also, the Walter Rodney Archives was instrumental in providing the personal desires and fears of this very Pan African, who I regard as one of the last of a dying breed. His work throughout Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States solidify one of this essays thesis that the routes are tantamount to the roots and the Homeland is not paramount to the Caribbean homeland, where many have sacrificed their lives to secure a future for their progeny. Ultimately, the quality of identity and leadership is at the crux of this essay, and the contemporary implications regard the cultural and economic sensibilities of the African Diaspora and the wider global agenda.