The communication revolution has worsened the tension, named by CLR James and others, between the actual Caribbean and the aspirations, preferences and expectations of the Caribbean populations and what is actually possible at home.

In Guyana some of the changes for the worse are in the area of public health with HIV/ AIDS, suicide and malaria, domestic violence and child abuse taking a heavy toll on both coastal and hinterland populations.

Poverty, rampant corruption, crime, the narco traffic, widespread economic decline and failure, as well as failure of anticipation and failure to capture development possibilities in the major industries, extra judicial killings and misguided political violence have all fed into racial tensions which have been of major political and social significance for over half a century.

When we come to lament the lack of national consensus and the ethnic tensions which stand in the way of safety, bread and justice and people's self-organisation for a start, there can be no denial that Guyana is most richly blessed in the existence and the contributions and social and political leadership of Walter Rodney who in his lifetime advocated and demonstrated in practice a new form of relations among the ethnic groups of our country and a new respect for trade, craft and vocation, with entitlements to self-_expression.

People who are easily discouraged stress the fact that regrettably we cannot "bring back Rodney". However, he left us a rich treasure easy to use. Apart from devoting his own example, his gift to Guyana was the History of the Guyanese Working People, which sets out up to a certain crucial period the carefully researched dynamics of race and society in Guyana. The rest he lived and practised among his fellow Guyanese and Caribbean compatriots.