By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 09, 2020
It might be providential that Che Lewis’s corpse was paraded around the capital city at the same time that we are talking about the goals of our educational system and the Venezuelan crisis. The simultaneity of these events should make us think where our society is (in terms of values) and where we wish to go (in terms of concrete achievements).
Continue reading An Existentialist Crisis
By Raffique Shah
December 06, 2020
Posted: December 08, 2020
The ethnic mix of the Venezuelan population—51 percent are categorised as Mestizo (blend of White/indigenous/Afro), 41 percent European/Middle East /Whites)—ensures that those who are flocking Trinidad more than Tobago are almost exclusively from the first mix. They are the equivalents of the “Reds” in our population, hence they are widely acceptable, and accepted, to Trinis on both sides of our ethnic divide, as well as the “Douglars” in-between.
Continue reading It’s a topsy-turvy world
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 01, 2020
Trinidad and Tobago, a weird place sometimes, is given to extremes. Imagine an embalmed man in a sitting position, placed in the tray of a hearse and given an open-air last ride past the Prime Minister’s office on his way to his final resting place: “Dressed in a suit and seated in a chair, Che Lewis’s body was placed in the back of a vehicle by the Dennie’s Funeral Home and driven around the capital city” (Express, November 26).
Continue reading A Macabre Display
By Raffique Shah
November 30, 2020
If there is not now on our statute books a law that empowers us to deny entry into Trinidad and Tobago to any alien, man woman or child, more so persons seeking to enter our territory illegally, then Government must move post-haste to rectify such anomaly that foreigners are using to breach our borders. Further, if some government in the past compromised this inalienable right that every sovereign state in the world must surely enjoy by signing on to some nebulous convention that purports to promote human rights, then unshackle us, damn it if we are deemed inhumane, sub-human or maybe animals.
Continue reading We Must Control Our Destiny
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 25, 2020
“Me nah know how we and dem a go work this out/But someone will have to pay/for the innocent blood/that they shed every day.”
—Bob Marley, “We and Dem”
There is a notion that Trinis are a happy-go-lucky people, a description that may be more applicable to African-descended people than to members of other groups of the population. Such a description may be more illustrative of those of us whose world view has been influenced by African religions and philosophies as put forth by John Mbiti in African Religion and Philosophy, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, or Chigozie Obioma’s An Orchestra of Minorities.
Such a notion (“happy-go-lucky Trinis”) has led others to believe that we care mostly about the celebration of the flesh and other worldly pursuits as depicted in our carnival celebration. Some have even said that while their people were “beating books, we were beating pan,” a cavalier dismissal of an important aspect of our creativity and identity.
Continue reading Demonizing Black People
Dr. Hollis “Chalkdust” Liverpool. (2020). God, The Press and Uriah Butler. Trinidad: Juba Publications.
By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
November 24, 2020
The history of the trade union movement in Trinidad and Tobago would be totally incomplete and unfinished if the life and times of the man called Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler are not the DNA of such a history. Butler was accredited as being the “Chief Servant of the Lord.” That was the “Buzz” in his revered personality. Butler believed that man’s purpose in life was the fulfillment of God’s purpose and as such, his inherent belief system informed him that he owed no obligation to anybody or anything but to God.
Continue reading BOOK REVIEW: God, The Press and Uriah Butler
By Raffique Shah
November 23, 2020
“…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights…whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers…”
Like Samuel Johnson’s proverbial scoundrel who seeks refuge in patriotism, I fall back on the American declaration of independence, especially its “unalienable rights”, and in particular the right, nay, the civic duty it imposes on citizens, to rebel with force to remove a government that is trampling their rights.
Continue reading Focus on T&T, not Trump
By Raffique Shah
November 18, 2020
Donald Trump seems prepared to plunge the United States of America into civil war if that becomes his only option as he clings to the office of President, refusing to acknowledge that he lost the presidential election to Joseph Biden. The world looks on with much foreboding as this real-life tragi-comedy plays before an audience of billions of people.
Trump refuses to recognise the official counting of votes that are presided over by state governors and their staff, many of whom belong to his Republican party. In so doing, he is showing contempt for the state institutions that he, as president, oversees. And he ignores the political and social mores of Washington that hinge on the loser graciously bowing out of office to allow for a smooth transition of power.
Continue reading Beware Trumpism
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 16, 2020
When T&T gained independence in 1962 we reveled in the possibility that we had set ourselves upon a path to deal with the problems of colonialism, particularly the sinful racism, that had disfigured our society. In 1970, disappointed that Black people were still being denied jobs and position because of their color, the Black Power Rebellion added the struggle of anti-blackness to the national agenda.
Fifty years after independence, we are still plagued with racial discrimination even though it has taken a different dimension. In the 1970s we were faced with white over black racism, today it’s brown over black, the former having inculcated some of the nastiest racial biases of the white ruling class.
Continue reading The Racial Divide
By Dr Tye Salandy
November 13, 2020
I remember when Barack Obama won his first term as US President in 2008. Late that night, I heard a massive noise of joyful screams and applause from the neighbourhood, the moment his victory was confirmed. At that point, I knew we were in for a rough ride. In the immediate aftermath, my colleague at Trinicenter.com wrote an insightful piece titled President Barack Obama: Change…What Change? that was prophetic of Obama’s presidency. Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, yet his two terms showed an appetite for war-making and violence, albeit cloaked beneath polished words, diplomacy and the goodwill of many people excited to see a non-white face leading the White House. Obama, Biden and Hilary Clinton oversaw the illegal invasion of Libya, turning a stable country into a zone of conflict. Critics would describe Obama as being more “Bush than Bush” as covert drone strikes were dramatically increased, some estimate ten times more than what occurred under George Bush Jr. Despite a seemingly tense relationship with the Israeli Prime Minister, he signed a $38 billion military aid package to Israel. Under the fancy rhetoric of “hope” and “yes we can”, mass surveillance programmes expanded internally and externally.
Continue reading Biden/Harris and the Diverse Faces of US Imperialism