By Stephen Gowans
November 03, 2009 – what’s left
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
It has become standard practice in many parts of the world for opposition candidates to decry as fraudulent election results that favor the incumbent. Charges of vote fraud are routinely levelled against governing parties that win elections contested by opposition parties backed by Western governments.
Continue reading When electoral fraud is met by congratulations
By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
November 14, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com
History is one of the most powerful weapons in the armory of a people to define and empower and defend themselves.
If a people do not place themselves in their proper historical context, then, such a people would be defenseless, powerless and nothingless. As such, it is very vital for a people to write, interpret, and analyse their own history for, by and of themselves. Failure to do so would be fatal for their existence. And their demise would be assured. No people should allow another people to write, interpret and analyse their own history. Most of all, the oppressed or colonised must not allow their oppressor or coloniser to write, interpret and analyse their history. More specifically, we Afrikan people must not allow our European oppressor/coloniser to write, interpret and analyse our history.
Continue reading Role of History and Culture in The Liberation Struggle
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 24, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com
In an interesting article, “The ‘Glorious Revolution’ of August 1, 1838” (Express, August 2nd 2009), Selwyn Ryan presents William Hardin Burnley (1780-1850), the largest slaveholder in Trinidad and Tobago, as one of the “more forward-looking” planters in terms of human resource management strategy. He suggests that after the emancipation of the enslaved Africans Burnley felt that “the extinction of slavery has created a mighty revolution, in that, in this island, the master was now the slave and the former slave the master.” He quotes Burnley as saying that “God and nature were conspiring to render the island of Trinidad ‘a little Terrestrial Paradise for the African race.’ He insisted that he was not guilty of hyperbole when he said that the African was like the ‘Midas of Greek Mythology.'”
Continue reading William Hardin Burnley and the Glorious Revolution
Q. Is Obama better than Bush?
A. It depends how you like your imperialism – with a white face or a black one.
By Stephen Gowans
July 19, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com
US president Barack Obama’s speech at Accra, Ghana on July 11, 2009 was equal parts jaw dropping hypocrisy, outright fiction, sound advice for Africans if taken literally, and advocacy for institutions ideally suited to capital accumulation in Africa by Western investors. Africans should heed the US president’s call to embrace the idea that Africa’s future is up to Africans (and Africans alone) and to build their own nations, but the path Obama proposes, if followed, would condemn Africa to continued underdevelopment and perpetual dependence on the West.
Continue reading Obama’s Africa Speech: Lies, Hypocrisy, and a Prescription for Continued African Dependence
More Than a Celebration of Struggle, Arts & Culture
By Michael De Gale
January 23, 2007
If I didn’t know better, during the month of February I will be left with the distinct impression that the Civil Rights struggle, crafts and music mixed with a dazzling display of dance and a variety of cultural activities represents the sum of Africa’s contribution to civilization. In spite of the overwhelming scientific evidence and the existence of numerous artifacts, little is ever mentioned in the mainstream about Africa’s contributions to civilization in the fields of science and technology. With the exception of inquiring minds, the proliferation of numerous books and scholarly articles on the subject has done little to dispel the truncated view of Africa as simply a land of exoticism in the consciousness of the greater public.
Continue reading African History Month
A Step Towards the African Revolution
By Leslie, africaspeaks.com
October 05, 2006
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com
The session at the last Moonlight Gathering in September was highly profound and without a doubt, edifying and interesting. Usually, after a period of song, poetry, drumming and other chosen activities, the group at the Moonlight Gathering would engage an issue; any issue that we feel worth discussing and for whatever reasons. However, the last gathering was the first time that the discussion was so heated; so much so, that some chose to ‘stay out of the kitchen’.
Continue reading Dealing with Colourism