EXTRACT: Trinidad Guardian Editorial
“Notwithstanding all that, there remains quite an amount to be thankful for, fundamentally, as New World societies, even civilisations, have been formed out of the slave trade.”
©2005-2006 Trinidad Publishing Company Limited
The Golden Voice’ Mighty Terror dies at 86
The Copyright Music Organisation of Trinidad and Tobago (COTT) was thrown into mourning yesterday afternoon, as news of the death of calypso composer, the Mighty Terror, swirled through the local music community.
Terror sings last note
Fitzgerald “The Mighty Terror” Henry died yesterday at a health care facility on Frederick Street, Curepe after a long battle with cancer.
Continue reading The Golden Voice ‘Mighty Terror’ dies at 86
By Chike Pilgrim
March 09, 2007
“THE CLASSICAL AND THE CONTEMPORARY”
2nd Part in a 4 Part Series put on by The University of T&T.
Lecture: “African Heritage in the Caribbean” – given by Professor Maureen Warner-Lewis.
The Lecture began in the National Library (Hart and St. Vincent) at 7:30pm and finished at around 8:45pm.
Prof. Warner-Lewis focused on eight (8) main areas of African contribution/heritage:
Continue reading Lecture: African Heritage in the Caribbean
A Lecture by Maureen Warner-Lewis
Wednesday March 7th 2007
Time: 7pm
Venue: National Library, Port of Spain
Bio: Born in Tobago, Warner-Lewis grew up in Trinidad where she received her early education. In 1962, she won a Trinidad and Tobago Scholarship to study English Literature at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. In 1970 she returned to Jamaica to lecture at the Univeristy of the West Indies and dedicated her life to studying the connections between Central Africa and the Caribbean that were forged through slavery.
Continue reading The Significance of African Heritage in Trinidad and Tobago
By Raffique Shah
February 25, 2007
It was not the “best Carnival ever”, as some Government ministers and security officials boasted last week. If they meant that it was the best in recent years, with that I agree. There were more than a handful of good calypsoes. There were a few mas bands that were colourful, that blended the skills of “wirebenders” and creativity of costume designers, bringing back some of the splendour of yesteryear. There was pan music supreme, so much so that I felt sorry for the many good bands that were not showcased at the finals. And for once I agree with Police Commissioner Trevor Paul, it was relatively crime-free.
Continue reading A Carnival we can be proud of
By Raffique Shah
February 18, 2007
It’s the columnist’s perennial dilemma: what topic to address on a Carnival Sunday? Who reads newspapers around this time anyway? Pan “peongs” in their thousands will be bleary-eyed and either celebrating the sound of steel or fuming over the judges’ decisions from last night’s Panorama finals. Many more who will have attended Friday night’s cacophony, “Soca Monarch”, rendered tone-deaf by noise boxes supreme, are too dazed to do anything but seek out more noise. And the few who have remained sober until now will be psychologically adjusting their systems for the stupor that will start by nightfall.
Continue reading Crime will not stop the Carnival
By Stephen Kangal
February 11, 2007
The arbitrary and selective conduct of the police in responding to recent popular protest movements raises fundamental questions on this response and its linkage with the composition of the protective services in plural Trinidad and Tobago. In cosmopolitan societies but more so in a multicultural but in an ethnically polarised T&T our cosmopolitan people must be provided with every basis to identify with the police. The police must never be perceived or be used as a mechanism for political repression or constitute a potential threat to any democratically elected government or act as an arm of the Executive as it is being perceived today in T&T.
Continue reading Wanted: Plurality in the Police Service
By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
December 31, 2006
Every Afrikan society has beliefs, ideas and teachings that emphasise the existence of a Supreme Being. These beliefs, ideas and teachings are found to be original with the Afrikan way of life. But, beliefs, ideas, teachings and even practices may differ from society to society and from shrine to shrine.
These differences may be found in customs, rituals, norms and sanctions. They may be found in spiritual languages as instruments of communicating ideas, beliefs and practices. They may also be found in spiritual representations like shrines, temples, relics, costumes and the application of beliefs and ideas in the numerous activities of life.
Continue reading Afrikan concept of God
By A. A. Hotep
December 23, 2006
Why try to deny the legitimacy of the Steelpan being our national instrument?
The Steelpan is globally recognized as the only acoustical instrument developed in the 20th century. The fact that this instrument was created and developed in Trinidad and Tobago out of the experiences of Africans seems to be troubling to a few Indians in Trinidad and Tobago.
Continue reading Cheap Politics and Racism Cannot Beat the Steelpan
By Stephen Kangal
December 23, 2006
Simultaneous with my recent objections to the notes of the tenor pan being elevated by the National Symbols and Observances Committee (NSOC) to the status of an exclusive cultural symbol to represent the distinctive Indian cultural presence in T&T in the medallion of the OTR and being snowed in by an avalanche of criticisms reinforcing and re-asserting pan as the national instrument, I must now call into question, in this context, Pan Trinbago’s “black mail” mantra and/or ultimatum of:
Continue reading Exploding the Pan National Instrument Myth