By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
December 02, 2012
The most significant aspect of President Barack Obama’s re-election victory is the salient reality that it has relegated to the ash heap of America’s societal history the 1968 Kerner Commission’s report on race and poverty in America to the extent that “America had become two societies—one Black and one White, separate and unequal.”
Continue reading President Barack Obama: One more time
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
Published: October 23, 2012
First of all I would like to thank Professor Linda Heywood for inviting me to participate in this wonderful program. I am particularly delighted to be on the same panel with Professor Orlando Patterson, Professor Emmauel Akyeampong, and to have the opportunity to view the screening of “Akwantu: The Journey” since strictly speaking the journey for independence in the Caribbean began when these gallant brothers, incidentally led by Captain Cudjoe, began to fight for our liberation from bondage. Ever since then, the citizens of the British Caribbean have struggled to control their internal and external affairs, culminating in national independence for most of these territories in the 1960s. In Trinidad and Tobago and Jamaica, we gained our national independence in August, 1962.
Continue reading Celebrating Fifty Years of Trinidad and Tobago’s Independence
By Raffique Shah
October 07, 2012
LAST Tuesday, one of this country’s great labour leaders and patriots, Joe Young, made his exit from life. Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note, as this gentle giant was hurried to some morgue, unmarked and indistinguishable from others. Not that he would have wanted otherwise. It was his final interaction with the ordinary man with whom he lived and mingled freely, for whom he fought many a battle. At age 80, Joe must have endured more than he could in this cussed country that he so loved. He was ready to join his ancestors, to re-link with old comrades.
Continue reading Joe Young: last man standing
By Andre Bagoo
September 13, 2012 – newsday.co.tt
PRIME Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar issued directions to Attorney General Anand Ramlogan to table last-minute amendments to bolster legislation designed to shield the State from the legal fallout of its decision to abruptly repeal Section 34 of the Administration of Justice Act, it was revealed yesterday.
Continue reading ISH, STEVE ‘CUT DOWN’
By Andre Bagoo
September 12, 2012 – newsday.co.tt
THE PARLIAMENT sits today to urgently pass legislation to repeal a section of a new law, after the Government’s decision to proclaim the law opened the door to a wave of applications to the Supreme Court which could see businessmen Ishwar Galbaransingh and Steve Ferguson, as well as several others accused in the Piarco corruption inquiries, walk free without trial.
Continue reading SCANDALOUS
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 19, 2012
There was a time I would be hurt whenever V. S. Naipaul called us mimic men and a false society. I used go after him mercilessly saying how wrong he was and why we were a young society, trying to get things together. When, at the end of From Columbus to Castro, Dr. Williams endorsed Naipaul’s view of our world, I was crushed. I felt betrayed.
Continue reading Fake Society
By Raffique Shah
June 16, 2012
I SUPPOSE most people digested the news that a US judge jailed conman Allen Stanford for 110 years, yawned, burped and moved on to the next item. Except for victims of the Texan’s multi-billion-dollar swindle, among them a few thousand from the Caribbean who lost their savings chasing a crooked shadow, Stanford’s life sentence for a crime that is commonplace is of little more than academic interest.
Continue reading Conman of the Caribbean
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 09, 2012
Now that Francois Hollande has shattered the consensus around the virtues of austerity, the real question is this: what will American voters do when their turn comes to make a judgment on Barack Obama’s stewardship over the last four years. Too many Americans seem to have forgotten the mess that Obama inherited when he took over from George Bush and the unrelieved opposition he has encountered from a Congress and a Senate who are hell-bent on ensuring he fails. It is almost as though the Republicans want to punish Obama for not recovering the jobs that Bush lost in the first place.
Continue reading Obama’s Challenges
Trayvon Martin latest Black victim in Florida
By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
April 12, 2012
The 26 February 2012 killing of the unarmed 17-year old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida speaks volumes as to the omnipresence of white xenophobia (“fear of other races”) in America. And it must be pointed out that this putative fear, real or imagined, only targets the African-American (Black) male.
Continue reading White xenophobia in America
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 14, 2012
The announcement that the US, Russia, China, the UK, France and Germany plan to reopen negotiations with Iran to solve the controversy around Iran’s nuclear program could not come at a better time for President Barak Obama. It gives him a little wriggle room to circumvent the disingenuousness of the Republicans in this matter.
Continue reading Obama’s Dilemma