By Raffique Shah
Submitted: July 26, 2016
Published: August 01, 2016
Trinidad & Tobago, as a very inefficient producer of sugar, relying heavily on preferential, prices for the commodity from Britain, and later the European Union, should have scaled back sugar production from the 1970s when the industry’s losses mounted year after year, soon to reach uncontrollable levels.
Continue reading Sugar industry was doomed to fail
By Raffique Shah
June 26, 2016
Within recent years, annual Labour Day celebrations trigger accusations that the trade unions that mark the occasion with marches and speeches at Fyzabad pay homage only to Tubal Uriah Butler, never Adrian Cola Rienzi.
Such sentiments imply that Rienzi, whose original name was Krishna Deonarine, is ignored by labour because of his race. They suggest that his contribution to trade unions in the country through registration and leadership of both the oil workers’ OWTU and the sugar workers’ ATSEFWTU in 1937 was as critical to the recognition and development of labour as Butler’s charismatic appeal to the masses.
Continue reading Butler and Rienzi
By Raffique Shah
March 16, 2016
Trinidadians are hell, I tell you.
Take their almost instantaneous sympathy with the 600-odd steel workers who found themselves jobless last week when ArcelorMittal shut down its plant in this country.
Sure, that means at least 5,000 family members facing very uncertain times if not utter devastation. Those who have mortgages or rentals could lose the roofs over their heads. Vehicles may be repossessed. Children’s education will be at risk, in particular those who attend university. And ultimately, putting food on the table might be a challenge.
Continue reading Don’t take Mittal’s mill even for free
By Raffique Shah
Jun 13, 2015
As she enters uncharted territory seeking a second term in office, the Prime Minister exudes a measure of confidence that is at odds with a widely-held perception that her People’s Partnership coalition will lose the general election.
She and her ministers have made it clear that they plan to campaign on performance, which they hope will mute charges of corruption, waste and scandal that were deafening during the past five years.
Continue reading More CEPEP, URP ‘lochos’
By Stephen Kangal
January 24, 2014
Foreign Minister, the Honourable Winston Dookeran posits that were the T&T Consulate in New York to continue to apply to the State Department for the granting of an A2 US Visa on behalf of a member of its locally recruited staff (LRS), that would “breaking US law…” Well the Consulate under different regimes in POS has been applying and the State Department has been granting these A2 visas or variations of stays to it and many other foreign consulate accredited to the State of New York.
Continue reading How is applying for an A2 Visa Breaking US Law?
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 24, 2013
No one, again with the exception of the extinct Carib people, and perhaps the Spanish people can claim to be ‘natives’ of the island. All peoples were newcomers to Trinidad, and all were immigrants. The immigrant nature of the society of Trinidad needs to be recognized for what it was and what it is. (537)
GeradTikasingh, Trinidad During the 19th Century
Gerad Tikasingh has written an interesting book, Trinidad During the 19th Century: The Indian Experience, an extension of his doctoral thesis, “The Establishment of Indians in Trinidad, 1870,” that he completed at UWI, St Augustine, Trinidad in 1973. Although his book is filled with facts, it is marred by an ideological orientation (one may say Indo-centric perspective) and a negative rendering of the African experience in the country. This book continues an argument made by other Indo-Caribbean scholars that suggests that the dominance of an Afro-centric ethos (which Tikasingh calls a “black bias”) has “tended to downplay, if not obscure the parallel Indo-Caribbean experience of indentureship and its contributions to Guyanese and Trinidadian culture in particular” (see Frank Birbalsingh, Indo Caribbean Resistance, 1993).
Continue reading The Indian Experience in Trinidad, or The Triumph of Ideology Over Scholarship
By Raffique Shah
August 24, 2013
Not since late Commissioner of Police Jules Bernard publicly declared, “I’m a toothless bulldog!” have I heard so many outlandish statements coming from the mouths of senior officers of the Police Service.
“Criticism hurts,” screams Acting CoP Stephen Williams. Yet, Williams and his most senior officers say and do the most ludicrous things, inviting not just criticism, but oftentimes, bellyfuls of laughter.
Continue reading Comic cops
By Raffique Shah
June 22, 2013
I MONITORED this year’s Labour Day celebrations with mixed feelings. I was sorry to have missed the annual pilgrimage to the shrine of organised labour for the fourth year, but that’s another story. I felt a deep sense of nostalgia, a longing for the glory days when we rocked Fyzabad with solidarity that stretched for miles. Now, I see labour-power diminish before my eyes, something I thought would never happen in my lifetime.
Continue reading Labour pains
Politics before food
Sugar and Energy Festival Street Parade – October 09, 2005
By Andre Bagoo
May 18 2013 – newsday.co.tt
THE CLOSURE of Caroni (1975) Limited and consequent devastating impact on the agriculture sector and TT’s food security, may be directly linked to political considerations surrounding the then PNM government’s fear of a repeat of the 18-18 general election deadlock of 2001, Tourism Minister Stephen Cadiz said yesterday.
Continue reading The Closure of Caroni (1975) Limited
Trinidad Guardian
March 01, 2013 – guardian.co.tt
There is great cause for concern over the news that the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) plans to appoint former secretary of finance and enterprise development Dr Anselm London as a senior consultant in his former division, which is now headed by the recently elected Joel Jack.
Dr London, a man of advanced age, who stepped down ahead of January’s THA election after serving in the position for more than 11 years, is the cousin of Chief Secretary Orville London. That alone raises questions and is generating considerable discomfort.
Continue reading THA heads in troubling direction