Tag Archives: T&T Govt

General T&T, PNM, Politics

Talk to me

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By Raffique Shah
October 10, 2022

Raffique ShahThis race, Karen (Nunez-Tesheira), is not for leadership of The People’s National Movement. It is for leadership of the country, the nation. It requires someone of stature and fortitude who can take Trinidad and Tobago by the scruff of its neck or other body parts, shake the masses into facing the reality that we can work our way out of the deep hole we have dug ourselves into, and from which we can clamber out only if we stand shoulder to shoulder and use our collective strength.
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General T&T

Celebrating the 46th Anniversary of the Republic Day, T&T

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An Address to the Trinidad & Tobago Association of Washington, D.C., October 2, 2022 by Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI am pleased that your president, Nigel Scott, has invited me to address you on the 46th Anniversary of our Republic even though I prefer to see the evolution of our political independent life beginning in 1962. In this context, I would also like to pay my respects to H. E. Brigadier General Anthony W. J. Phillips-Spence, Ambassador Extraordinaire and Plenipotentiary, Embassy of Trinidad and Tobago in Washington, D.C. What I am sure that your president did not tell you is that in 1962 both of us were invited by Dr. Eric Williams, Premier of Trinidad and Tobago, to attend a three-day meeting at Queen’s Hall, Port of Spain, to discuss a draft of the first Independence constitution. The meeting took place from April 25-27, 1962. The invitation read in part:
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General T&T

MPs must tackle traffic woes

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By Raffique Shah
October 03, 2022

Raffique ShahWhen elephants fight, the grass gets trampled. So goes an adage that hardly adds to anything that enhances the English language, but it hammers home the class and other stratifications of most societies, oftentimes not even knowing that the ordinary people have accepted their places or ranks, their fates, as if they were ordained by God, and cannot, must not, be tampered with by mere mortals.
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General T&T, Violence

Only two choices

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By Raffique Shah
September 26, 2022

Raffique ShahOne of these not-so-good days, when the good citizens in this nation have had it up to their throats with the thugs who are turning this once-peaceful country into the killing fields of the Caribbean, if not the murder and mayhem capital of the world, they will rise up like the mythical crimson tide with a fury they didn’t think they possessed, to reclaim the slice of paradise they once owned and enjoyed from the mindless criminals who have made Trini­dad and Tobago a living hell, something the population will never accept as the norm.
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General T&T, Politics

Fight, not cry for our beloved country

By Raffique Shah
September 19, 2022

Raffique ShahI cried for my country on the eve of Republic Day celebrations, this one marking the 47th year as a sovereign state. That graduation of sorts removed the Queen of England as our Head of State—a contradiction so many former British colonies cling to long after they became independent.

We did, too, but opted to shed the colonial shawl in 1976. Still, we retained a critical umbilical cord that leaves us clinging to Mother England, to the Privy Council as our final court of appeal. If that sounds jokey, think about the embarrassment that we have lived with for so many years.
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General T&T, PNM, UNC

The cries of our people

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 29, 2022

“The horner man crying; Somebody horn de horner man…”
—Anil Roberts on Keith Rowley

“I could take a horn if I get one. I ain’t sending nobody to kill nobody.”
—Dr Keith Rowley’s response to Roberts

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThese are the sentiments of two of our leaders on the eve of the Diamond jubilee of our Independence. Serious people treated Roberts’ characterisation of Sharon Clark-Rowley, the prime minister’s wife, with the disdain that it deserved. There was no reason to drag her into the gutter, as there was no need to elevate such spurious nonsense to the level of serious national discourse. As we say—if you play with the dog, you get bitten by the fleas.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T, Oil and Gas, Politics

Ten thousand-gun salute

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By Raffique Shah
August 22, 2022

Raffique ShahA few weeks ago, my cousin Susheela forwarded to me an interesting piece of Internet trivia that was anything but trivial. The author had given that generations in recorded history had lived through the most exciting period, based on facts cited, that people now in their 60s and 70s, having been born in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, had enjoyed some of the most dramatic developments man has ever experienced.
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Caribbean, CARICOM, Food, Guyana, Oil and Gas

Keep Adversarial Domestic Politics at Home

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By Stephen Kangal
August 22, 2022

Stephen KangalI am patently unsettled and indeed very surprised that CCNTV 6 saw it fit to feature and to give The Leader of the Opposition of Guyana Mr Aubrey Norton in its Friday last Morning Edition a window to level false and misleading criticisms against The Administration of Guyanese President Dr Irfan Ali for T&T consumption.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, Racism Watch

Finding African farmers

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By Raffique Shah
August 15, 2022

Raffique ShahIt pains me whenever I feel it necessary to confront the race issue in my column. I see it as a waste of valuable column centimetres where those of us who have been selected by the managers and editors of newspapers to highlight and comment on matters of national importance instead find ourselves discussing drivel.

But there comes a time when columnists cannot ignore attempts by influential people in the society resorting to race, playing the race card when everything else fails them, in the hope that controversy might save them from oblivion, a fate politicians fear more than they do the hell-fire that is promised to believers and non-believers alike for the sinful lives they lead, convinced they are so clever, they can fool even the Creator.
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England, General T&T, International, Politics, UK

Picton’s cruelty: Luisa Calderon’s resilience

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 08, 2022

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThere can be no doubt about the cruelty of —Thomas Picton, the first British governor of Trinidad and Tobago (1797-1803), and the resilience of Luisa Calderon, one of the persons he tortured during his governorship.

It is important that we applaud Shabaka Kambon and other patriots who have called for the renaming of streets and monuments that carry his (and other tyrants’) names.
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