Crime in T&T, General T&T, Violence

Power in the barrel of a gun

By Raffique Shah
September 19, 2023

Raffique ShahLike most people who live in this country, many of whom, like me, will never leave the twin-island republic to live any­where else in the world, I am not only concerned but I am disturbed by what seems to be a deteriorating crime situation, especially crime that involves violence. At a recent news conference, I heard Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, not for the first time say, “We have become a very violent society.” Judging from the reports of criminal activities that we get in the media, that perception seems to be the truth.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T, PNM, Politics

Our Truant Prime Minister

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
September 18, 2023

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn September 8, the House of Representatives debated the political anarchy and runaway violence in Haiti and how we, in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), can help to bring that country back to political stability. AG Reginald Amour assured us that T&T’s government is “trying to help Haiti, but that troubled nation must be addressed with care, not loud sound bites.”

Caricom created an Eminent Persons Group (EMG) to “facilitate dialogue and consensus building among Haitian stakeholders with the aim of resolving the political impasse.” The EMG is “guided by Prime Minister Dr. Keith Rowley overseeing national security in the Caricom Quasi Cabinet.” One wonders where he is taking that group.
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General T&T

What do they know of History

By Raffique Shah
September 12, 2023

Raffique ShahAs soon as he confirmed that I was ‘the’ Raffique Shah with whom he wanted to speak, he quickly established his bonafides and pedigree as a Presentation College Chaguanas alum, a die-hard Pres Boy. He had attended out alma mater many moons ago but not as many as I have, given I must be a decade or more older than him. He, too, like so many boys from the Caroni plain had had the benefit of the college’s class education from the premier secondary school, we might say the ‘best’ in the country, but he went on to return ‘home’ as soon as he graduated from university and landed the job as a teacher at the institution. Therein lay the right he had earned to sing praises to ‘Pres’ or to tear it apart if he felt he didn’t like what he saw, or rather what he is seeing today.
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Africa, Caribbean, General T&T, Race and Identity

Coming black on board

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
September 11, 2023

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeTwo weeks ago I was invited to be a panel member of a conference, “The March on Washington: Its Legacy and Impact in the Americas”, that was organised by the US Permanent Mission to the Organisation of American States (OAS) in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington at which Martin Luther King Jnr delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.
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General T&T

Ah Leaving

By Raffique Shah
September 05, 2023

Raffique ShahIf there is one thing Trinis like me, who still have an interest in Independence Day celebrations, look forward to, it’s the ever expanding volume of calypsoes that we enjoy coming from just about every radio and television station every year. We enjoy a bonus when, as happened this year, popular calypsonian and singer Denyse Plummer sadly passed on. Last year when Black Stalin [Leroy Calliste] passed on after a prolonged illness, his body of work being second in numbers only to Sparrow, we feasted for months on some of the best calypsoes ever, composed and sung by a bard of his stature.
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Elections, General T&T

Our ‘lumpen intelligentsia’

By Raffique Shah
August 28, 2023

Raffique ShahIf Karl Marx were alive and still fighting to establish his elusive dream of a pure communist country, he might have been amused by a 21st-century phenomenon that he would have uproariously branded “the lumpen intelligentsia”. Of course, just about everyone so branded, and most who are not, will be equally lost. You see, the vocabulary nowadays has excised such words and terms as if their mere mention would leave a stain on them.

If you or I walked up to one-time die-hard communists such as Wade Mark, who was among a small band of Marxists who fought elections in 1981 but won hardly any votes, they’d likely tell you, “No, boy, ah doh do dat again.” So it’s left to a handful of us revolutionaries to at least keep the memories of another day alive, if not kicking.
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General T&T, Health

Love That Endures

By Raffique Shah
August 15, 2023

Raffique ShahA wave of emotions almost overwhelmed me. Yesterday Saturday she will have marked her seventy-sixth year on Earth. There are signs of aging, of course, but not too many that they will have diminished her beauty. Age has also come with some of the infirmities that accompany it, but none as crippling as Parkinson’s Disease that has lodged itself in me. Not that she needs reassuring, but I often profess my love to her. We smile at and with each other. Being my wife, she has been through what few women, especially the wives of public figures, endure.
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General T&T, Race and Identity

Emancipation: much more than pretty garb

By Raffique Shah
August 07, 2023

Raffique ShahIn order for someone to enslave another human being, that unconscionable sub-human must possess sinister ways, lack empathy, and compassion. In my view a human being cannot enslave another human being because all of the above are part of humanity, most of which must be missing for the enslaver to put another human being in chains—not necessarily physically but mentally, such that it compels the slave to serve the master.
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