Tag Archives: Selwyn R. Cudjoe

Crime in T&T, Education, General T&T

Discoursing about crime and education

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 17, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeJust think of the contradictions. One opens the Express of Tuesday, July 9, and is greeted with the blood-splattered headline “Bloody Monday”. Then comes the sub-headline: “Triple murder rocks Tobago” and “Carlsen Field home invasion: son killed, father critical”.

One then ventures to page three and the horror of the crimes: “Hangings must resume in this country. So said a relative of Anslem Douglas, one of the three murder victims shot multiple times on Sunday night. The triple murder, the first of its kind to rock the island, took Tobago’s 2024 murder toll to 15, one more than the whole of 2023.”
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General T&T, International

As the world turns

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 10, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn June 25, 2016, I wrote in this space: “Nine days ago when I arrived in London I had hoped the UK (United Kingdom) would remain within the European Union… There was some nostalgia there but my wish wasn’t to be…

“Xenophobia won out in the end although there were other concerns. There was the split between the metropolitan heartland and country; the disconnect between the elites and the masses; those who saw themselves as global citizens and those who prized the bulldog, isolationist identity and more conservative England.”
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General T&T, Politics, UNC

Snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 02, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeMonths ago I wrote of the United National Congress’ ability to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. I saw this tendency played out in 1976 when the United Labour Front (ULF) was projected to win the election until its inglorious march from Arima to Port of Spain on the Saturday prior to the poll. I stood at the corner of Caura Royal Road and the Eastern Main Road in El Dorado when the march passed through on its way to Port of Spain. “What they didn’t say about Black People is what they didn’t know.” Such a misstep led to its defeat.
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General T&T

Rescuing a hero from oblivion

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 26, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI first encountered Philip Henry Douglin when I wrote Beyond Boundaries: The Intellectual Tradition of Trinidad and Tobago in the Nineteenth Century (2003). Since then I have been gathering information on Douglin at research centres such as the Watson Collection at Oxford University, the British Archives at Kew in London, and the T&T Archives in Port of Spain. Yet I knew I had to go to Barbados before I completed my biography on him.
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General T&T

Making Tacarigua a better scene

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 16, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI am always intrigued by how officials, government or otherwise, ignorant of the history of a place or region in which they live and work, are perfectly happy to destroy a healthy community without realising the harm they can do to the place and the people who live there.

Desell Josiah Austin, chairman of the Tunapuna/Piarco Regional Corporation, may be a young man with the best intentions in the world, but without knowledge of the community in which he lives he can cause harm. He really needs to learn a bit more about Tacarigua, the history of the Orange Grove Savannah, and the origin of Tunapuna.
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General T&T

Never sit on your laurels

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 13, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt was 2013 and the UNC (United National Congress) government decided to place a stadium and a swimming pool at the Orange Grove Savannah (now known as the Eddie Hart Savannah), a place that was used by “districkers” for recreational, health, and educational purposes for generations. Angry by this atrocity, the “districkers” of Tacarigua and the surrounding villages (Dinsley, Paradise, El Dorado, Trincity, and St Mary’s) took on government with all of its resources and prevented it from destroying one of the most idyllic areas in Trinidad.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T

The importance of work

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 28, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeAnyone who believes the PNM Government will solve the problem of black underdevelopment, joblessness, and criminality in the depressed areas of the island had better think again. It will not happen in the near future. The elites who have taken over the party have no interest in these problems, they do not have the will to solve them, nor the intelligence to know the difference.
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corruption, General T&T

Normalising failure and callousness

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 21, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeQuestion: Would you select someone to lead a company or an organisation where, previously, that person had failed in that position and shows no sign of improving his/her leadership skills or comprehending the job-challenges that lie ahead?

This question arose last week when National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds explained why his Government retained Erla Christopher to lead the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service for another year even as crime and disorder worsen and every sign suggests they will get “worserer.”
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Africa, England, General T&T, Germany, Namibia, USA

Africa’s holocaust

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 14, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIn 1985 I interviewed the president of the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) Sam Nujoma when he visited the United Nations Decolonisation Committee to plead for his country’s independence (West Africa, present-day Namibia). Namibia was a German colony from the 1880s to the First World War when South African troops occupied its territory.

From 1904 to 1908, the Germans waged a war that exterminated over 100,000 Africans from the Herero and Nama ethnic groups. It was deemed the first holocaust of the 20th century. In 1920, the League of Nations allowed South Africa to administer the territory.
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