By Raffique Shah
November 27, 2024
Trinidad was a bountiful island. It once was almost self-sufficient in food production. Its economy for the past 50 years has been reliant on its oil, gas and petrochemicals. To truly understand how close we came to being a gem of a country, citizens of today need to know that during the Second World War (1939-1945), when we had no choice but to produce and consume more food than we could eat, we did it.
Continue reading Not culture, dis is madness
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 21, 2024
After I arrived in the United States of America in August 1964, I continued to follow the election battle between of Lyndon B Johnson, a Democrat, and Senator Barry Goldwater whom he defeated in the sixth most lopsided US election: Johnson won 44 of the 50 states and the District of Columbia; 486 electoral votes and 61.1% of the popular vote. Goldwater captured 52 electoral votes and 38% of the popular vote.
Continue reading America, the beautiful?
By Raffique Shah
November 19, 2024
The world is what it was, and what it always has been. I am convinced of this now more than I was when I wrote last week’s column. Bullet-riddled corpses, and headless bodies pile up in morgues throughout the country. I watched communities under armed siege as the media promote the newly discovered crime cradle, bullying. I rock back in my chair and murmur: This is it, this is it, this is it. I feel like the madman in David Rudder’s “Chant” (“Madman’s Rant”). I wondered aloud, what has changed?
Continue reading To slay a beast
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 12, 2024
It was November 2016; the PNM had just won an election, and it was riding high. At a conference hosted by the Government and the International Monetary Fund, Finance Minister Colm Imbert explained why he had raised the price of fuel. He boasted: “I increased the price of fuel by 15% and then realised that was not enough. I came back again in April and raised it by another 15% and I came back again just a few weeks ago and raised it by another 15%. They haven’t rioted yet.” (Loop News, November 9, 2016.)
Continue reading Hubris goes before the fall
By Raffique Shah
November 12, 2024
The world is what it is today, what it was yesterday, and what it always will be. It will never change because the vast majority of people do not want change. Mediocrity reigns supreme, vandalism rises to the top and so it will be forever and ever, Amen.
I awoke to the not-surprising news that 73 million Americans had voted Donald Trump in as the 47th President of the United States for the next four years.
Continue reading Dumb Trump
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 05, 2024
It may seem an exaggeration, but the Leader of Our Grief is the most obnoxious leader we have had in our 62 years of independent rule. He has revealed himself as an unsophisticated bully who is unaware of his social and political responsibilities to the nation.
His latest display of incivility was wrapped up in a perfumed package of royal pomp and circumstance. He boasted that after having had dinner with King Charles III, Mia Mottley of Barbados, King Mswati of Eswatini, and President Irfaan Ali of Guyana he discovered that the UNC and its leaders had criticised the person he had selected to turn our economy around. He called his critics “the most destructive, unpatriotic louts among us”.
Continue reading The ultimate barbarian
By Raffique Shah
November 05, 2024
My recent column in which I applauded Guyana President Irfaan Ali for sharing some of the petro-dollars with all citizens of that country appears to have suggested that I support such “share the wealth” schemes. I make it abundantly clear that that was never my intention. Indeed I have often lashed my own government for wanton waste of our wealth through a range of programmes and initiatives.
Continue reading Need for mature leadership
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 30, 2024
Speaking to hundreds of people at Progress Park, Grenada, on October 19, Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell announced plans “to build a shrine at Fort George to honour deceased Revolutionary leader Prime Minster Maurice Bishop and others who lost their lives on October 19, 1983, as a result of internal conflicts between different factions of the Revolutionary Government”.
Although I welcome this gesture, I immediately became suspicions. A “shrine” sounded too much as the canonisation of the brother.
Continue reading Honouring our heroes
By Raffique Shah
October 30, 2024
I felt like Marlon Brando must have done in the opening scene, I believe it was, of The Godfather as he stuttered in his trademark nasal tone, issuing instructions from the Godfather to generations that would run the mafia after he was gone. No, I was not about to die or anything as dramatic as that.
Rosina had favoured us with that last farewell a few months ago, teaching us what the finality of death means: no more giggles, no more hugs, no more warmth—nothing as dramatic as that. It was a gathering of Generation Y of the Shahs, that my youngest brother, Feroze, thought we should assemble at my bedside for the youngest offspring to enjoy each other’s company, but most of all to give me an opportunity to see, hear, even feel these young ones, who have already staked their claims for leadership of the clan when I and my siblings and in-laws will have moved on.
Continue reading Generation Y
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 23, 2024
Two weeks ago, I responded to Nigel Seenathsingh’s letter that appeared in the Express. I wrote: “When I warned…about the dangers inherent in the Leader of Our Grief’s statements about women, I was not trying to demonise him or Stuart Young. I was only alerting my readers to be on guard about the violence against women [I emphasised women] that exists in our society and the role that language plays in this regard.”
Continue reading Language matters