Tag Archives: Raffique Shah

General T&T

An uncertain future

By Raffique Shah
June 28, 2025

Raffique ShahMany years ago, when I was in my 20s, issues like the state of our national economy didn’t just stimulate my curiosity, but provoked my interest in my country’s future. Then, “UWI Men” such as Lloyd Best, Dr James Millette, and a fella who went by the fancy name “John La Guerre” were interviewed at budget time and invariably pronounced ominously on our future. Anytime those fellas intervened in anything to do with the national economy, they would find doom and gloom.
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General T&T, Passed on

The fourth mutineer

By Raffique Shah
June 21, 2025

Raffique ShahSimon and Garfunkel sang: Old Friends, Sat on their park bench like bookends; Winter companions, the old men, Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sunset; Can you imagine us years from today, sharing a park bench quietly. How terribly strange to be seventy; Old Friends.

I lost an old friend last week. A comrade in arms. An old soldier with a philosophical soul. One whom I could spend hours chatting with on the phone and never get tired because there was always something to talk about. David Brizan, whom I fondly called Obi, passed on after ailing for some time.
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General T&T, UNC, Venezuela

PM playing with fire

By Raffique Shah
June 07, 2025

Raffique ShahI hope and expect those in authority who have the powers, to act, if the need arises, to remove a sitting prime minister and government by whatever means it takes to save our country from what appears to be a spark of madness which is threatening to engulf us even as I write (Friday night). Because after I listened to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar a few nights ago, when I heard what she said, I scrutinised her image on television to see if I could discern any signs of insanity or dementia. I leave that for the experts to work on.
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General T&T, Politics

Is this what we want?

By Raffique Shah
May 31, 2025

Raffique ShahI have said this—what I’m about to write here—a hundred times over the past 20 years or so that we have marked and celebrated Indian Arrival Day.

First, I was among a vocal minority who expressed the strong view that the holiday in recognition of the arrival of Indian immigrants on the Fatel Razack in 1845 bringing the first indentured immigrants to Trinidad and Tobago, be named Arrival Day.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics

Vaulting ambition & PNM’s reincarnation

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 24, 2025

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThe cracks in the PNM’s hegemony became more prominent after its defeat in the last general election. Power and cowardice hid these fissures for a long time. All one sees within the PNM now is “vaulting ambition, which o’er-leaps itself/ And falls on th’ other”. (Macbeth) This reckless ambition will lead the party into an abyss.

After the PNM’s political disaster, the former Leader of Our Grief and Sorrow accused Dr Amery Browne of ingratitude after Browne suggested they could “rig the game but can’t fake authenticity”. Robert Le Hunte says of the Leader’s imposition of Stuart Young on the party: “It wasn’t just cynical. It was obscene. It was perverse.” (Express, May 10.)
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General T&T, Politics

No easy road to national unity

By Raffique Shah
May 24, 2025

Raffique ShahThere was almost unison in the plaintive cry in the appeals for national unity by a significant section of the population. This festival of nation building and patriotic songs and music, that was a treat by itself. I know this country is gifted with a prolific compilation of rich ballads, lyrics and music that can “make mih pores raise”, as Trinidadians and Tobagonians are wont to say.

The occasion was the inaugural meeting of the 13th Parliament of the Republic. Time was when this was a routine parade for the military and other top brass who paraded. When Independence Day coincided with such sitting, pomp and ceremony oozed out of the uniforms of service officers and other ranks.
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Elections, General T&T

Race no longer the dominant factor

By Raffique Shah
May 17, 2025

Raffique ShahSomething positive is coming out of the political and social networks, if I may so refer to them, what with social media having given any such interaction a bad reputation in the past.

Amidst the cheering and other expressions of joy that emanated from the new UNC ministers, and the graceful acceptance of defeat from inside the PNM camp, I heard my call for the new Government to move with quiet authority, grounding with the masses and, more importantly, reaching out to them on the issue of preparing the nation for adverse weather conditions which have become near-normal for us.
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Elections, General T&T, UNC

Madam PM, the hard work starts now

By Raffique Shah
May 10, 2025

Raffique ShahI do not know if the UNC-led coalition that came to power two weeks ago by spectacularly defeating the PNM government in the general election believes it has the luxury of time and incumbency on its side, and the victory assures it of ten years in government. I focus on this continuous campaign mode that has taken hold of, it seems, the majority of the electorate. Having changed governments, disposing of the PNM from power in seven elections since 1956, it could be that the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago, those who are actively involved in elections, believe that’s the way to go.
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General T&T

Dump the Privy Council

By Raffique Shah
May 03, 2025

Raffique ShahI would be the happiest person in post-election Trinidad if, three months from now, the new Prime Minister achieves 50% of her goals in any one of her objectives after scoring an emphatic win over the PNM. If, in my gaiety, I make no mention of the occasion that I celebrate and appear to be claiming “victory” as my own, does it matter anyway? When UNC wins, everybody wins, including Raffique. Seriously, though, I should first congratulate Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissessar on a resounding victory. That was a performance political leaders only dream of—one she will have worked hard at in the ten years she laboured in the vineyards or wherever.
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Elections, General T&T

A fickle electorate

By Raffique Shah
April 26, 2025

Raffique ShahIn the histories of nations such as our Trinidad and Tobago, there are times when challenges that seem insurmountable are thrown in our pathways. In such grim situations when the fabric of a nation is subjected to competing forces, warring tribes or, worse, battling gangs, the outlook is bleak. Negative forces that lay just below the surface crawl out of their caverns in their bid to capitalise on our misfortune. The general election that takes place tomorrow is one such volatile event that threatens a war for the soul of our nation.
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