By Raffique Shah March 06, 2023 The dizzying pace at which politicians who have promoted themselves as contenders for top positions in government, see things fall apart around them, is an ominous collapse of a political system that seems to have been built to secure the ruling elites. The relics of a post-colonial era that … Continue reading Manufacturing Dictators
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe February 27, 2023 PART I In 1944, when news reached Trinidad that Eugene Chen had died from neurasthenia in China, Chien Chiao (the Chinese homonym for Trinidad), a Trinidad Chinese community journal, made the following announcement: “Eugene Chen (1879(sic)-1944), Trinidad’s greatest son and for many years Chinese Foreign Minister, died … Continue reading Eugene Chen: a forgotten Trinidadian
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe February 20, 2023 A few days ago, businessman Inshan Ishmael issued a pre-action protocol letter to Cro Cro (Weston Rawlins). He demands Cro Cro respond favourably to his letter within the next 28 days or face legal action in the High Court. Ishmael says he is the subject of Cro … Continue reading Cro Cro: our warrior king
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe February 13, 2023 Businessman Inshan Ishmael plans to take Cro Cro (Weston Rawlins) to court over what he says are Cro Cro’s “highly defamatory lyrics about him” in his (Rawlins’) 2023 calypso, “Another Sat is Outside Again”. He says that he never listens to Cro Cro’s calypsoes because they always … Continue reading Defending our noble art form
Raffique Shah February 06, 2023 If, after thorough investigations into this outrage, the State being ordered to pay approximately two million dollars each to five murder-accused in the Naipaul-Coolman case, stands; if no minister or public officer from the Ministry of the Attorney General’s office is held accountable, placed in shackles, held in jail as … Continue reading One Thousand Patriots
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe January 21, 2023 Apart from the years that I have spent abroad, I have lived most of my life in Tacarigua, a village that is located about ten miles east of Port of Spain. In 1976 Lance Murray, an official of the Trinidad Sugar Estates (known then as the Orange … Continue reading An apology
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe January 16, 2023 “Democracy is not maintained by legal and constitutional texts alone.” —Attorney Kiel Taklalsingh A few days ago, the Prime Minister defended his Government’s choice of Christine Kangaloo for President of Trinidad and Tobago. He argued that those people who objected to the Government’s nomination were indulging in … Continue reading It’s always political
By Dr Kwame Nantambu December 22, 2022 As a new year approaches, it is indeed a sine qua non to delve deeper into history in order to ascertain what it really takes to be a real national hero of T&T. At the outset, a review of the literature indicates that one of the most fundamental, … Continue reading To be or not to be a national hero
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe Submitted: December 04, 2022 Posted: December 06, 2022 By the time you read this column, the Hon Keith Rowley will have been re-elected leader of the PNM by as much as about 75 to 80 per cent of the vote. In so doing, party members have placed their seal of … Continue reading A case of narcissistic sycophancy
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe October 24, 2022 PART IV I began this series with the truism that the little people who come out of the cane fields and the rice paddies are the salt of the society. They are the ones who do what they must do to enhance the society because they believe … Continue reading Out of the cane fields of Tacarigua