By Raffique Shah
April 26, 2015
Trust Trinidadians, or more accurately Trini-politicians, to engage in verbal battle over almost every issue—from the distribution of pampers to mothers of newborn babies to building a multi-billion-dollar causeway from Port of Spain to Chaguaramas.
Most people never heard the word “causeway” before Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar uttered it at a UNC rally in Fyzabad last week.
Continue reading Causeway a lost cause
By Raffique Shah
April 19, 2015
On the morning of Monday, March 23, when I became aware of the massive traffic gridlocks in several strategic arteries across the country occasioned by the police purportedly conducting legitimate roadblocks, my immediate reaction was, “This is mutiny!”
Later that evening, when television footage showed police officers of varying ranks holding tens of thousands of law-abiding motorists and commuters hostage, trapped in scorching heat and toxic exhaust fumes with no chance to escape, I thought that by the following morning I would wake up to hear that scores of police officers had been suspended from duty pending investigations into their misconduct.
Continue reading Police Mutiny
By Raffique Shah
April 12, 2015
Collectively, the so-called trolls on social media may be a pain in the rear for bona fide journalists and columnists in the mainstream media, operating as they do behind anonymity and bound by no rules of engagement or laws of libel and slander, while we have so many strictures, from word-count to sanitised lyrics, we write under the gun, in a manner of speaking.
And yes, it hurts when these mindless cowards spew their venom, delving into journalists’ private lives, distorting facts, promoting fiction and wallowing in half-truths. The current crop seems to have taken a fancy to attacking female writers, probably believing that they would drive their victims to tears, or worse, into depression.
Continue reading Bulwarks of democracy
By Raffique Shah
April 05, 2015
The Easter weekend has always been a period of intense religious activities for Christians in the country, and one for recreation and relaxation for others in the society. As a child growing up in a Muslim home in the 1950s, I was very aware of its significance to Catholics and Anglicans in particular, since both had (and still have) churches in the Freeport/Boccarro districts where we lived.
Continue reading Age of innocence
By Raffique Shah
March 29, 2015
Desperation bordering on panic pushed the People’s Partnership into the abyss of indecency last Wednesday, which will be recorded as the day the Partnership lost the 2015 general election.
Driven by unbridled greed to hold on to power, hence the Treasury, by any means necessary, the Partnership members, all of them, even those who remained silent, are guilty of gang-raping Parliament, of reducing it to the biggest brothel this side of the Atlantic.
Continue reading ‘Lynching’ in the House
By Raffique Shah
March 22, 2015
It’s amazing how the 2015 general elections campaign is derailed by extraneous matters that have no bearing on the real issues that should under discussion.
With oil and gas prices trending lower, hence a projected shortfall in revenue of more than $7 billion for the current fiscal year, with the national debt rising as a consequence, and with tens of thousands of public sector workers, among them police, fire and prisons officers, clamouring for increased salaries for a period that has expired, the politicians are distracting the electorate with race-herrings and talk about dog and “cyat”.
Continue reading Buying cat in bag
By Raffique Shah
March 08, 2015
The bell has rung, the gates are open and the campaign for general elections 2015 is underway. Over the next six months, political parties that matter and those that don’t will spend an estimated $300 million in a frenetic bid to be elected or re-elected to power. The stakes are high: by the end of this fiscal year, the incumbent administration will have spent $337 billion during its five years in office.
Continue reading Buying and selling government
By Raffique Shah
February 28, 2015
A political volcano has erupted with full force, spewing rocks, ash, lava and fetid gases across Trinidad and Tobago’s landscape. But even as the explosion demolishes structures and changes the electoral topography, the political seismologists and volcanologists, seemingly in stupor, pretend that all is well.
Continue reading Political volcano erupts
By Raffique Shah
February 22, 2015
Now that the Carnival is over, we can expect electioneering to intensify, with a maximum of seven months to go before the general election is held. In fact, the ruling People’s Partnership coalition has grabbed a Carnival spillover, photographs of PNM leader Keith Rowley “wining” with a young Indian woman, as ammunition for use in campaigning.
Since the video and photos surfaced late Carnival Tuesday, the pro-UNC blogs have been hammering away at Rowley, dubbing him a “dirty old man” and worse in the hope that some mud will stick. I don’t think it will. The girl has publicly said she had a great Carnival, wine included, and to those who lambaste her and Rowley, she proclaimed boldly, “I hate racial people.”
Continue reading Which party will right these wrongs?
By Raffique Shah
February 15, 2015
I waited patiently for Calypso Fiesta, the Mother of all Calypso shows, which featured 41 of the top calypsonians for this year. I did not trust the 20-plus radio stations in the country since those that feature local music kill us with pumping, jarring noises accompanied by voices that all sound hoarse as if the artistes are stricken with sore throats, that they tell me is soca.
Continue reading Kaiso, boy!