Tag Archives: Independence Day

General T&T

Ah Leaving

By Raffique Shah
September 05, 2023

Raffique ShahIf there is one thing Trinis like me, who still have an interest in Independence Day celebrations, look forward to, it’s the ever expanding volume of calypsoes that we enjoy coming from just about every radio and television station every year. We enjoy a bonus when, as happened this year, popular calypsonian and singer Denyse Plummer sadly passed on. Last year when Black Stalin [Leroy Calliste] passed on after a prolonged illness, his body of work being second in numbers only to Sparrow, we feasted for months on some of the best calypsoes ever, composed and sung by a bard of his stature.
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General T&T, Politics

T&T at 59: Jean or Dinah?

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By Raffique Shah
August 30, 2021

Raffique ShahIf I were asked to put a human face to a new portrait of Trinidad and Tobago at age 59, I would sketch a decrepit Jean or Dinah, aged beyond her actual years, scowling and regretting her wasted years, waiting to die at the feet of an ungrateful people.

I am not happy conjuring such a sorry image of my native land at a point in its history when it should be bubbling with life, oozing confidence and full of energy befitting a nation that has had a good run, whatever obstacles it may have encountered after it became an independent nation on August 31, 1962.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics

A new beginning

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By Raffique Shah
September 01, 2020

Raffique ShahIt came to pass in this not-so-blessed year 2020, that persons of far greater faith than I can imagine, convinced that God, in whatever manifestation they believed Him to be, was signalling the end of an era, epoch, curse, call it what you will, signing off on the old with pandemic flourish, and simultaneously setting the stage for the launch of a new beginning, an opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start afresh.

You of little faith may ask, with justification, how can we start afresh, encumbered as we are with an abundance of old geezers in pivotal positions? Voices will sing out from the heavens above: let them be! They have seen hell on Earth. Give them an opportunity to redeem themselves, to distinguish right from wrong, and offer solutions to the many troubled problems they and their kind have left us to resolve.
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General T&T, Oil and Gas, PNM

Fly flag at half-mast

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By Raffique Shah
September 5, 2018

Raffique ShahIf I’d had a national flag that I hoisted on important occasions, I would have been sorely tempted to fly it at half-mast on Independence Day last Friday.

I don’t own one, so the temptation to display my shame over our inability to attain some achievements during 56 years of nationhood did not arise. I must confess though that the major electricity outage that struck large parts of Central Trinidad just when the military parade got underway relieved me of rendering my patriotic duty that has been an annual ritual for as far back as I can recall.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

Love a Donkey: Besson’s Independence Fables – Pt 3

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
September 18, 2017

PART 1 – PART 2 – PART 3

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeBesson argues that Trinidad and Tobago’s independence venture failed because more than 30 percent of the African population left the country since1962. “These emigrants,” he says, “were mostly urban, secondary school educated, more or less middle class….At the same time, about the same amount of people or more than that of those who left, have come from the islands of the Caribbean.” He elaborates: “Those immigrants’ background were mostly rural and primary school educated. This unique demographic transformation has impacted on Trinidad and Tobago politically, socially and culturally, and has significantly diminished the identity of the AfroCreole [read black] sector.”
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Culture, England, France, General T&T, International

Love A Donkey: Besson’s Independence Fables – Pt 2

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
September 10, 2017

PART 1 – PART 2 – PART 3

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIn “Independence Legacies,” Gerard Besson offers his reading of Trinidad’s modern history. He says: “From 1783, Europeans and Black people who were not enslaved… arrived mostly from French islands. Many were refugees, political enemies and strangers to each other.… After the British conquest of 1797 to this milieu were added Chinese, Portuguese, and African freedmen. Then after much miscegenation, some decades later, Indian indentureship commenced, and latterly [sic] the Lebanese and Syrians arrived” (my emphasis).
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Crime in T&T, Culture, Finance, PNM, Politics

Love a Donkey: Besson’s Independence Fables – Pt 1

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
September 03, 2017

PART 1 – PART 2 – PART 3

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI always marvel when relatively intelligent people say silly things about Africans and our past because of their color or class position. In “Independence Legacies” Gerard Besson offers a mishmash of information, which suffers from factual, interpretive, and definitional flaws. Besson is more concerned with trotting out an ideological position rather than with offering an analytical argument to support his contentions. It’s almost as though his “Creoleness” exempts him from treating his subject matter with the academic rigor it deserves.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, UNC

Forgetting and Remembering

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 28, 2017

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn August 31, Trinidad and Tobago will celebrate fifty-five years of independence. As per usual, there will be an inspection of the members of the armed forces, perhaps a fireworks display (I really enjoyed this as a boy); and many people will troop off to the beaches.

We will also witness the passing of venerable tradition: the conferral of national honors on deserving citizens on Independence Day. Our President has decided he could get more bang for the buck by honoring deserving citizens on Republic Day. Dr. Robert Williams argues: “Handing out national awards on Republic Day is truly symbolic and more meaningful in building and strengthening nationhood” (Trinidad Guardian, August 23).
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Culture, General T&T, Opposition Party, People's Partnership, PNM, Politics, UNC

Aspiring Together

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
Septeber 04, 2012

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt was there for all to see. The PP had its own independence function at Woodford Square while the PNM conducted its own at Balisier House. Even die-hard PNMites were offended by such disunity. One of my nieces exclaimed: “Why dey dividing up the nation like that? It’s de worse Independence I ever see.”
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