Tag Archives: Raffique Shah

Elections, General T&T, PNM

A new-faced PNM?

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By Raffique Shah
March 15, 2025

Raffique ShahI imagine by the time readers get through today’s column, the People’s National Movement (PNM) will have completed its processes and revealed its full slate of candidates minus Dr Keith Rowley, who, as far as I can translate what is happening, will not be prime minister but will remain political leader of the party.

Yeah, I know: I’ve just burdened you with a long-winded sentence; bear in mind that the narrative reflects what is actually happening on the ground. So, if people are confused by what is happening, hopefully they will not be confused by my writing.
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Culture, General T&T

A good year for calypso

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By Raffique Shah
March 08, 2025

Raffique ShahThis has been a bumper year for Carnival-related cultural art forms. I have no authority, nor do I have any qualifications to intervene in any debate or discussion on how 2025 matches up with 1962, 1964, and so many other occasions when our calypsonians gave us songs that were timeless. I most definitely will steer clear of engaging in any debate with Dr Hollis Liverpool, The Mighty Chalkdust, a calypso legend, four or five times over during his lifetime.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T

Of crime and cowards

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By Raffique Shah
February 22, 2025

Raffique ShahNow more than ever, I am convinced that this society is so steeped in corrupt practices that no one can claim to not know what has been happening for 50-60, whatever, years. So confident am I in laying this charge of universal theft, banditry, if my editors will only agree, I shall pronounce that in this jurisdiction, everyone is presumed guilty unless or until he can prove innocence.
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Elections, General T&T

Time to administer zebapique

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By Raffique Shah
February 15, 2025

Raffique ShahIt seems that some fifth columnist in the ranks of the Opposition United National Congress has hijacked the party’s offices and is training its activists and the leader, I need add for emphasis, in how to lose another election. The PNM in government was always destined to be beaten halfway to death in the run-up to the polls. It happens every five years—or if you can mastermind consecutive victories, in ten years.
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General T&T

Hiding our inhumanity

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By Raffique Shah
February 08, 2025

Raffique ShahOld age is a B!!ch. Growing up as a boy in rural Trinidad, I would often hear that refrain coming from the mouths of people who were, well, old. In those times, anyone who had a couple grey hairs or whose skin looked like leather, or who walked around seeming to have difficulty in making their next step, was classified as old.

They may have been 40 or thereabouts and would utter such refrains when commenting on some inadequacies they experienced. And, I would think, what are they complaining about? They should be happy. Mostly, they had retired from some job they held so they did not have to commute to work every day. They lived seemingly relaxed lives. Except for some infirmities, they looked in pretty good shape, so why the complaints?
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Crime in T&T, General T&T

We created the monster

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By Raffique Shah
February 01, 2025

Raffique ShahWhen the moral fabric of a society runs into decay before it could bloom, we know we are in deep trouble.

When children have no idea of the values that were applied by our forebears to guide us so that we can distinguish right from wrong, that we can act in good faith to build a country that booms and blooms, that makes living here a pleasant experience, we have reached the point of no return. The young—and here I mean under ten—can only envision a hell such as Dante’s Inferno: they enter puberty and they abandon hope.
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General T&T

Young faces acid test

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By Raffique Shah
January 18, 2025

Raffique ShahI do not think that I carry the proverbial “blight” that people who when they speak or merely mention something good that’s happening, it turns sour. Still, I do not feel as confident as I ought to be commenting on the respite the nation has enjoyed in the murder rate that was dizzying, bloody, almost macabre. Hours before Prime Minister Dr Rowley advised the President to declare a state of emergency, the murder rate was astounding, taking this country into a bloodbath that was horrible even to think about.
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General T&T, Politics

Be thankful for Rowley

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By Raffique Shah
January 11, 2025

Raffique ShahIt would be quite a thing if the leadership succession issue in the ruling People’s National Movement were to erupt into something akin to war, while the party has often been described as the best organised in the Caribbean.

I had planned this column before Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announced his proposed resignation, and subsequently the naming of his successor, Energy Minister Stuart Young. That grabbed national attention and with it, controversy, before I could write. But that is politics for you—unpredictable in the most stable of times and immutable in the worst of times.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T

Put books in prisons

By Raffique Shah
December 28, 2024

Raffique ShahThe world is what it is.

Having stolen one of Vidia Naipaul’s more thought-provoking opening phrases, frankly I don’t feel guilty. I do not believe I stole anything from VS. I’m sure he has quoted or fallen back on many a Trinidadian writer for original material to start his considerable portfolio of novels that made him famous. “The world is what it is” is as powerful a line as Dante Alighieri’s “Abandon all Hope, ye who enter here” in his 14th-century narrative poem, “The Divine Comedy”.
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