By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 11, 2018
PART 2
On January 29, 2011 after the People’s Partnership government was elected, I participated in a conference on multiculturalism that was sponsored by the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) Trinidad and Tobago. Kamla and Sat were thick as thieves then and Kamla’s government decided that multiculturalism would be T&T’s cultural policy.
Continue reading Preparing the Way for Kamla – Pt 2
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 04, 2018
PART 1
It was Indian Arrival Day. I just had to go down to Paravati Girls Hindu College, Debe, to hear what Sat Maharaj, leader of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS) had to say about the importance of Indian Arrival Day to his community and his response to the negative media coverage that attended his demand that Nafisah Nakhid not wear her hijab at his Maha Sabha School, which he said violated the school’s dress code.
Continue reading Preparing the Way for Kamla
By Raffique Shah
May 31, 2018
Sat Maharaj can manufacture a controversy in the calmest situation. He knows that the fundamental rule for staying alive in public life, and more importantly looking lively even though you may be half-dead is to get embroiled in “kuchoor”, as Indians would say, and do the most outrageous things to command media attention.
Continue reading Sat still stirring religious intolerance
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 14, 2017
Last week I argued that there was something disingenuous about the suggestions put forward by Sat Maraj, Stephen Kangal and the UNC about sending money to Dominicans but making sure they did not enter our country. The UNC declaimed that none of its members said anything negative about the Prime Minister’s plan to bring Dominicans to T&T, but none of them had said anything positive about the plan, not even Rodney Charles or Wade Mark.
Continue reading Does UNC See Itself as Part of the Nation?
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 2, 2017
Like the Prime Minister, I want to tell the naysayers against his proposal to house our Dominican brothers and sisters to shut up but for different reasons. I couldn’t see how decent men could speak of our neighbors as though they were aliens (“refugees”) who have no place in our land.
Dominicans ain’t no now come. They have participated in the making of this society. In 1814 there were 25,717 enslaved Africans in the island. Between 1813 and 1821 Trinidad received 3,800 enslaved Africans “of whom nearly 1,100 came from Dominica and nearly 1,200 from Grenada” (Eric Williams, History of the People of Trinidad and Tobago).
Continue reading Do They Ever See Us as a Nation?
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 24, 2016
My good friend called. She was irate: “Why don’t you speak to [not with] yo’ good friend Sat?” “Why yo’ say so,” I asked. “He called Manning a racist.” I don’t know if I was supposed to return the insult, but I am aware that if everyone is a racist then no one is really a racist. Counter accusations are generally useless.
Sat claimed Manning was a racist because, among other things, he closed down Caroni 1975 Limited and paid the workers $2m. That Manning may have calculated that the sugar industry was no longer economically viable did not enter into Sat’s thinking? But even if Manning paid the workers $4m it would not have endeared him to Sat.
Continue reading Let the Jackasses Bray
By Shaliza Hassanali
July 14, 2016 – guardian.co.tt
General secretary of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS), Sat Maharaj, yesterday launched an extraordinary verbal attack on former prime minister Patrick Manning, describing him as a “racist.”
In a harsh assessment totally out of step with laudatory ones heaped on Manning in the week between his death and his burial, Maharaj said he and several members of the public came to that conclusion on a talk show programme on Radio Jaagriti on Tuesday, based on a series of discriminatory practices Manning perpetuated against Indians in T&T while he served as PM.
Continue reading Sat torches ex-PM’s legacy
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 13, 2016
Last Sunday, in this newspaper, Sat Maharaj mentioned casually (or perhaps not so casually) that he couldn’t possibly be a racist since I was his best friend and Desmond Hoyte was a close friend. Most of my friends were aghast that Sat should consider me to be among his best friends and, even if we are, they asked, why should he use our friendship to camouflage his racism?
Continue reading Is Sat Really a Racist?
By Laurel V Williams
Tuesday, May 31 2016 – newsday.co.tt
“Go to hell!”.
That was the “message” Secretary General of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS) Satnarayan ‘Sat’ Maharaj sent publicly for Roman Catholic Archbishop Joseph Harris in light of the controversial debate on child marriage and the law.
“Mr Archbishop and all you other people, look at the mote in your own eye before you point out the mote in the eye of the Hindu.
Continue reading Go to hell Mr Archbishop, says Sat
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 16, 2014
Last Saturday I attended the launch of Sat Maharaj: Hindu Civil Rights Leader of Trinidad and Tobago, a biography written by Kumar Mahabir. Although I did not read the book (it was not available at the time) I could see the enthusiasm and joy that emanated from an audience that had come to embrace Sat as their personal hero. I attended the function to congratulate Sat for having placed, via Mahabir, a partial account of his life.
Continue reading The Responsibility of Intellectuals