Category Archives: General T&T

General T&T, Health

Love That Endures

By Raffique Shah
August 15, 2023

Raffique ShahA wave of emotions almost overwhelmed me. Yesterday Saturday she will have marked her seventy-sixth year on Earth. There are signs of aging, of course, but not too many that they will have diminished her beauty. Age has also come with some of the infirmities that accompany it, but none as crippling as Parkinson’s Disease that has lodged itself in me. Not that she needs reassuring, but I often profess my love to her. We smile at and with each other. Being my wife, she has been through what few women, especially the wives of public figures, endure.
Continue reading Love That Endures →

General T&T, Race and Identity

Emancipation: much more than pretty garb

By Raffique Shah
August 07, 2023

Raffique ShahIn order for someone to enslave another human being, that unconscionable sub-human must possess sinister ways, lack empathy, and compassion. In my view a human being cannot enslave another human being because all of the above are part of humanity, most of which must be missing for the enslaver to put another human being in chains—not necessarily physically but mentally, such that it compels the slave to serve the master.
Continue reading Emancipation: much more than pretty garb →

General T&T

Emancipation Foibles – Part 3

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 07, 2023

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn Tuesday, July 18, as per usual, I was researching my present project at the National Archives when Jacqueline Charles, the permanent secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister, walked in. I presumed she was doing what every conscientious permanent secretary does: she was visiting one of the departments under her purview.
Continue reading Emancipation Foibles – Part 3 →

Africa, General T&T, Race and Identity

Emancipation Foibles – Part 2

2 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 06, 2023

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn June 27, 2022, Margaret Heath, a member of William Hardin Burnley’s family who once owned the Orange Grove Sugar Estates, sent me an email. It read: “Dear Professor Cudjoe. I thought you might be interested to know that my brother, as executor of my mother’s estate, has just informed me he consigned a trunkful of exclusive family papers that belong to William Hardin Burnley and his son, Frederick Burnley, to Paul Laidlow, Auctioneers, Carlisle, to be included in their sale on July 1st/2nd.”
Continue reading Emancipation Foibles – Part 2 →

Africa, General T&T, Race and Identity

Emancipation foibles

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 03, 2023

PART I

“So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.”

—Ecclesiastes 4, Verse 1

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt’s Emancipation Day (Tuesday)and all the politicians, the proprietors and the bankers are trotting out their lies about freedom and emancipation. They may even quote the words of our prophet Bob Marley (“Emancipate yourself from mental slavery/None but ourselves can free our minds”), to demonstrate how the ordinary black person has misused the opportunity to free himself/herself mentally in this country. But take it from me, “All of dat is damn lies.”
Continue reading Emancipation foibles →

Africa, General T&T, Race and Identity

What Emancipation still has not brought us

By Corey Gilkes
August 02, 2023

EmancipationThose of you who took god out your thoughts and were following my rants over the years know I have been saying the word “emancipation” actually means transfer ownership. And that puts into clearer perspective what dem snakes and soucouyants I was taught to celebrate as humanitarians and liberators were really thinking.
Continue reading What Emancipation still has not brought us →

General T&T, PNM, Politics, UNC

LGE: Political Veterans Last Hurrah

By Raffique Shah
July 31, 2023

Raffique ShahThe two main political parties in Trinidad and Tobago are taking the local government election, scheduled for two weeks tomorrow, very seriously. I expected the opposition United National Congress to maintain its momentum, which it has kept at a steady pace since it lost the 2015 general election, to keep the tempo going since it gained a few seats and the popular votes for its unrelenting pressure on the ruling People’s National Movement.
Continue reading LGE: Political Veterans Last Hurrah →

Africa, Canada, General T&T, Haiti, International, Rwanda, USA

Kagame and Other Stooges Do U.S. Bidding in Haiti

By Margaret Kimberley
BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
July 28, 2023

Paul KagameThe U.S. is committed to invading Haiti but needs Black “leaders” to give them cover. They pressured Caribbean nations to be the face of intervention and called on Rwanda’s Paul Kagame to be the African diaspora front man.

It can be argued that Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame is the Black head of state most useful to the U.S. and its allies. There are many human tools in their box but Kagame is the most willing to act on behalf of the collective west. He can reliably be called upon to enthusiastically do the dirty work of the U.S. and Europe. When he arrived at the recent CARICOM summit it was clear that a terrible plot was being hatched.
Continue reading Kagame and Other Stooges Do U.S. Bidding in Haiti →

Crime in T&T, General T&T

Messrs Big grow bigger

By Raffique Shah
July 24, 2023

Raffique ShahIf, over the past 50 years, we, meaning citizens, police and other law enforcement agencies were to have captured, charged, tried and convicted one Mr Big for every hundred named, Trini­dad and Tobago today will have been a crime-free society.

I make this bold statement not to look or sound funny, but to illustrate how stupid it is for law officers and politicians, ­especially senior officials—what they do to impress their bosses and the masses. Every so often when there is nothing positive to report, we hear utterances about “Mr Big”.
Continue reading Messrs Big grow bigger →

General T&T, Passed on, Race and Identity

Pillars of Brinsley Samaroo’s achievements

By Stephen Kangal
July 17, 2023

Stephen KangalIn an attempt to assess and conceptualise the varied life, exciting times and indeed the unique legacy and saga bequeathed to us by the late Prof Brinsley Samaroo, I can think of his odyssey of life as a solid platform that was supported by four event-filled but interlocking pillars.

The first pillar, in some chronological order is his Naparima–Presbyterian foundation and pillar that coloured, expressed and energised his entire odyssey from Ecclesvile, to San Fernando, St Augustine and to the rest of the world.
Continue reading Pillars of Brinsley Samaroo’s achievements →