Category Archives: Culture

Culture, Entertainment, General T&T

Collier recolonising Dimanche Gras?

By Raffique Shah
March 06, 2011

Raffique ShahTHE new Dimanche Gras Overlord, one Dr Cyril Collier, believes that the show’s calypso content is “too long, too boring”, according to a Guardian newspaper report. He is quoted as saying he is “very passionate about bringing the Dimanche Gras back to the days of the plantation owners”. Arguing that 12 Calypso Monarch finalists singing two songs each takes about three hours-plus to complete their segment, Collier suggested the show’s three components—mas, pan and calypso—should be allocated equal time.
Continue reading Collier recolonising Dimanche Gras? →

Culture, General T&T, People's Partnership, Politics, Race and Identity

The Limitations of Multiculturalism – Part III

15 Comments

By Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 02, 2011

Part I – Part II – Part III

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeAny society that aspires to be a cohesive national entity must be willing to accept all of its history; not just parts of it. And herein lies a problem that no multiculturalism in Trindiad and Tobago can fix: that is, a proper estimation and acceptance of Dr. Eric Williams’ role in our national development. It is precisely the inability of most of our Indian population to accept the totality of our history and the heterogeneous nature of our origins that prevent them from acknowledging Dr. Williams’ status as the father of our nation.
Continue reading The Limitations of Multiculturalism – Part III →

Culture, Entertainment, General T&T, People's Partnership, PNM, Politics, Protest

Jack: Not me and Skinner Park

By Cecily Asson
February 28, 2011 – newsday.co.tt

Jack WarnerSaying that he will never be part of the crowd that gathers each year in Skinner Park, San Fernando for the National Calypso Monarch semi-final, Works and Transport Minister Jack Warner yesterday hailed the bravery of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar who on Saturday received loud boos from patrons when asked by master of ceremonies to acknowledge her presence.
Continue reading Jack: Not me and Skinner Park →

Culture, General T&T, India, People's Partnership, PNM, Politics, Race and Identity

Ravages of Ethno-Nationalism

16 Comments

By Stephen Kangal
February 21, 2011

Stephen KangalAfter 49 years of an ethno-nationalism-based and driven Independence and four distinct nationalist-leaning regimes what is the prevailing status quo on cross- cultural relations/diversity management that now impels us in T&T to want to chart a new culturally-sensitive and responsive way forward (multiculturalism) instead of continuing along the unjust and hitherto ethno-nationalism-paved track?
Continue reading Ravages of Ethno-Nationalism →

Culture, General T&T, People's Partnership, Politics, Race and Identity

The Limitations of Multiculturalism – Part II

20 Comments

By Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 16, 2011

Part I – Part II – Part III

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeSome of us, including yours truly, have been speaking about a national cultural policy long before Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar announced her preference for a multicultural approach to the issue. In 1962 Dr. Eric Williams set the ball rolling with his “Mother Trinidad and Tobago Speech” which could be interpreted as a response to Lord Harris’s 1848 declaration that “a race has been freed, but a society has not been formed.”
Continue reading The Limitations of Multiculturalism – Part II →

Culture, General T&T, People's Partnership, Politics

The Limitations of Multiculturalism in Trinidad and Tobago

24 Comments

By Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 09, 2011

Part I – Part II – Part III

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt was an amazing thing. One week after I offered my reservations about the Government’s multiculturalism initiative, David Cameron, Prime Minister of Britain, made a scathing attack against his country’s approach to what he called “state multiculturalism” at the Munich Security Conference. In doing so, he echoed Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor who, in October 2010, called for “the end of multiculturalism” in her country.
Continue reading The Limitations of Multiculturalism in Trinidad and Tobago →

Culture, General T&T, Politics, Race and Identity

Mother Trinidad and Tobago

19 Comments

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 17, 2011

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeA few days after Kamla Persad Bissessar became the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago she dropped in at the headquarters of the Maha Sabha and announced blithely that the nation will adopt a multicultural rather than a transcendent cultural policy that served our nation well during its first fifty years of its existence. Such an announcement constituted a repudiation or reversal of Dr. Eric Williams’s vision that was contained in his “Mother Trinidad and Tobago Speech” that emphasized our commonalities rather than our differences. Dr. Williams envisioned a nation in which we should consider ourselves Trinidadians and Tobagonians first, anything after that.
Continue reading Mother Trinidad and Tobago →

Crime in T&T, Culture, General T&T, Law, Media

Another lose, lose situation

6 Comments

Newsday Editorial
January 6 2011 – newsday.co.tt

Maxi TaxiThe current dispute between the operators of maxi taxis and the Government, represented by Minister of Works and Transport Jack Warner, will have no winners. Even if the maxi taxi operators prevail, and prevent in some way, the proposed “regularisation” of PH taxis, the travelling public will end up losing a form of transport upon which many people depend. The operators will have lost their earnings for Wednesday, and for any other days which they decide to withdraw their services. PH drivers, many of whom are honest (outside of their “PH breach”) hard-working individuals, may lose the opportunity to become a legitimate part of the economy. And the travelling public is suffering.
Continue reading Another lose, lose situation →