By Corey Connelly
September 16, 2018 – newsday.co.tt
United National Congress (UNC) political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar is likely to pay a hefty political price is she does not apologise to the nation for labelling Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley an Oreo biscuit, outgoing People’s National Movement (PNM) chairman Franklin Khan stated yesterday.
Continue reading ‘PNM: Kamla must apologise’
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 30, 2018
“Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not.” — Jeremiah 5:21
Any party that has any pretensions to be relevant to its people needs to take time out to listen to what they are saying. The recent by-election came and went. The United National Congress won a seat—it increased its margin of victory-and the People’s National Movement (PNM) lost a seat—its margin of victory decreased. One would think the ruling party would examine why it didn’t do as well as it wanted to.
Continue reading ‘Open Yo’ Eyes & Ears, PNM…’
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 24, 2018
PART 8
When a government cannot even buy a boat to convey its citizens from point A to point B; select a commissioner of police as its murder rate soars; or be up front enough to tell its citizens the cost of building a hotel it says is in their best interest, then that government has lost its raison d’etre to lead.
Any party that says it represents the interest of a particular group but which, after sixty-two years in existence, that group is relatively worse off than before, then that party needs to question its performance? That party may even need to reinvent itself to accommodate the wishes of that group.
Continue reading ‘Preparing the Way for Kamla – Pt 8’
By Raffique Shah
July 18, 2018
Because of the interest generated by my column last week on State-owned Petrotrin and the fact that the country has awakened to a possible disaster at our doorstep in the fate of the struggling oil giant, I thought I should return to add a few more salient points to the national discussion that will likely determine its future.
I claim no expertise in the oil industry, and certainly not on Petrotrin. However, I have, over the years, tried to educate myself on the hydrocarbons and petrochemicals industries in order to better understand these engines of our economy. Besides accessing information that is available in print and online, I have interfaced with many workers, technocrats and experts to whom I am grateful for sharing their vast knowledge with me.
Continue reading ‘Petrotrin: all of them must go!’
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 18, 2018
PART 7
On July 14, 2003, my mother took her bath, got dressed, went to the polling station located at St. Mary’s Children Home, Tacarigua, and voted for PNM. Two weeks later she was dead. She never voted for any other party in Trinidad and Tobago (T&T).
When Eric Williams arrived on the political scene in 1954 my mother worked in a white woman’s kitchen. When he defied the colonial powers and proclaimed the dignity of black and brown people (“Massa Day Done,” he proclaimed), my mother saw him as a political messiah and PNM as the vehicle to take her out of a house of bondage and into a land of liberty.
Continue reading ‘Preparing the Way for Kamla – Pt 7’
Br Raffique Shah
July 12, 2018
I never thought I’d one day write a column that says what I’m about to. But as someone who has always put country before personal or ideological interests regardless of the fire I faced, I feel compelled to endorse calls for a radical restructuring of State-owned oil company Petrotrin.
If there is resistance to life-saving changes, declare the damn company bankrupt and shut it down.
Continue reading ‘Petrotrin: radical surgery…or die’
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 11, 2018
PART 6
If one listened to the scholars and scribes, one would think that when the Indians came to Trinidad in 1845 they met a barren land where Africans played and joked around. No one would believe that those Africans, working from sunup to sundown, made William Hardin Burnley, an Englishman who came to Trinidad in 1802, the richest resident slave owner in the West Indies (see my forthcoming book, The Slave Master of Trinidad).
Continue reading ‘Preparing the Way for Kamla – Pt 6’
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 4, 2018
PART 5
I have rarely received so many responses to my articles as those I received about my previous column. Once I had the temerity to describe the business activities of the Syrian-Lebanese community I opened up a whole batchak nest unleashing the deadly fury that such colonies contain.
Ant colonies, made up of thousands of insects, are precise, efficient and an organized machine. They behave as a deadly unit. E. O. Wilson, the evolutionary biologist explained, “The activities of the individuals in an ant colony are so perfectly integrated it is almost as though they were part of a single organism. The insects do everything by instinct and they literally are programmed automatons.”
Continue reading ‘Preparing the Way for Kamla – Pt 5’
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 25, 2018
PART 4
Sixteen years hence, Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) will celebrate its two hundredth anniversary since slavery ended formally. As I open my eyes, I am not sure I can see as clearly as the Minister of Finance how the African population will be positioned within the society in 2034.
Last Sunday I argued that by 2030, the Indian population will grow to between 588,000 and 776,000 people or 41 percent of the population; Africans will grow to between 525,000 and 615,000 people but remain about 36 percent of the population; and the mixed population will grow to between 339,000 and 417,000 people or 22 percent. In short, the African population will have dropped from 73 percent in 1803 to 36 percent in 2034.
Continue reading ‘Preparing the Way for Kamla – Pt 4’
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 20, 2018
PART 3
It’s an iconographic image, one that is indicative of our times: the destruction of black men in an age of unreason and indifference.
There they are: a brother in a blue polo shirt that reads “salopian” on his breast. Another brother holds him back as he vents his anger against Laventille West MP Fitzgerald Hinds on Old St. Joseph Road. Brother Hinds, decked out in a Panama hat and trademark deadlocks that falls below his waist, seemed absolutely engrossed in the pain and anger directed against him (Guardian, June 9).
Continue reading ‘Preparing the Way for Kamla – Pt 3’
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