By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 01, 2012
For anyone black and slightly conscious, Emancipation Day should be as exciting as Independence Day. One only has to look at the spontaneous response of Africans on the first Emancipation Day to realize how united we were at the gloriously liberating moment. Listen to Governor George Hill as he reported to the Secretary of State on August 7, 1834:
Continue reading Raced Memories
By Stephen Kangal
June 19, 2012
I wish to congratulate the Hindu Prachar Kendra for using their Indian Arrival Day function to remember and re-kindle the outstanding and unparalleled legacy bequeathed to posterity in T&T by the late Bhadase Sagan Maraj — trade unionist, religious leader, parliamentarian, land-owner and philanthropist par excellence.
Continue reading Rekindling the Bhadase Maraj Legacy
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 30, 2012
I want to congratulate my East Indian compatriots for the achievements they have made over the 167 years they have spent in Trinidad and Tobago and the enormous efforts they have made to carve out a space in these two beautiful islands in the West Indies. I also wish to congratulate Sat Maharaj for the herculean efforts he has made to improve the educational standards of his people and his determination to ensure that his people receive their rightful share of the national pie. When the history of the second half of the twentieth century is written I am certain he will take his place as one of the more outstanding Trinbagonians of the era.
Continue reading The Cowshed Fable
By Alana Lalman
May 30, 2012
I was well poised to begin writing for an article on Indian Arrival Day in Trinidad and Tobago when I coincidentally stumbled over Satnarayan Maharaj’s commentary about Indian Arrival in the Guardian newspaper that day. Sat Maharaj is the secretary general of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS) organization which is the major Hindu organization in Trinidad and Tobago. It operates 150 mandirs and over 60 schools. It was formed in 1952 when Bhadase Sagan Maharaj merged the Satanan Dharma Association and the Sanatan Dharma Board of Control.
Continue reading 167 Years of Indian “Arrival”: Are Indians Still Arriving?
By Stephen Kangal
(Address delivered at the MTS Indian Arrival Day Function
on Monday 28th May 2012)
Mr. Chairman, The PS/PM and Head of the Public Service, Mr. Reynold Cooper,
Mr. Dhaniram Ramkissoon, Vice- Chairman of MTS,
Members of Board of MTS,
Mr. Lennox Rattansingh, CEO of MTS
Divisional Managers and Members of the Staff of MTS
Ladies and Gentlemen- Namastay, Assalam Alaikum, Good Evening
I thank the management of MTS for inviting me to speak at this IAD function and congratulate the Staff for the effectiveness of the décor that emphasizes the theme of Indian Arrival.
IAD is a celebration of the cultural impact of the distinct Indo-T&T personality during 50 years of Nationhood and One Hundred and Sixty-Seven Years of contributing to T&T.
Continue reading Emergence of Indian Arrival as a Vehicle for Mobilisation and Cultural Assertiveness
By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
May 20, 2012
The historical truism is that Indian “indentured servants” came from India to Trinidad on 30 May 1845. They did not come from Indo. Ergo, the descendants of these original Indians are Indian-Trinbagonians. They are not Indo-Trinbagonians. This label is totally Euro-centric, ahistorical and must not only be relegated to the ash heap of T&T’s cultural/ethnic history but must also be expunged from T&T’s societal lexicon.
Continue reading Indian Arrival Day — Afri-centric Analysis
The Issue of Colorism: Dark-Skinned Girls, Light-Skinned Girls
By Akilah Holder, BA, MA
April 24, 2012 – trinidadexpress.com
For the most part of my life, I have had to deal with the drama of being stereotyped from the moment I step into a room because of my light-brown complexion. The animosity directed my way is usually intensified by the length of my hair and my mannerisms. And most of this animosity comes from my own sex, the darker-skinned of my own sex. This animosity seems to be indicative of and to be a result of colorism, defined as a conscious or unconscious state of prejudice that may be experienced by both blacks and whites so that they label as less attractive and intelligent individuals of a darker complexion… Continue…
Continue reading The Issue of Colorism
By Stephen Kangal
April 24, 2012
During the recent visit made to her ancestral homeland, Bihari village of Bhelupur PM Persad-Bissessar issued a most profound, conclusive, unnoticed and defining statement on her nature and nurturing en route to becoming Prime Minister. She confessed quite categorically to the Bhelupuris gathered that “…whatever I am today is because Bihar is in my DNA and whatever my ancestors taught me…”.
Continue reading Nature and Nurturing of a Prime Minister
By Stephen Kangal
March 29, 2012
Years ago T&T’s former HC to India, Mr. Reginald Dumas went visiting the rural villages of the Indian state of Bihar assiduously looking for “jhandis” and found them. Last week another Afro-Tobagonian, Opposition Leader the Hon. Keith Rowley used the occasion of the CPA meeting being held in India to search for the elusive “jhandis” and according to him found none. And this after the PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar just returned from her Indian safari when the question of the rurally remote, sometimes inaccessible villages (pur) of the States of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar from which the “girmitiyas” came to T&T bearing their ‘Jahajee bundles” was well-documented.
Continue reading Rowley Went To India Looking for Jhandis?
By Tony Fraser
March 28, 2012 – guardian.co.tt
Austin “Jack” Warner has made the crossing over the political, ethnic, racial and geographic Rubicon—from the east-west corridor to Caroni—and has done so in spectacular fashion. Without the endorsement of the hierarchy of the United National Congress, indeed, against its wishes, Warner sauntered into the heartland of the UNC to capture the chairmanship of the party and by an extraordinarily wide margin—12,695 to 656 votes.
Continue reading Jack Crossing: from Corridor to Caroni