Category Archives: Race and Identity

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

Exploring Linkages Between Indian Places and Cultural Spaces in T&T

By Stephen Kangal
March 19, 2012

Stephen KangalIt was culturally fulfilling, timely and enlightening to attend the public presentation of a ground-breaking PH.D dissertation produced by renowned cultural activist, Kathak dance exponent par excellence and former distinguished Permanent Secretary, Dr. Sat Balkaransingh held at NAPA on Wednesday last. The work is entitled, “Trinidad Space Speaking through Indo-Trinidadian Rituals and Festivals” will contribute immensely to cross-cultural understanding beyond the confines of the Indian community of the culturally persistent linkages that exist between ancestral India and its culturally-rich, diasporic community in T&T.
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Africa, Crime in T&T, Culture, General T&T, Hindu, India, Politics, Race and Identity, Racism Watch, Religion

Mathur Dealing in Psycho-Cultural Falsities

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By Stephen Kangal
March 07, 2012

Stephen KangalWriting in her Sunday Guardian column of January 22, Ira Mathur a naturalized citizen of T&T but Indian, was born of military middle class parentage completely detached from the reach of the systems of Caribbean indenture-ship and slavery. She has unwittingly and falsely included herself as a victim of that system.
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Africa, General T&T, International, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

European Divide and Rule: Afri-centric Analysis

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By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
February 28, 2012

Dr. Kwame NantambuFor the past five hundred years, the world has been under the sway of what deceased Guyanese anthropologist Dr. Ivan Van Sertima once called the “five hundred year curtain”. This geo-political curtain goes under the rubric of the European system of governance — a paradigm whose spinal cord is Divide & Rule.
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General T&T, Hindu, India, People's Partnership, Politics, Race and Identity

Hindi Is not an Ancestral Language of T&T

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By Stephen Kangal
February 14, 2012

Stephen KangalI am not opposed to the teaching of Hindi. But for the Indian High Commissioner, HE Shri Malay Mishra both to justify its teaching in T&T by criticising the speech delivered by our Prime Minister in English to the Bhelupuris on the false and misleading notion that the girmitiyas brought Hindi to Trinidad in their jahajee bundles “… as part of their ancestral culture” is false, deliberately misleading and must be deprecated as a linguistic Ponzi scheme being foisted on unsuspecting Indo-Trinbagonians.
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Africa, Crime in T&T, Culture, Education, General T&T, Race and Identity, Schools

Crime in T&T – Afri-centric Analysis

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By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
February 11, 2012

Dr. Kwame NantambuThe most intractable, vexing and perplexing problem in T&T is crime. And the raison d’etre successive governments have been unable and unsuccessful in dealing with this problem is primarily because they have all adopted a Euro-centric approach instead of an Afri-centric approach.
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Culture, General T&T, Hindu, India, International, People's Partnership, Politics, Race and Identity

Malay Steps out of His Crease

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By Stephen Kangal
February 06, 2012

PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar in IndiaIn the aftermath of the current euphoria and unbridled optimism generated from the highly successful recent State visit conducted by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissesar to India in connection with the annual Pravasi Bharatiya Divas it is very disconcerting to hear HE The High Commissioner of India to T&T, Malay Mishra using an occasion to promote his mission’s Hindi language program in T&T, to unleash unwarranted and undiplomatic criticisms of her alleged inability to connect with the people of her ancestral village of Bhelupur because she spoke in English- the official language of T&T.
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General T&T, Hindu, India, People's Partnership, Politics, Race and Identity

Kamla’s Delicate Dance

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 26, 2012

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeQuestion: If Trinidad and Tobago were one hundred percent Hindus, would our response to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar kissing President Pratibha Patil’s toes elicit a different response? I suspect it would. But only thirty five percent of Trinidad and Tobago’s population are Hindus and therein lays the conundrum. Such a move calls for a better understanding among the population and a more sensitive response from the PM in terms of her act of piety or respect as she calls it.
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General T&T, Hindu, India, People's Partnership, Politics, Race and Identity

Kamla Spoils the Bharatiya Party in Jaipur

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By Stephen Kangal
January 22, 2012

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar

It is patently clear that the staging of the tenth annual Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) pilgrimage to India by the Indian Ministry of Overseas Indians Affairs is geared and exclusively configured to exploiting and attracting for the benefit of the Indian economy the enormous wealth, political influence and entrepreneurship to be found within the 30 million Indian diaspora. Remittances alone to India amount to over US$50bn annually that is seven times T&T’s budget.
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General T&T, India, People's Partnership, Politics, Race and Identity

De Prime Minister Eh Dey

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 20, 2012

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI have never accepted V. S. Naipaul’s description of our society as being half-made or our people as mimic men and women. Some years ago, I wrote a trenchant criticism of Naipaul’s work in which I responded to those designations in an effective manner. For the past three weeks, I have been traveling in Germany and England. As I view our political landscape from afar, I cannot help but get the impression that our Prime Minister is playing dolly house with our people’s future; fiddling around which their good nature; and treating them with a contempt they do not deserve.
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Culture, General T&T, Hindu, India, People's Partnership, Politics, Race and Identity

To Goar or Not To Lagay

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By Stephen Kangal
January 15, 2012

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar receives the Pravasi Samaan Award in Jaipur
PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar receives the Pravasi Samaan Award in Jaipur

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar attempted to touch the feet of The President of India, Shrimatee Pratibha Patil in true Trini Hindu-style of performing the “goar lagay” after receiving the Pravasi Samaan Award in Jaipur. The question is whether she has compromised the concept of the sovereign equality of states and infringed the secular configuration and contours of governance by this Hindu act of humility, respect, diplomacy and submission.
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