Archive for the 'Features' Category

Ignorant Negroes/Tyrannical Masters: William Burnley and the Caribbean Slave Experience

Published on April 5, 2013 in Africa, England, Features, General T&T, International, Race and Identity and Racism Watch. 15 Comments Tags: Africa, African, Selwyn R. Cudjoe.

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
Published: April 05, 2013 – trinicenter.com

In the 1950s when I was growing up in Tacarigua, Trinidad, West Indies, there existed a large, faded mansion in the Orange Grove Savannah that had seen the last of its glories. It stood there as a colossus on this magnificent expanse of land which, at that time, was one of the largest savannah in the country second only to the Queen’s Park Savannah in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad. It reminded one of the glorious days of a time long past. I was a young boy then and could not have known that in this residence there once lived one of the most important men in the West Indies during the first half of the nineteenth century.
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Harare: Is It Really the Worst City on Earth?

Published on March 16, 2013 in Africa, China, England, Features, General T&T, Media, Race and Identity, Racism Watch, USA, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. 6 Comments Tags: Africa, African, Robert Mugabe, USA.

Out and About in Zimbabwe’s Capital

By Andre Vltchek
March 15, 2013 – andrevltchek.weebly.com

For a change, I don’t want to discuss politics. I don’t want to debate whether big bad Mugabe is actually an African national hero, as many on this continent believe, or some brutal dictator, as we are told relentlessly by the BBC, The Economist and virtually the entire Western establishment media.

‘Data’ about Zimbabwe is developed somewhere, to serve Western political interests, and then it is recycled, repeated by hundreds of websites all over the Internet. Old reports are not updated when the situation improves. Incorrect statistics are hardly challenged.
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Carnival Copyright Concerns

Published on February 17, 2013 in Culture, Editorial, Entertainment, Features, General T&T, Internet Issues, Media, Open Thread, Photos and Politics. 1 Comment Tags: Abuse, Carnival, Copyright, Politics, T&T Govt.

We the people

By Suzanne Mills
February 17, 2013 – newsday.co.tt

Everyone has the rights to Carnival except the people. Pan Trinbago cuts off our Panorama semi-finals; a newly formed, unknown copyright organisation warns revellers not to post pictures of themselves or their friends online; the NCBA and the government station wrangle over the streaming of the Parade of the Bands. It’s as if the copyright pendulum has swung completely in the opposite direction with copyright now intersecting with and infringing on people’s basic rights.
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Africa Lies Naked to Euro-American Military Offensive

Published on December 2, 2011 in Africa, Features, International and USA. 17 Comments Tags: Africa, USA.

By Glen Ford
December 02, 2011 – blackagendareport.com

“The United States and its allies, principally the French, are positioned to ‘take’ much of the continent with the collaboration of most of its governments.”

The United States and its allies are engaged in an Asian and African offensive, a multi-pronged assault thinly camouflaged as humanitarian intervention that, in some regions, looks like a blitzkrieg. This frenzied aggression, still in its first year, saw NATO transformed into an expeditionary force to crush the unoffending Gaddafi regime in Libya and is now poised to topple the secular order in Syria. Although drawing on longstanding schemes for overt and covert regime change in selected countries, and fully consistent with global capital’s historic imperative to bludgeon the planet into one malleable market subordinate to Washington, London and Paris, the current offensive had a particular genesis in time: the nightmare vision of an Arab awakening.
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Anya Ayoung-Chee Wins Project Runway

Published on October 28, 2011 in Caribbean, Fashion, Features, General T&T, International and Tourism. 18 Comments Tags: Anya Ayoung-Chee, fashion, Project Runway.

Anya Ayoung-Chee

TrinidadandTobagoNews.com
October 28, 2011

Many Trinbagonians held their hands to their chests in anticipation of the nail-biting Project Runway finale. When Anya Ayoung-Chee, Trinidad and Tobago’s representative won, social networking sites and blogs were abuzz with praise, mostly from Trinis, for her victory. Many of them also spent time justifying her win to other commentators who felt that Anya lacked the dexterity and the know-how to win the show.
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Remembering Eric Williams

Published on September 25, 2011 in Features, General T&T, PNM and Politics. 25 Comments Tags: Dr Eric Williams, Politics, Raffique Shah, T&T Govt.

By Raffique Shah
September 24, 2011

THIRTY-FIVE years ago yesterday, I became an MP in the first Parliament of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. It was an historic moment in many ways. I affirmed, meaning I did not take an oath using one of the holy books, which was not a first. But when I raised a clenched fist, symbol of the Black Power movement, as Clerk of the House Emmanuel Carter administered the affirmation, I glanced at Prime Minister Dr Eric Williams.
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The Writerly Pursuit

Published on August 22, 2011 in Culture, Features, General T&T and Religion. 4 Comments Tags: African, Selwyn R. Cudjoe.

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 22, 2011

A writer does not write in isolation nor does he always know for whom he writes. A socially-conscious writer, as I see myself, always writes with a purpose. Sometimes it’s to entertain; mostly, it is meant to educate oneself and his public. From that mix one cannot remove the sheer bliss that one finds in writing and yes, even the pleasure of seeing one’s name in print.
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On Afro-Saxons and Trinbagonianism

Published on January 12, 2011 in Features, General T&T, Passed on, Politics and Race and Identity. 36 Comments Tags: African, Ellis Clarke, Politics, Selwyn R. Cudjoe, Sir Ellis Clarke, T&T Govt.

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 12, 2011

I regret I was not in Trinidad to share in the national grief when Sir Ellis Clarke died. My visit to Ghana over the past two weeks prevented me from attending his funeral. Michael Harris described Sir Ellis and those of similar ilk as Afro-Saxons. I disagree with such a characterization since it neither captures the essence of those gallant men and their contribution to our society nor does it tell us much about their location within the national landscape. Even in our grief we should resist a tendency to mischaracterize our patriots and set up false notions of who they were or what they ought to be.
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Zimbabwe’s Road to Vindication

Published on December 17, 2010 in Features and International. Closed Tags: Britain, Morgan Tsvangirai, Robert Mugabe, USA, Zimbabwe.

By Netfa Freeman
December 15, 2010

When Zimbabwe initiated fast track land redistribution in 2000 it was big news for corporate media to echo several patented denunciations, characterizing the process as rife with corruption, violence, and inefficiency and doomed to fail.

More than eager to join the fray was the liberal left whose pseudo analysis reiterated the same line accompanied by an imprudent aversion to anything that seemed even remotely favorable to Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF party.
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My Reflections on the Black Power Conference

Published on October 2, 2010 in Features, General T&T, Media, NJAC, Protest and Race and Identity. 12 Comments Tags: African, Black Power, Corey Gilkes.

(Oh Yeah, It Actually Had One)

By Corey Gilkes
October 02, 2010

From the 17th – 19th September the St Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies was the venue for a conference marking the 40th anniversary of the 1970 Black Power Movement. This conference was preceded on the 16th by a panel discussion at the Lloyd Best Institute of the West Indies.
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