Category Archives: Gender

Africa, Gender, General T&T, Politics, Sex

Turning the Clock Backward

1 Comment

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 09, 2019

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeTrinidad and Tobago is a difficult, contradictory society. Every time we take one step forward, we also take two steps backward. Imagine a progressive leader saying that she won’t invite a man or woman to a government function unless he/she is accompanied by his/her married partner. One would have thought our foremothers had solved that problem two hundred years ago but one of her great granddaughters is doing her best to turn the clock back to even darker days.
Continue reading Turning the Clock Backward →

Gender, General T&T, Passed on

Ordinary people, extraordinary lives

4 Comments

By Raffique Shah
September 04, 2019

Raffique ShahThey will cremate Miss Eileen sometime today somewhere in Florida where most of her daughters and only surviving son live. I hope the passage of hurricane Dorian does not disrupt the final rites for one of the matriarchs of the village of Bokaro (now “Frenchified” to Beaucarro) where I grew up and spent my formative years. She was one of two surviving women who were bred-and-born in Bokaro, the other being Lucille Warrick who also migrated to the USA, and who is, give or take, of similar age to Mrs. Eileen Prince, 93, when the latter breathed her last two Thursdays ago.
Continue reading Ordinary people, extraordinary lives →

Africa, Gender, General T&T

New Daughters of Africa

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 08, 2019

“Know you not that love, when firmly established, is priceless?”

—Nana Asma’u, “Lamentation for ‘Aysha.'”

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI met Margaret Busby in the 1980s just after her press (Allison & Busby) published three volumes of C. L. R. James’s collected work (The Future in the Present [1977], Spheres of Existence [1980], and At the Rendezvous of Victory 1984]). It was an exciting time for James scholars. The assembled pieces were important parts of James’s intellectual corpus.
Continue reading New Daughters of Africa →

Gender, General T&T, PNM, Politics, Racism Watch

Selective Apology from PM Rowley on Sari Skit

5 Comments

By Stephen Kangal
August 21, 2018

Stephen KangalI find that there is a disturbing dysfunctional disconnect between what the PM Rowley said initially in cheap and embarrassing defence of the Sari Skit, the several reasons for his retraction/backing down of those ill -thought out statements, his conditional but confusing apology directed to a deliberately selective audience/aggrieved party and his continuation of his diatribe on associated matters against so-called saboteurs.
Continue reading Selective Apology from PM Rowley on Sari Skit →

Gender, General T&T, Hindu, India, People's Partnership, Politics, Race and Identity, UNC

Preparing the Way for Kamla – Pt 2

5 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 11, 2018

PART 2

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn January 29, 2011 after the People’s Partnership government was elected, I participated in a conference on multiculturalism that was sponsored by the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) Trinidad and Tobago. Kamla and Sat were thick as thieves then and Kamla’s government decided that multiculturalism would be T&T’s cultural policy.
Continue reading Preparing the Way for Kamla – Pt 2 →

Africa, Gender, General T&T, International, Racism Watch, South Africa

Flawed Heroines

4 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 09, 2018

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeQueen Njinga of Africa ruled Ndongo (located in present-day Angola) from 1624-1663. Despite her outstanding accomplishments, “Europeans at the time portrayed her as a bloodthirsty cannibal who thought nothing of murdering babies and slaughtering her enemies.” This is the conclusion that Linda Heywood, a Trinidadian professor of history at Boston University, arrives at in her new biography, Njinga of Angola: African Warrior Queen (2017).
Continue reading Flawed Heroines →

Gender, General T&T

Reformation before revolution

3 Comments

By Raffique Shah
March 29, 2018

Raffique ShahI was writing last week’s column when Madam Justice Paula-Mae Weekes’s inauguration as President of the Republic was underway at the Queen’s Park Savannah, so I missed out on most of the pomp and pageantry. No disrespect was intended: President Paula (well, we did have President Max) will understand my absence, what with a deadline to meet, and with Parkinson’s affecting the pace at which I write, though not the speed at which I think or the sharpness of my memory and mind.
Continue reading Reformation before revolution →

Carnival, Court, Entertainment, Gender, General T&T, Law, Media, Sex Crimes

Cops: Get permission before thiefing a wine

3 Comments

By Jensen La Vende
January 11, 2016 – guardian.co.tt

CarnivalWith the Carnival season now in full swing, police are warning people who plan to gyrate on others that they can be arrested for assault if the person they want to “thief a wine on” decides to engage the police.

Speaking at the weekly media briefing yesterday, public information officer of the Police Service ASP Michael Jackman said it is an assault to touch someone without their consent.
Continue reading Cops: Get permission before thiefing a wine →

Gender, General T&T, PNM, Politics

This Woman Can Be Great

6 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 15, 2018

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeAs quiet as it is kept, women have always shaped our social and cultural identity. They have been the doers, recipients of the most brutal treatment at the hands of their oppressors and their mates, and a spur towards our liberation and development over the last two hundred years. Unfortunately, they do not always get the credit they deserve in our man-centered world.
Continue reading This Woman Can Be Great →

Crime in T&T, Gender, General T&T

Sea Lots missing girls incident demands answers

4 Comments

Sea Lots incident demands answers

Express Editorial
December 14, 2017 – trinidadexpress.com

ViolenceThe discovery in an abandoned house in Sea Lots of three missing persons, two teenaged girls and a young woman of 20, raises worrying questions about how the police handle reports of missing persons and about the responsibility of communities to look out for the vulnerable in their midst.
Continue reading Sea Lots missing girls incident demands answers →