Archive for the 'International' Category

The Museum of African American History

Published on January 8, 2019 in Culture, General T&T, International, Race and Identity and USA. 3 Comments Tags: African, Slave Trade.

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 08, 2019

“The past is all that makes the present coherent.”

— James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son

It was a rainy afternoon in Washington D.C., the Friday after Christmas, when I paid a chance visit to the National Museum of African American History & Culture. I had heard so much about this fantastic museum and the attention it has drawn throughout the U.S. (United States) that I did not expect to get a ticket to explore its wonders. I took my chances and was lucky to enter its gates. I didn’t regret it. It was one of the most impressive museums I have ever seen.
Continue reading ‘The Museum of African American History’

Evaluating Trump, Trini-Style

Published on December 17, 2018 in General T&T, International and USA. 5 Comments Tags: Donald Trump, Selwyn R. Cudjoe.

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 17, 2018

Brian Moore is one of my best friends. He is Trini-to-de bone when it comes to discoursing about national and international matters. He is a contrarian and has dogmatic views about issues. He was not unduly worried when Donald Trump was elected to the presidency of the United States. When many of us were desolate about the prospects of the U.S., Brian declared defiantly: “America got what she deserved. Trump is not a U.S. aberration. He is the quintessential expression of who and what the U.S. is.”
Continue reading ‘Evaluating Trump, Trini-Style’

Andrew Haswell Green

Published on November 26, 2018 in General T&T, International and Race and Identity. 1 Comment Tags: African, Andrew Haswell Green, Selwyn R. Cudjoe.

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 26, 2018

I am always astonished when I realize how unaware we are about certain aspects of our history. I had completed my book on William Hardin Burnley, the biggest slave owner in Trinidad, when I received a fascinating note from a reader.

“My name is Henry Albert. I am a retired accountant and working on a project with the goal of becoming a docent for Preservation Worcester, a local Worcester, MA nonprofit.

“The topic includes Andrew Haswell Green, a local man who became well known in 19th century New York City. Supposedly, Green’s family knew William Burnley of Trinidad.”
Continue reading ‘Andrew Haswell Green’

Refugees aggravate T&T woes

Published on November 21, 2018 in Caribbean, Cuba, General T&T, International, USA and Venezuela. 9 Comments Tags: Raffique Shah, Refugees, T&T Govt.

By Raffique Shah
November 21, 2018

Trinidad and Tobago has found itself in an unenviable, as well as untenable, position of having to deal with hundreds of mostly Venezuelan and Cuban nationals who have entered this country, legally and illegally, then announcing themselves as refugees or seeking political asylum.

This situation is unenviable because we are the only English-speaking Caribbean island-state that faces an influx of Spanish-speaking refugees, in addition to Jamaicans and Nigerians who have overstayed their Immigration-approved time, and some Chinese, Syrians and Lebanese. Except for the fairly-prosperous Dominican Republic that shares the large island of Hispaniola with poverty-stricken Haiti, where nationals of the latter invade the former on foot, whence they face rigid deportation procedures, T&T is a unique magnet for illegal immigrants.
Continue reading ‘Refugees aggravate T&T woes’

The Incredible Dream – Pt 3

Published on November 19, 2018 in England, General T&T and International. 3 Comments Tags: C. L. R. James, Selwyn R. Cudjoe, World War I.

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 19, 2018

PART 3

“The further you look into the past, the further you can see into the future.”

— Sir Winston Churchill

Over the past month, I visited London, England, Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland where I delivered several lectures and participated in the launch of David Featherstone, ed., Marxism, Colonialism, and Cricket: C. L. R. James’s Beyond a Boundary in which I contributed a chapter on James’s intellectual origins and his knowledge of early Trinidad’s history.
Continue reading ‘The Incredible Dream – Pt 3’

Remembering the savagery of war

Published on November 14, 2018 in Crime in T&T, Germany, International and USA. 3 Comments Tags: Raffique Shah, Wars.

By Raffique Shah
November 14, 2018

I awoke last Sunday morning to see and hear French President Emmanuel Macron deliver an address before scores of world leaders gathered in Paris to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. His was a good speech, an appeal for the world to not just to pay homage to the eight million-plus servicemen and women who lost their lives in the mistaken belief that they were fighting “the war to end all wars”, but also to note that if we did not learn from history, we were doomed to repeat the mistakes our forebears made.
Continue reading ‘Remembering the savagery of war’

America’s Angry White Men

Published on October 8, 2018 in General T&T, International and USA. 17 Comments Tags: Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Blasey Ford, Selwyn R. Cudjoe.

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 08, 2018

“An increasingly diverse society no longer accepts the God-given right of white males from the right families to run things, and a society with many empowered, educated women is finally rejecting the droit de seigneur once granted to powerful men.”

—Paul Krugman, New York Times

Yesterday the U.S. Senate elected Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court by the narrowest of margins despite the objections of 2,400+ law professors and Justice John Paul Stevens, former justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Stevens noted: “He’s a fine federal judge, and he should have been confirmed when he was nominated. But I think that his performance during the hearings caused me to change my mind” (New York Times, October 5).
Continue reading ‘America’s Angry White Men’

Independence Child/Pan Africanist Vision

Published on September 24, 2018 in England, General T&T and International. 2 Comments Tags: Glenda Morean, Selwyn R. Cudjoe, Ulric Cross.

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
September 24, 2018

Several years ago Glenda Morean, Trinidad and Tobago’s High Commissioner in London, invited me to attend an intimate luncheon with Ulric Cross and four other people. It was the first time I met Cross, this distinguished man. Although I knew Cross’s reputation as a combat bomber navigator during World War II, my most indelible image of him was that of an ageless being playing a good game of tennis in his eighties.
Continue reading ‘Independence Child/Pan Africanist Vision’

US sanctions 2 Trinis over ISIS terrorism

Published on September 20, 2018 in General T&T, International, Law and USA. 2 Comments Tags: Faris Al Rawi, ISIS, Newsday, T&T Govt, Terrorism.

By Carla Bridglal and Jensen La Vende
September 20, 2018 – newsday.co.tt

TWO Trinidadian men were yesterday sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for suspicion of financing ISIS. This now triggers local authorities to initiate civil proceedings that can see the assets of both men seized.

Emraan Ali, 51, a Syria-based TT-US dual citizen and Eddie Aleong, 34, also known as Ishmael Mohammed, Ishmail Muhammed and Ismail’il Ali, were sanctioned under Executive Order (EO) 13224, which targets terrorists and those providing support to terrorists or acts of terrorism.
Continue reading ‘US sanctions 2 Trinis over ISIS terrorism’

Recognising the writing, not the writer

Published on August 29, 2018 in General T&T, India and International. 4 Comments Tags: Raffique Shah, V.S. Naipaul.

By Raffique Shah
August 29, 2018

During my only visit to India, which I made in 1983, I found myself subconsciously looking everywhere for human faeces. Wherever I went, from the modern quarter of New Delhi where I stayed in what was probably a four-star hotel that overlooked manicured lawns and streets swept clean every day, to the slums that sat like festering sores next to the opulence of Bollywood in what was then Bombay, I kept my eyes peeled, looking for excrement.

Now, this might sound strange to the average person, especially since I was someone of Indian descent who was visiting the land of my ancestors for the first and only time. There is so much to see in that vast sub-continent—ancient historical sites (I did tour the Ajanta caves), the Taj Mahal (which I did not see) and other relics, Mahatma Gandhi’s artifacts and much, much more.
Continue reading ‘Recognising the writing, not the writer’