General T&T, Parliament, PNM, Politics

The price of progress – Pt II

6 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 02, 2022

PART I — PART II

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThe general election of 1946 ushered in a new phase in Trinidad and Tobago’s political development, in that it was the year in which universal suffrage was introduced into the island. In that year, Patrick Solomon formed the West Indian National Party with Dr David Pitt, which later became the Caribbean Socialist Party.

Between 1950 and 1956, Albert Gomes, who considered himself “the logical successor to Captain Cipriani”, formed the Party of Political Progress Groups to contest the 1956 election. Owen Mathurin argues, “Gomes’s outstanding ambition was to outdo Cipriani and replace him as the hero in the hearts of the black working class.” Although the Colonial Office saw Gomes as their “blue-eyed boy”, he was not regarded as the champion of the working class, as he had seen himself.
Continue reading The price of progress – Pt II →

General T&T, Politics, Schools

Bad teachers, bad parents

1 Comment

By Raffique Shah
May 02, 2022

Raffique ShahGood news is hard to come by nowadays. So young journalists, spawned on a diet of blood, gore, corruption, crime, suffering and worse, have become nihilists without knowing what the word means. And readers of conventional newspapers and electronic media audiences, especially the misnamed “social media”, will not recognise a decent story if it hits them between the eyes, so immersed are they in the lies, half-truths and raw sewage that pass for information on the 5G superhighway that rules our lives, imprisons our minds with such stealth, we degenerate into clones, drones and assorted mindless, brainless creatures to the extent that when we look into the mirror, we see nothing, because there is nothing to see.
Continue reading Bad teachers, bad parents →

Elections, General T&T, Politics

The price of progress

1 Comment

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 25, 2022

A lecture given at The UWI History Fest 2022—April 20.

PART I

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI have been asked to speak about the “price of progress”, which the organisers of History Fest 2022 suggested should explore some aspects of the political formations of the pre-independence Trinidad and Tobago. While I am not too sure what the price of progress was, I can try to point out a few signposts along that journey and offer a few personal reflections on them.
Continue reading The price of progress →

Finance, General T&T, Oil and Gas, Opposition Party, Politics, Recession, UNC

The screw and screwdriver

1 Comment

By Raffique Shah
April 25, 2022

Raffique ShahBy late last Tuesday eve­ning, the universe seemed to me to have remained intact as we have known it from creation, or more accurately, since we arrived on it—vast, mysterious, constantly moving—and the Earth did not stand still, as some politicians had hoped would happen, in a celestial display of anger by the gods against satanic price increases in auto fuels imposed by the heartless Government of Trinidad and Tobago on its people.
Continue reading The screw and screwdriver →

General T&T, Politics, Schools, Violence

Prime Minister on school violence

2 Comments

We can’t beat our way out of it

By Jensen La Vende
April 21, 2022 – newsday.co.tt

PM Dr Keith RowleyCORPORAL PUNISHMENT will not be the solution for school violence the Prime Minister said on Thursday as he responded to number of videos of school children fighting.

Speaking with the media at the Piarco International Airport on Thursday, Dr Rowley said a better approach must be used.

“There is no intention to beat our way out of this,” Rowley said when asked if the re-introduction of corporal punishment would be used to curb school violence.
Continue reading Prime Minister on school violence →

China, International, USA

The Strategy of Denial: Goading China into War

2 Comments

Streamed live on Sep 15, 2021
A conversation on Elbridge A. Colby’s book The Strategy of Denial which offers an examination of how America’s defense strategy should change in order to checkmate China’s growing power.

“Elbridge A. Colby was the lead architect of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the most significant revision of U.S. defense strategy in a generation. Here he lays out how America’s defense must change to address China’s growing power and ambition.
Continue reading The Strategy of Denial: Goading China into War →

Africa, Christianity, General T&T, Religion

The Slave Bible

9 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 18, 2022

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIn 1970 while I was a faculty member at Fordham University, New York, I taught a course on the development of Afro-American literature. One of the books I used was William Wells Brown, Clotel or the President’s Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States, published in England in 1853.

The novel told the story of Clotel, a daughter of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who fathered three children by his slave, Sally Hemmings. Although the white power structure denied this incident for two centuries, in November 1998 the truth of this claim was authenticated by DNA evidence.
Continue reading The Slave Bible →

Finance, General T&T, PNM, Politics, Recession

In a ‘freeness’ state

5 Comments

By Raffique Shah
April 18, 2022

Raffique ShahIf we think this point in our history is the worst in our existence as a sovereign state, then it’s easy to blame the incumbent government for taking us there.

After all, the People’s National Movement (PNM) held power longest—35 of 44 years in the last century, 30 of those consecutively (1956-1986), and unless the party is removed from office by means other than elections—its current term expires in 2025, it will have ruled for 19 years in this quarter-century.
Continue reading In a ‘freeness’ state →

General T&T, International, NATO, Russia, Ukraine, USA

John Mearsheimer on War in Ukraine

John Mearsheimer on War in Ukraine with Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Ambassador Jack Matlock, more…
Premiered Apr 7, 2022

John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago talks with American Committee for US-Russia Accord on War in Ukraine, with Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Ambassador Jack Matlock, Nicolai Petro, Marlene Laruelle and James W. Carden.
Continue reading John Mearsheimer on War in Ukraine →

Agriculture, General T&T, PNM, Politics

I am the State!

1 Comment

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 11, 2022

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOne is always flabbergasted by how democracy functions (or malfunctions) in Trinidad and Tobago. Recently there was a Cabinet reshuffle in the Government. Clarence Rambharat, the Minister of Agriculture, resigned. He expressed his desire to return to Canada to be closer to his family and yet one week later he was named or, as the Express describes it, “rocked back” into power. (Express, April 3.)
Continue reading I am the State! →