By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
February 28, 2012
For 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.
Continue reading European Divide and Rule: Afri-centric Analysis
By Stephen Kangal
February 27, 2012
Continue reading Alleyne Must Curb Fixation For Property Taxation
Mistah Shak – D Blueprint – Calypso Fiesta Skinner Park 2012
Continue reading Mistah Shak vs Chalkdust
By Raffique Shah
February 25, 2012
ON Ash Wednesday, two articles in the Express perked me up. In the first, Planning and Development Minister Dr Bhoe Tewarie, interviewed in the Grand Stand, told reporter Anna Ramdass that soca star Machel Montano “should be leading the charge in selling Trinidad and Tobago internationally”. Vowing to pursue this quest at Cabinet level, Dr Tewarie added, “…I think Machel is in a class by himself… we should try to support an external thrust led by Machel in the world outside…”
Continue reading Marketing our music
A brief and crucial history of the United States
Continue reading Let Your Life Be a Friction to Stop the Machine
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 22, 2012
I was stuck by Michael Narine’s post, “Culture is a ploy for more state money” and Newsday’s headline “Calypso gets $1M.” With that came a justification from Dr. Hollis “Chalkdust” Liverpool: “This is good for calypso. Calypso is the father of all different genres of music, so they must ensure that calypso gets a good prize. All these other genres of music: chutney, soca, they came out of calypso, so it’s only fair that calypsonians get a good prize.” I will not argue with the doctor’s thesis except to say that at the beginning of the 21st century we may have to revise our accepted concepts of the genre, its influences and the musical forms it has spewed.
Continue reading Carnival and Culture
By Stephen Kangal
February 22, 2012
Once again the people of T&T were under siege and being held to ransom and exploited by unscrupulous unions such as OWTU and SWWTU – formerly Branch No.1 of the PNM. The former attempted to endanger the socio-economic success of the Carnival by giving notice of calling a strike to deprive us of petrol/diesel to begin on Carnival Saturday. The SWWTU did the same during the busy Xmas season by closing the port.
Continue reading OWTU Wanted To Spoil We Carnival
By Raffique Shah
February 18, 2012
NOTHING that I wrote last Sunday should be misread as the lament of an “ole geezer” who has had his Carnival day and who now wants to deny others the joy of the festival. Quite unlike some “sourpusses” who see nothing good in Carnival, I believe ours is a unique mix of music, artistry, colour, spontaneity, high-energy, sexuality, conviviality and more, much more. So, as this year’s festival comes to a climax over the next two days, I encourage Trinis-to-de-bone and our foreign guests to “play mas”. Have a whale of a time, but be safe.
Continue reading Play mas
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 15, 2012
I can still hear Kamla Persad Bissessar’s voice as it caressed the late afternoon air at the UNC’s Final Rally at Aranguez Savannah on May 22, 2010 as she offered the following paean: “Thank you to those who are here-thank you to those watching at home. Two days… We have been counting down together… And now it’s just two days until we together begin to forge a new Trinidad and Tobago…I can sense we are all ready for a change…Are you ready to change our country…?”
Continue reading Time for Change
By Stephen Kangal
February 14, 2012
I 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.
Continue reading Hindi Is not an Ancestral Language of T&T