By Raffique Shah
March 01, 2025
Where friendships are concerned, one friend, when he passes, will have all the others at his funeral, and one friend will have none of his friends at his funeral. In my circle, we are slowly but inevitably getting to the latter part of that statement.
I still cannot imagine Rex Lassalle dead. He is indestructible.
Continue reading For Rex and Lennox
By Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 22, 2025
On Saturday last weekend, we celebrated the life of Joseph Sam Phillip, a districker, at the Good Shepherd Anglican Church, Tunapuna, at which Archdeacon Kenly Baldeo, another districker, presided. Good Shepherd, one of the oldest edifices in Tunapuna, was consecrated in 1866.
Sam was an outstanding districker and citizen. We attended St Mary’s Anglican School and were/are parishioners at St Mary’s Anglican Church. His grandmother, Mother Gerald, was the chief Shango priestess in the village. My grandmother, Tan Darling, was one of the chief Shango devotees. She cooked the saltless meats for the annual Shango festival that usually took place in November.
Continue reading Serve in order to lead
By Raffique Shah
February 22, 2025
Now more than ever, I am convinced that this society is so steeped in corrupt practices that no one can claim to not know what has been happening for 50-60, whatever, years. So confident am I in laying this charge of universal theft, banditry, if my editors will only agree, I shall pronounce that in this jurisdiction, everyone is presumed guilty unless or until he can prove innocence.
Continue reading Of crime and cowards
By Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 15, 2025
The community is the source of democracy in Trinidad and Tobago. Recently, there have been many references to its role in solving our problems. On Tuesday Shamfa Cudjoe-Lewis declared: “Grassroots sporting groups and programmes must no longer be sacrificed for the sake of national government bodies.” She obtained this wisdom seven years after she became the Minister of Sport and Community Development.
Continue reading Regress rather than progress
By Raffique Shah
February 15, 2025
It seems that some fifth columnist in the ranks of the Opposition United National Congress has hijacked the party’s offices and is training its activists and the leader, I need add for emphasis, in how to lose another election. The PNM in government was always destined to be beaten halfway to death in the run-up to the polls. It happens every five years—or if you can mastermind consecutive victories, in ten years.
Continue reading Time to administer zebapique
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 08, 2025
Nostalgia led me to the People’s National Movement Manifesto of 1991, the year it defeated the National Alliance for Reconstruction. The PNM returned to government in 1991 but lost power to the United National Congress in 1995. A year later, the Leader of Our Grief and Sorrow challenged Patrick Manning’s leadership and lost. His rise to national prominence began at that point. The Leader will leave the political scene in a few weeks but will retain his influence on his protégé, Stuart Young.
Continue reading Intentional distraction
By Raffique Shah
February 08, 2025
Old age is a B!!ch. Growing up as a boy in rural Trinidad, I would often hear that refrain coming from the mouths of people who were, well, old. In those times, anyone who had a couple grey hairs or whose skin looked like leather, or who walked around seeming to have difficulty in making their next step, was classified as old.
They may have been 40 or thereabouts and would utter such refrains when commenting on some inadequacies they experienced. And, I would think, what are they complaining about? They should be happy. Mostly, they had retired from some job they held so they did not have to commute to work every day. They lived seemingly relaxed lives. Except for some infirmities, they looked in pretty good shape, so why the complaints?
Continue reading Hiding our inhumanity
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 01, 2025
Lately we have been obsessed about the elimination of colonialism in our society, the coat of arms discussion being the latest manifestation of this obsession. Only a rigorous study of and a confrontation with our historical past (and present) can release us from this debilitating condition.
Our progressive workers and thinkers have worked to mitigate this condition for over 100 years. Canon Philip Douglin came to Trinidad as the pastor of St Clement’s Anglican Church, St Madeleine, in 1887. That year he delivered a lecture, —The Rio Pongo Mission”, about his missionary work in West Africa.
Continue reading The Cap of Freedom
By Raffique Shah
February 01, 2025
When the moral fabric of a society runs into decay before it could bloom, we know we are in deep trouble.
When children have no idea of the values that were applied by our forebears to guide us so that we can distinguish right from wrong, that we can act in good faith to build a country that booms and blooms, that makes living here a pleasant experience, we have reached the point of no return. The young—and here I mean under ten—can only envision a hell such as Dante’s Inferno: they enter puberty and they abandon hope.
Continue reading We created the monster
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 25, 2025
A United National Congress victory in the forthcoming election is the necessary antidote to heal the fissures that have erupted in the PNM’s political structure. Only a UNC victory can counteract the fiendish act of PNM’s hierarchy of selling the party to the highest financial bidders. This will necessitate that PNM takes a more careful look at itself, especially in the absence of the Leader of Our Grief and Sorrow.
Continue reading UNC’s victory: the necessary antidote to PNM’s revival