By Raffique Shah
December 13, 2025
As we move on past the first quarter of the 21st century, I follow with keen interest man’s search for power and control of our section of the universe in which we dwell.
We do this at a dizzying pace. Consider this: man first ignited fire over 400,000 years ago. Later on that same fire would help him soften and bend hard materials like iron to form weapons, tools, and it even paved the way for the development of the manufacturing industry, science and medicine. From the malleable iron we would get steel which is used in construction and other projects.
Developments such as telecommunications saw wireless communication being introduced and now being the main form of getting messages across borders and overseas. Imagine a guy on one of those rockets out there far into space and communicating like if he’s next door. In relative terms man quickly advanced to live in a world that changes seemingly overnight. As fast as our technology use became common, so did the advances made. We always want bigger, better, faster.
People who were born and lived through the 20th and 21st centuries saw us move from horse- and donkey-drawn carts to the automobile, then to luxury limousines, just to end right back at the compact vehicle like those made by Rattan Tata of Tata Motors in India. We have advanced to the point where the very wealthy can now blast off into space for a few minutes via commercial space travel. The cost to them a paltry few million US dollars, money that could better be spent feeding the underprivileged, but God, Satan and Rawan forbid we ever see the human side of the obscenely rich.
Science and technology, when combined with good intentions of the few good people we still have in this world, have done and will continue to do good for humanity. It’s not as if every young entrepreneur who sets out to change the world is malevolent like Elon Musk, yet still many of them will sacrifice their integrity to stay in favour with powerful men like Donald Trump. He has drawn us deeper and deeper into his misadventures in Venezuela with promises upon unfulfilled promises to his putative allies. Our Prime Minister is one such example. In the ordinary scheme of things she will be long gone when Venezuela looks to strike back at Trinidad and Tobago for its singularly stupid support of Trump which it didn’t need to do as a lackey of the bully in the North.
How well I remember the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis (October 16–28, 1962). John F Kennedy, darling of almost every country in the Western Hemisphere, led the world to confrontation with Russia, official name, the Soviet Union, then led by Nikita Kruschev. In the Caribbean, Kruschev was an unknown, but we were told by JFK that he was mad. Kennedy then declared that he would bomb Cuba where Fidel Castro ruled as the first Communist leader in the Western Hemisphere. The Soviet Union was supposed to supply Cuba with its most advanced nuclear warheads. JFK of course resisted by trying to persuade most countries in the world to use their influence in entities such as the United Nations to prevent the Soviet Union from deploying its missile system anywhere in the world, least of all anywhere in the Western Hemisphere.
Kruschev wasn’t about to comply with JFK: he would not be seen as a weakling or coward in the presence of arch-enemy USA. A convoy of US warships and planes armed with everything except the nuclear weapons strung-out in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to block vessels from the Soviet or any of its Allies from making their way to Cuba. Playing brinksmanship to the edge, the hot-boy from the West (Kennedy was loved by most world leaders, unlike Trump) ordered Kruschev to, in The Mighty Sparrow’s words: “Tun’ dem ships in the opposite direction, Kennedy is the man for them; Any retaliation will be met with explosion…”
Kruschev blinked. The world, especially we here in the Caribbean, breathed sighs of relief. Kennedy proved to be the better leader, one who managed to avoid war which both men knew was suicidal. Young people such as I saw our full lives ahead of us—I was 16 at the time and was set to leave college at the year’s end. Although Kennedy, like most politicians, had his weaknesses, he was viewed as a stable man. I cannot say the same for Trump; I don’t trust him. Trump is a modern-day Stalin (another powerful madman leader).
We should be very worried over him having PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar as a puppet. In the Caribbean, we are most vulnerable. Our safety and way of life are being toyed with by the lunatic in the North. Stay away from him.