By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 19, 2008
trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog
Keith Rowley insists he wishes to clear his name so that his children would know he is an honorable man. The only problem with such a pursuit is this: what happens after he has cleared his name? While his desire is admirable such nobility matters little in politics. I know of no political movement in history that rallied around a party member’s desire to clear his name from infamy. Party members usually rally around causes that crescendo into movements that challenge the foundations of injustice.
Continue reading The Politics of Personal Grievance
PREOCCUPIED as we are with wanton and random bloodletting, rampant crime, spiralling food prices and football politics, major national issues in this crowded barracoon, interesting developments in the wider world could steal past us hardly eliciting a glance. Last week, David Davis, a very senior member of Britain’s Conservative Party, shocked his colleagues and England by resigning his parliamentary seat over renewal of the “42-days detention” law. And in Washington the US Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision: detainees at the controversial Guantanamo detention camp are entitled to the privilege of habeas corpus.
WITH 27 years of writing columns under my belt-I once wrote two columns a week, but never scaled Keith Smith’s one-a-day heights-how well I recall sitting before a typewriter and pondering for hours: what topic shall I choose today? At this sordid point in our nation’s history, that question has reversed itself: what do I not write about? Which is a hell-of-a-dilemma: it’s a sign of the times we live in. So much to write about, so little space.
During the forties and the fifties, Corpus Christi was planting day. On that day, my mother and my brother planted every available piece of land around our house with corn, peas, dasheen bush, tanais and yams. These crops were supplement by breadfruits, a slave food, spinach which grew wildly around the village, mangoes, an import from India, tomatoes, a native plant from South and Central America, and a host of other fruits and vegetables. We purchased cow’s milk from our Indian neighbors who lived in the gutter (El Dorado) and sometimes the Scotts would supply us with goat milk.
ATTORNEY GENERAL Brigid Annisette-George was yesterday accused of taking the country one step closer to a secret government as lawyers, constitutional and public service experts criticised her for, on Tuesday, blocking parliamentary questions on the legal fees paid to private attorneys for State briefs.
For many decades Scandinavian countries-Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland-have ranked highest in the world in economic and social indices. Far from being endowed with an abundance of natural resources, these countries wisely used what little they had (except Norway, which became oil-rich in the 1970s) to develop societies that are at the upper spectrum of global rankings in just about every field. They rank among the top ten countries in income distribution (rich-poor gap), per capita gross national income (GNI), and several other globally accepted indicators of successful countries.
PRIME Minister Patrick Manning yesterday agreed to set up a commission on inquiry into the controversial Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (Udecott) and the practices of the construction industry, in place of the joint select committee (JSC) he had previously proposed.
I have spoken with Calder Hart only once, when he belatedly responded to a call I had made to UDeCOTT seeking to talk with him on a story I was working on. It turned out that he had been out of the country when I had tried to reach him. He was very polite, even effusive, promising to talk with me anytime, on any matter concerning UDeCOTT. He came across as a journalist’s delight: most people in his position normally refer lowly plebs of the Fourth Estate to some PR “spin doctors”, who, in turn, ask for questions to be formally e-mailed to them, and then take forever to give half-answers.
Five months ago, the PNM was elected to serve as the Government of the people of T&T although it received 43 per cent of the votes.