Race Talk in House: Jack, Rowley square off
The People’s Partnership has achieved better ethnic balance in the appointments of boards, Works Minister Jack Warner stated yesterday. He was speaking in the House of Representatives on the motion filed by Dr Keith Rowley, asking the House to reaffirm its collective commitment to the principles of fairness and meritocracy in public affairs in the light of the “reckless and divisive statements” made by the former Police Service Commission chairman Nizam Mohammed.
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Police Service Is Unique and Powerful
By Stephen Kangal
April 20, 2011
The Police Service is singularly the most unique and powerful institution of the state. The establishment of that service cannot be honestly and usefully compared with and justified by the ethnic composition of the establishment of any other public and private sector institution. At the same time the entry requirements for this service is academically minimal. Brawn was accorded overriding importance at the early stage of the then Police Force. Accordingly studying law, medicine or the professions was never an alternative to being a police man.
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Rowley’s Failure
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 20, 2011
The hiccups PNM is going through have more to do with Keith Rowley’s failure to lead than Patrick Manning’s political intransigence and nostalgia for power. Manning, the insane victim of his own ill-judgment, is suffering from the failed-leader syndrome to which many past leaders fall prey: an inability to recognize they messed up and ought to leave the political stage quietly if they cannot do so gracefully. This is the difference between great leaders (such as Nelson Mandela of South Africa and Julius Nyerere of Tanzania) who knew how to demit office peacefully and stubborn autocrats (such as Ben Ali of Tunisia, Hosni Mubarack of Egypt and Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d’Ivore) for whom power is an entrancing aphrodisiac.
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Mentoring T&T’s Youths
By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
April 19, 2011
While the People’s Partnership (PP) government’s National Mentoring Programme should be widely lauded, much more needs to be done/analyzed in order to confront and deal with the ubiquitous “criminal gang culture” in T&T.
The fact of the matter is that the proclivity to commit crime among this country’s “at risk” youths is values-oriented-related-driven.
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The End of High Fares
By Derren Joseph
April 18, 2011
Last Monday, a message from the REDjet CEO appeared on their Facebook Fanpage which announced that they were taking bookings as of April 13th with flights starting May 8th. The first destinations to be offered are Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and, of course, Trinidad.
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Is the Problem Really Race?
THE EDITOR: Within recent weeks the country has been engaged in a lot of dialogue on the issue of race relations in T&T; the many different names that this issue is called demonstrates our dilemma in having a genuine debate on the state of relations between peoples of different ethnic origins domiciled here. The situation is further compounded by those who lead the discussions and their agenda, explicit and implicit.
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Manning’s Humiliation
Newsday’s Editorial
Sunday, April 17 2011
Former prime minister, Patrick Manning, not only had a private motion tabled in his name, rejected in the House of Representatives by vote of Government members, but suffered the public humiliation of five members of the political party he once led, the People’s National Movement (PNM) openly refusing to give him the support he clearly expected.
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War on wastage
By Raffique Shah
April 16, 2011
RECENTLY, I posted on a popular local blog an article that purported to show Germans’ intolerance for wastage. Although the report was dated, as a few respondents pointed out to me, its contents are as applicable today, maybe more so, than they were in post-World War II Germany. The article spoke of a group of Americans visiting Hamburg, ordering food at a restaurant, eating little of what they paid for, and leaving much “waste” uneaten.
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On Religion and Schools
By Corey Gilkes
April 14, 2011
I cyar keep up wit dis government nah, is from one thing straight to the next. Last Monday, one of the many announcements made by the Minister of Education was that there was going to be a review of the way religious education is taught in the nation’s schools. From all indications the aim is to create at the very least a greater understanding of the various faiths that exist in the country. Now it is no secret that I maintain a strong disapproval and dismissal of all organised religion; I consider all the major faiths to be bigoted, misogynist, patricentric murder cults, very authoritarian and largely steeped in anti-intellectualism. Like the very learned Denis Solomon I too consider religious education (oxymoron anyone?) to be a form of child abuse. But that’s MY opinion of them. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it is right and it definitely does not mean that everyone should adopt that stance.
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Stop ‘Sampating’ Africans
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 13, 2011
Sometimes I don’t understand why so many false dichotomies pervade the thinking of my compatriots, Africans as well as Indians. If I write about how East Indians think (I call it an Indian narrative) I am accused of being racist. If I support the aspirations of Africans it suggests I am anti—Indian. If I favor the candidacy of a particular PNM member for the chairmanship of the party, my friends respond that I am out of touch with the thinking of those on the ground and so it goes ad infinitum.
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