By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
March 30, 2011
It has been a rather perplexing and strange experience to follow the national chorus of prominent citizens’ adamant position that President George Maxwell Richards should remove Nizam Mohammed as chairman of the PSC.
Their rationale for his revocation is the comment he made before Parliament’s JSC. Mr. Nizam Mohammed told the JSC and by extension, the national community that:
Continue reading Listen to Mohammed’s message, not the messenger
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 24, 2011
Part 1 – Part 2
On Thursday and Friday last week (March 17 and 18) I delivered two lectures at Albany State University, one of the three historically black colleges and universities in the University of Georgia system, in their International Studies Series. Albany, one of the most important sites of the civil rights struggles in the 1960s, is also the birth place of Ray Charles which explains the deep emotions with which he sings “Georgia on My Mind,” Georgia’s state song.
Continue reading The Souls of Black Folk
By Raffique Shah
March 13, 2011
THERE’S a spectre stalking the world. It is yet another resurgence of people’s power. Every so often in history, the oppressed, those who face discrimination and subjugation, people whose rights are trampled upon, rise up in a tsunami of discontent. At the cost of some lives, the masses sweep aside monarchies, dictators and even elected governments that have assumed an arrogance that creates a chasm between those who wield power and those who put them in office.
Continue reading Spectre of people’s power
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 25, 2011
Professor Kwesi Jonah is the chairman of the Political Science Department at the University of Ghana at Legon. He is an expert in African politics and specializes in political economy and good governance. In 2005-06 he acted as the coordinator of West African Political Parties Programme (WAPPP), a project of the Institute of Economic Affairs located in Accra.
Continue reading Cote d’Ivoire
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 12, 2011
I regret I was not in Trinidad to share in the national grief when Sir Ellis Clarke died. My visit to Ghana over the past two weeks prevented me from attending his funeral. Michael Harris described Sir Ellis and those of similar ilk as Afro-Saxons. I disagree with such a characterization since it neither captures the essence of those gallant men and their contribution to our society nor does it tell us much about their location within the national landscape. Even in our grief we should resist a tendency to mischaracterize our patriots and set up false notions of who they were or what they ought to be.
Continue reading On Afro-Saxons and Trinbagonianism
By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
January 10, 2011
For many decades, the notion has been bandied about that a “Black Power Revolution” occurred in T&T between February – April 1970; however, the purpose of this article is neither to posit a definitive critique of the events of 1970 nor to question its historic legitimacy.
Continue reading Legacy of 1970 events: Revolution, what revolution?
By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
December 22, 2010
According to long-standing societal acceptable norms, the Friday after Thanksgiving Day in the United States is regarded as “Black Friday.”
Indeed, one would have thought that with the anomalous election of America’s first African-American/Black President that the race-relations gap in this country has narrowed considerably. One would have assumed also that as a result of this presidential first that the need to colour any national event would have been relegated to the ash heap of America’s racial-cultural history.
Continue reading Time to reject “Black Friday” concept
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 15, 2010
I always believe that the demise of the Grenada Revolution occurred because of the hotheadedness of forty-year olds who had little knowledge of the world and people. They knew theory aplenty but were not seasoned by common sense and wisdom that only comes with age. One is seeing a similar tendency in the UNC-led coalition called the People’s Partnership.
Continue reading Criminalizing the Society
(Oh Yeah, It Actually Had One)
By Corey Gilkes
October 02, 2010
From the 17th – 19th September the St Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies was the venue for a conference marking the 40th anniversary of the 1970 Black Power Movement. This conference was preceded on the 16th by a panel discussion at the Lloyd Best Institute of the West Indies.
Continue reading My Reflections on the Black Power Conference
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
September 29, 2010
It was one of those incomprehensible statements: “I am the Head N…. In Charge.” That was Jack Warner’s major contribution to the recent Budget Debate. If we use Jack’s logic in a society such as ours, the following corollary suggests itself: if there is a “Head N…In Charge” there must be a “Head C…. In Charge.” It is a philosophical proposition of which this is the logical conclusion.
Continue reading Jack Warner: H.N.I.C.