General T&T, Opposition Party, Politics, Recession

Go softly on utility rates

1 Comment

By Raffique Shah
February 20, 2023

Raffique ShahAs someone who has long advocated the dismantling of over-generous subsidies for a number of goods and services, many readers may find my change in position opportunistic, and proceed to lump me with politicians who thrive on hollow rhetoric such as “freedom for the masses”, even the more vacuous slogan, “freeness for the masses”.

These are flights of fancy that the younger among my generation when our larger-than-life giants like Guevara, Ho Chi Minh, Patrice Lumumba and Malcolm X walked among us, preaching revolution through which we would establish an egalitarian world.
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Entertainment, General T&T, Music

Defending our noble art form

7 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 13, 2023

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeBusinessman Inshan Ishmael plans to take Cro Cro (Weston Rawlins) to court over what he says are Cro Cro’s “highly defamatory lyrics about him” in his (Rawlins’) 2023 calypso, “Another Sat is Outside Again”. He says that he never listens to Cro Cro’s calypsoes because they always denigrate the East Indian community. This time, he is really offended.
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Carnival, Carnival, Culture, General T&T

There is hope yet for pan

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By Raffique Shah
February 13, 2023

Raffique ShahEvery year, ritually, come Carnival, steel pans and drums rescued from the paws of scrap-metal hustlers hunting for a few dollars, or rust that’s threatening to render them useless, join hundreds of cellos, bass and retired hubcaps from derelict motor vehicles, coming together to treat music lovers with the most scintillating sounds and songs that could allow the “mad blood” in all of us to enjoy “we music”.
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General T&T

‘Stand Together, ye Damned of the Earth’

3 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 06, 2023

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeJonathan Smith (not his real name) is one of my dearest friends. Last Sunday, after reading my column, he sent me the following note: “Dr Cudjoe, I can’t remember when last you wrote so much unrealistic and unadulterated crap. I never heard your good friend Sat Maharaj or any Hindu leader pleading the case for the poor, dispossessed African community. Why not make the case for the Orisas or the Shouter Baptists or the Rastas? Which society in the world has woven all their cultural and racial/ethnic strands into the perfect tapestry you seem to want to yoke the government with? The US, France, Brazil?”
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Crime in T&T, General T&T, Politics

One Thousand Patriots

3 Comments

Raffique Shah
February 06, 2023

Raffique ShahIf, after thorough investigations into this outrage, the State being ordered to pay approximately two million dollars each to five murder-accused in the Naipaul-Coolman case, stands; if no minister or public officer from the Ministry of the Attorney General’s office is held accountable, placed in shackles, held in jail as their trial on serious criminal charges are conducted; or if no agent of the battery of attorneys we have grown accustomed to seeing daily is charged with grand theft of Reggie Armour’s mystery file; then take notice that I, citizen Shah, shall take whatever action I decide is necessary to dissolve the republic of Trinidad and Tobago, which has proved to be a useless country not deserving the title of sovereign state.
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General T&T, Parliament, PNM, Politics

If you start with a lie…

4 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 30, 2023

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI wish to congratulate Christine Kangaloo for having been elected to the highest office of the land. Whatever her strengths and/or weaknesses, she now represents all Trinbagonians and so we ought to pledge our allegiance to her. As she said in her acceptance speech: “Now that the election is over, I look forward to serving our country in the only way I know how—with love for all and with an unwavering belief in the innate goodness of our people.”
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General T&T, Guyana, Oil and Gas, Politics, USA, Venezuela

Thanks, USA – for nothing

By Raffique Shah
January 30, 2023

Raffique ShahI suppose Trinidad and Tobago, being a small-island-state, very literally, has to be thankful for small mercies dished out by the super-powers of the world. In this case, big, bad USA, has finally agreed to issue a waiver on the sanctions it has imposed on Venezuela that will allow TT and Caracas to monetise an estimated 4.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from the Dragon field, which lies close to the international boundary between the two countries, but which belongs to Venezuela.
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General T&T

An apology

3 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 21, 2023

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeApart from the years that I have spent abroad, I have lived most of my life in Tacarigua, a village that is located about ten miles east of Port of Spain. In 1976 Lance Murray, an official of the Trinidad Sugar Estates (known then as the Orange Grove Estates), sent Fr David Benjamin, the pastor of the St Mary’s Anglican Church, a letter offering the church an opportunity to purchase a plot of land adjacent to the church. Elated by the possibility of expansion, the members of vestry voted unanimously to accept the offer; they built a parish hall on the land.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T, PNM, Politics

Talk Done

1 Comment

By Raffique Shah
January 23, 2023

Raffique ShahWill the Prime Minister tell the nation what he expects to achieve by staging a national consultation on crime, which he announced recently? When he made the headline-grabbing proposal, which seemed to me an outburst triggered by extreme frustration, Dr Keith Rowley came across as a leader who had nothing more to offer the population on the one issue that impacts their lives daily, although statistics might well reveal that in reality, fewer that ten percent of them have come face-to-face with violent crimes, and far fewer have been victims.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics

It’s always political

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 16, 2023

“Democracy is not maintained by legal and constitutional texts alone.”

—Attorney Kiel Taklalsingh

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeA few days ago, the Prime Minister defended his Government’s choice of Christine Kangaloo for President of Trinidad and Tobago. He argued that those people who objected to the Government’s nomination were indulging in “nothing but pure politics… There are people in this country who set out deliberately to mislead the country, and I go as far as to say, incite the population”. (Express, January 9.)
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