Tag Archives: Raffique Shah

General T&T

Young faces acid test

By Raffique Shah
January 18, 2025

Raffique ShahI do not think that I carry the proverbial “blight” that people who when they speak or merely mention something good that’s happening, it turns sour. Still, I do not feel as confident as I ought to be commenting on the respite the nation has enjoyed in the murder rate that was dizzying, bloody, almost macabre. Hours before Prime Minister Dr Rowley advised the President to declare a state of emergency, the murder rate was astounding, taking this country into a bloodbath that was horrible even to think about.
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General T&T, Politics

Be thankful for Rowley

By Raffique Shah
January 11, 2025

Raffique ShahIt would be quite a thing if the leadership succession issue in the ruling People’s National Movement were to erupt into something akin to war, while the party has often been described as the best organised in the Caribbean.

I had planned this column before Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announced his proposed resignation, and subsequently the naming of his successor, Energy Minister Stuart Young. That grabbed national attention and with it, controversy, before I could write. But that is politics for you—unpredictable in the most stable of times and immutable in the worst of times.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T

Put books in prisons

By Raffique Shah
December 28, 2024

Raffique ShahThe world is what it is.

Having stolen one of Vidia Naipaul’s more thought-provoking opening phrases, frankly I don’t feel guilty. I do not believe I stole anything from VS. I’m sure he has quoted or fallen back on many a Trinidadian writer for original material to start his considerable portfolio of novels that made him famous. “The world is what it is” is as powerful a line as Dante Alighieri’s “Abandon all Hope, ye who enter here” in his 14th-century narrative poem, “The Divine Comedy”.
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General T&T, Health

Amid your revelry, stay safe

By Raffique Shah
December 21, 2024

Raffique ShahOver the past two to three years, I have destroyed two cooking pots, having forgotten them on the stove and not having adhered to the safety rules we had agreed to enforce. It was not deliberate, of course. I can easily explain how it happened and why, as we grow older, we should be very careful when dealing with doing things we did ten to 20 years ago. Hell, I have been multitasking all my life and very efficiently, too.
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Finance, General T&T

Colonial roots of hyperinflation

By Raffique Shah
December 09, 2024

Raffique ShahThis global imbalance of trade can explain why so many countries that have productive land can never break into the markets.

Trinidad is what it was 50 years ago, a society fashioned in the image and likeness of the giant to our north, where more democracy can be found in the big toe of a communist than it can be anywhere in the United States of America. This is a country that tells the rest of the world how they must behave to survive. It preaches democracy but practices autocracy. It rules the world with an iron fist, imposing punishing sanctions on others, and it will do everything to wreck countries that dare to defy its rule.
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General T&T, Politics

No need for wars

By Raffique Shah
December 04, 2024

Raffique ShahI expect a bruising political year ahead of us as general election 2025 looms large. The Opposition United National Congress (UNC) has never really stopped campaigning since their loss in 2015. The margins of victory—the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) polled in 2015 and 2020—were close enough to keep the PNM uneasy, but the UNC probably blew it by turning to the courts in constituencies where they were behind by relatively small numbers of votes, causing them to lose goodwill among the electorate.
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General T&T

Not culture, dis is madness

By Raffique Shah
November 27, 2024

Raffique ShahTrinidad was a bountiful island. It once was almost self-sufficient in food production. Its economy for the past 50 years has been reliant on its oil, gas and petrochemicals. To truly understand how close we came to being a gem of a country, citizens of today need to know that during the Second World War (1939-1945), when we had no choice but to produce and consume more food than we could eat, we did it.
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General T&T

To slay a beast

By Raffique Shah
November 19, 2024

Raffique ShahThe world is what it was, and what it always has been. I am convinced of this now more than I was when I wrote last week’s column. Bullet-riddled corpses, and headless bodies pile up in morgues throughout the country. I watched communities under armed siege as the media promote the newly discovered crime cradle, bullying. I rock back in my chair and murmur: This is it, this is it, this is it. I feel like the madman in David Rudder’s “Chant” (“Madman’s Rant”). I wondered aloud, what has changed?
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General T&T, USA

Dumb Trump

By Raffique Shah
November 12, 2024

Raffique ShahThe world is what it is today, what it was yesterday, and what it always will be. It will never change because the vast majority of people do not want change. Mediocrity reigns supreme, vandalism rises to the top and so it will be forever and ever, Amen.

I awoke to the not-surprising news that 73 million Americans had voted Donald Trump in as the 47th President of the United States for the next four years.
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General T&T, Guyana

Need for mature leadership

By Raffique Shah
November 05, 2024

Raffique ShahMy recent column in which I applauded Guyana President Irfaan Ali for sharing some of the petro-dollars with all citizens of that country appears to have suggested that I support such “share the wealth” schemes. I make it abundantly clear that that was never my intention. Indeed I have often lashed my own government for wanton waste of our wealth through a range of programmes and initiatives.
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