By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
July 25, 2008
One hundred and seventy-four years have passed since Afrikans were emancipated from European enslavement. Nevertheless, their descendants in TnT are still irreversibly entangled in the web of historical-ancestral dislocation and powerlessness.
The fact of the matter is that in 2008, the descendants of these ‘freed’ slaves are still a homeless and motherless people.
Continue reading Emancipation vs Liberation
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 23, 2008
Most of us will revel in African sartorial splendor during the next week. Such displays signal a magnificent achievement of which the Emancipation Support Committee (ESC) should be proud. It has made African Trinbagonians aware of their heritage and, at least for a week, makes us reflect on the land of our origin. As we reflect, it is well to ponder how this awareness coincides with our threatened re-enslavement in our adopted land.
Continue reading Emancipation and Self-Reflection
By Ras Tyehimba
July 20, 2008
The recent Zimbabwe elections saw an escalation of attempts by external forces to intervene in the sovereign and independent nation. Given the complex circumstances surrounding Zimbabwe, for the millions of people in the Caribbean and around the world, it has been difficult to get balanced views of what is going on; ever since the Zimbabwe government, under President Robert Mugabe, started to reclaim land that was stolen during British Colonial rule. Since the start of this land reclamation exercise to now, the events in Zimbabwe have exposed, firstly, how complicit international media are in the imperial agenda of the United States and Britain and secondly, how irresponsible and lazy the local mainstream media are. Local media seem quite content to jump on the anti-Mugabe bandwagon as they casually parrot news from international media sources such as BBC, CNN, Reuters and Associated Press.
Continue reading Western Lies and Hypocrisy: How Zimbabwe Exposes Mainstream Media
By Raffique Shah
Sunday, July 20th 2008
CRY wolf, the adage goes, and you may just get your wish when you least expect it. I am reminded of the story of the little shepherd boy every time I read or hear someone say that Prime Minister Patrick Manning has morphed into a Mugabe. Are these people for real? I ask myself: do they really understand what a murderous, mindless dictator is, what he is capable of subjecting his country and people to?
Continue reading Cry wolf, get a dictator
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 18, 2008
T&T’s Press is so intent on demonizing Patrick Manning that sometimes it seems incapable of carrying a balanced story about any event that concerns him. Anyone who did not attend PNM’s 42nd Convention could not have hoped to get a balanced account of what transpired there last weekend if they only read accounts of same in the press. But as one poet suggested, none is so blind as he who would not to see.
Continue reading Demonizing Patrick Manning
By Sean Douglas
Monday, July 14 2008
newsday.co.tt
PRIME Minister Patrick Manning, despite his strenuous denials, could well make a second bid to become TT’s Executive President after he presented the 42nd PNM Annual Convention at Chaguaramas with extracts of a “working paper” that looked suspiciously like a second version of his Draft Constitution which provoked a public outcry in 2006.
The latest document proposes not only a “presidential system of Government” in Manning’s own words, but also seems to severely curtail the independence of the Parliament, Cabinet, Judiciary, Office of Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), and Permanent Secretaries in the Public Service.
Continue reading Manning’s second bid for presidency
By Raffique Shah
July 13, 2008
As if this country is not burdened by more than its fair share of woes, I don’t know if I should laugh or cry over expressions of outrage by those who see the sky caving in on Trinidad and Tobago because government postponed Local Government elections for the third time. What, pray, is the big fuss over staging local elections? The municipalities and corporations continue to exist-note I did not say function-as they always have, elections or no elections. In other words, they did nothing to benefit citizens during their official tenure. And they continue to do nothing as they await reforms promised by the Government since 2002.
Continue reading Abolish Local Govt
By Corey Gilkes
July 10, 2008
I just had to comment on last Sunday’s Express article by Ms Sheila Rampersad in which she expressed her great disappointment over Education Minister Esther Le Gendre’s attack on Mickela Panday in Parliament.
With all due respect to Ms Rampersad, I found her expectations of Ms Le Gendre and indeed the whole idea of women’s solidarity in our political context were naive to say the least. To any person who really looks at the political culture in Trinidad, the rest of the Caribbean and the North Atlantic – from where we have aped our political models and institutions – it should be quite clear that simply having women in the corridors of political power (a la the “Put a Woman in the Parliament” campaign) would not have amounted to much. Such naivete is right up there with the view that simply having a black man as President or Prime Minister means that now we have someone with Africentric values in a position of power that was created by the Eurocentric power structure.
Continue reading What Were you Expecting from Minister Le Gendre?
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 10, 2008
The following headline was blazoned across the July issue of The Anglican Outlook: “Hundreds say Farewell, Canon Griffith,” the former pastor of St. Clement’s Anglican Church. The photograph that accompanied the story showed his colleagues carrying his casket to its final resting place. Bishop Calvin Best presided at the Holy Eucharist while Lystra Bernice Griffith Brown, the canon’s daughter, delivered the eulogy.
Continue reading Calling Pastor Kwame in his Right Name
By Stephen Kangal
July 08, 2008
I was in employment in the Public Service during the period when the meritocracy factor slowly and surreptitiously began to assert itself as the preferred alternative criterion to seniority as the determining consideration to effect promotions. This development constituted as an aspect of Performance Management in Public Service Reform.
That reform was driven by Gordon Draper’s “Management by Objectives” proposal designed to upgrade the Confidential Reports of public servants.
Continue reading Exploding the Myth of Meritocracy