By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 08, 2012
Initially, Jack wept publicly because he wanted to persuade black people that he felt their pain. Like Brigadier John Sandy, his enabler, he just could not stand how black people were killing one another so he joined his UNC colleagues to impose a State of Emergency that threw black people in prison, for the most part. I noted then, “Jack wept just as Peter wept after he betrayed Christ.”
Continue reading A Politician’s Cry
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 01, 2012
It was a good time to be away. While my good friend Louis Lee Sing was fighting down Brian Lara (a bad fight to pick: you just don’t dump on a national hero like that); and Penny Beckles, a woman I admire politically, was being chastised for cultivating her own group of supporters (I thought every politician had a right to develop his or her own political base); and my favorite publisher, Maxie Cuffie, was lambasting Lennox Grant for trying to compromise his journalistic ability (he says that Grant failed in his duty to advance the integrity of the press), I took time out to visit Wolfgang Mozart’s residence in Salzburg, Austria.
Continue reading The Beauties of Mozart
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 26, 2012
Question: If Trinidad and Tobago were one hundred percent Hindus, would our response to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar kissing President Pratibha Patil’s toes elicit a different response? I suspect it would. But only thirty five percent of Trinidad and Tobago’s population are Hindus and therein lays the conundrum. Such a move calls for a better understanding among the population and a more sensitive response from the PM in terms of her act of piety or respect as she calls it.
Continue reading Kamla’s Delicate Dance
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 20, 2012
I have never accepted V. S. Naipaul’s description of our society as being half-made or our people as mimic men and women. Some years ago, I wrote a trenchant criticism of Naipaul’s work in which I responded to those designations in an effective manner. For the past three weeks, I have been traveling in Germany and England. As I view our political landscape from afar, I cannot help but get the impression that our Prime Minister is playing dolly house with our people’s future; fiddling around which their good nature; and treating them with a contempt they do not deserve.
Continue reading De Prime Minister Eh Dey
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 11, 2012
Karl Hudson Philip’s brilliant advocacy for a respect of legal tradition and his reminder that standards ought to be adhered to touched an important note in Trinidad and Tobago’s psyche. Reading Hudson Philip, I was reminded of a time when things were simpler, standards were more transparent and justice [or perhaps consistency] was among desired outcomes. One stands amazed as one contrasts the legal maneuverings of Ish and Steve, the shenanigans of Calder Hart and Laurence Duprey, and the audacity of Harrynarine of the Hindu Credit Union with the behavior of British officials during the days of slavery.
Continue reading Looking Backward
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 04, 2012
Some time this month, Linius Rogers’s motion that instructs the male members of PNM to wear their balisier ties in Parliament, municipal and city bodies and at official functions will come up at the PNM General Council for a discussion and a vote. As a member of the PNM, I support this motion unreservedly because it is a way to keep us true to our roots and a sign that we are a distinct political formation in Trinidad and Tobago.
Continue reading Keeping Faith with Our Destiny
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 27, 2011
I am not a lawyer, I know nothing about legalese, but I do know when shit stinks and barely literate politicians tell me that I needn’t worry because they have the nation’s best interest at heart. Do I really have to believe the AG when he says that in making his decision about Ish and Steve that his only concern is that justice is served? Ah mean, is it that I have become so bey bey that I don’t know when someone is pissing on me even as he insists that it’s raining bucket ah drop. Ok, I stole this phrase from the title of Judge Judy’s book which reads “Don’t Pee on My Leg and Tell Me It’s Raining” but the intent is the same: stop all this legal chicanery and respect the public’s point of view.
Continue reading Don’t Piss On Me…
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 20, 2011
There were smiles galore; enough to fill the entire room and a little left over for langniappe. There, boldface in the front page of the Mirror (and the Guardian too) was Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the Prime Minister of the country, in the tender embrace (or so it seemed to me) of Maxie Cuffie, the publisher and CEO of the Mirror. Another shot showed Wade Mark, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, clasping Cuffie’s hands with a broad smile on his face with Timothy Hamel-Smith, President of the Senate, equally gleeful, overseeing the tete-a-tete.
Continue reading Christmas Truce
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 13, 2011
Annabella stocking want patching
She want de doctah to help she with dat
Johnson trousers falling
He want de doctor help he wid dat
Some want a zephyr motor car
Others want a piece of land
[Now] Dorothy loss she man
She want to complain to Doctoh Williams.
In 1958, as the demands upon Dr. Eric Williams grew, the Mighty Striker penned “Don’t Blame de PNM” in which he elevated Dr. Williams to the status of godhead. Dr. Williams may have been ironic in quoting this poem in his autobiography. However, Striker was on target when he satirized the fickleness of our people’s understanding of government when he observed that even when yo’ lose yo’ man, yo expect the prime minister to help yo’ with dat.
Continue reading The Prime Minister as Goddess
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 06, 2011
We didn’t have to wait until the Prime Minister declared an official end to the state of emergency to realize that it was ill-advised, ill-timed and disingenuous. Anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear have come to the realization that what began as a farce ended up as a comedy of errors with rotten eggs splattered on the Government’s face and even greater opprobrium cast upon their name. Ah mean, they couldn’t even carry off this jokey maneuver with a modicum of humor.
Continue reading The Gang that Couldn’t Shoot Straight