Africa, General T&T, Race and Identity

Getting world history right: real African history

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By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
June 14, 2021

Dr. Kwame NantambuYears after the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 2011 as “The International Year for People of African Descent”, it must be realized that the European enslavement of African people or the “MAAFA” (“great disaster”) only represents .01 per cent of the history of African people on this planet. Put another way, for the 99.9 per cent of their history, Africans were a free people.

Furthermore, “there were a thousand years of independent state formation and state management in inner West Africa called the western Sudan before the (European) slave trade.”
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Agriculture, Finance, General T&T, Recession

Small exports add up

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By Raffique Shah
June 14, 2021

Raffique ShahI shall not dwell on the many options we have to produce some of the foods we consume and to reduce our heavy dependence on foreign foods for our survival. Far too many reports have been compiled by committees on this issue.

The fact that we have done very little to alter the food production equation in favour of local content or substitutes is a damning indictment against us all—from consumers who insist on foreign brands to farmers who cultivate or do not cultivate, depending on subsidies from government; from cooks who will not soil their hands preparing ground provisions for meals for adults who will die if they cannot get hold of foreign “fast foods” that are devoid of nutrition but laden with unhealthy ingredients and harmful additives that are addictive.
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Africa, General T&T, Germany, International, Namibia, Racism Watch, USA

White Brutality Against Black and Brown People

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 07, 2021

“Get the niggers,” was their slogan, / “Kill them, burn them, set the pace. / Let them know that we are white men, / Teach them how to keep their place.”

—A. J. Smitherman, “The Tulsa Race Riot and Massacre” (1922)

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI had just left Harvard University as an assistant professor and was doing “Time to Talk,” a series of interviews for T&T Television. In 1982 I interviewed Sam Nujomo, the founding father of Namibia, where he had addressed the UN Decolonization Committee about his country’s independence. We talked about Namibia’s struggle for independence and the stain German genocide had left upon the consciousness of his people.
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Agriculture, COVID-19, Finance, Food, General T&T, Health, Recession

Foods for your table

By Raffique Shah
June 07, 2021

Raffique ShahWarnings of food crises post-Covid-19 are dire. According to one study on global food security by the Centre for Strategic International Studies (CSIS), dated March 15, 2021, one year into the pandemic, ‘…at least four countries are facing…famine, …with 13 close behind…’ The study noted that one year ago, the UN World Food Programme executive director David Beasely, warned the UN Security Council of ‘famines of biblical proportions’ and of possibly 270 million ‘people experiencing crisis levels of hunger’.
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COVID-19, General T&T, Health

Businessman’s Pfizer claims ‘fake news’, says Police Commissioner

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Loop News, June 03, 2021

Clint ArjoonFake news.

This is how Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith has described claims by Clint Arjoon, president of the Fyzabad Chamber of Industry and Commerce, regarding the alleged entry of Pfizer vaccines into the country.

On Wednesday, Arjoon alleged that the vaccines were brought into the country and were being administered to citizens via a private facility.
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COVID-19, Finance, Health, International, Israel, Palestine, PNM, Recession, UNC

Searching for Our Truths

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 31, 2021

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThere is much that is silly about the back and forth between the prime minister and the leader of the opposition about who is to be blamed for the rising death rate the savage pandemic has inflicted upon the people of our country. Rowley says that the candlelight vigils “organized and paid for by the UNC is a major contributory factor in the spike of Covid infections,” whereas Persad-Bissessar claims that the 50,000 people who visited Tobago during Easter “on the Prime Minister’s invitation resulted in the outbreak” (Express, May 25).
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COVID-19, General T&T, Health, Politics

Departing on arrival day

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By Raffique Shah
May 31, 2021

Raffique ShahIn the event that you may have just awakened from a Rip shocking it might seem to you, it’s not just T&T; the world is at war…has been for almost one and a half years.

Just so you get right, we have already lost more than 400 lives in the war against Covid-19, with many more wounded, tens of thousands dislocated. Globally, some 3.5 million souls have returned to God, or wherever such poor buggers go, and mankind’s forces have suffered an estimated 170 million light-to-moderate casualties.
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Africa, France, General T&T, International, Rwanda

Rwanda: Macron admits French responsibility in genocide

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France had for “too long” valued “silence over the examination of the truth” when it came to its complicity in the 1994 massacre that killed around 800,000 people, President Emmanuel Macron says.

By Deutsche Welle – May 27, 2021

Human skulls at the Nyamata Genocide Memorial CentreFrench President Emmanuel Macron admitted French responsibility in the Rwandan genocide, during a visit to the Rwandan capital Kigali on Thursday.

“Standing here today, with humility and respect, by your side, I have come to recognize our responsibilities,” Macron said in a speech at the Kigali Genocide Memorial where more than 250,000 Tutsi are buried.
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General T&T, International, Racism Watch, USA

U.S. Marks 100th Anniversary of Tulsa Race Massacre

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U.S. Marks 100th Anniversary of Tulsa Race Massacre, When White Mob Destroyed “Black Wall Street”

May 28, 2021 – democracynow.org

U.S. Marks 100th Anniversary of Tulsa Race Massacre, When White Mob Destroyed Black Wall Street

Memorial Day marks the 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, one of the deadliest episodes of racial violence in U.S. history, when the thriving African American neighborhood of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma — known as “Black Wall Street” — was burned to the ground by a white mob. An estimated 300 African Americans were killed and over 1,000 injured.
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Africa, General T&T, Germany, International, Namibia, Race and Identity, Racism Watch

Germany recognises colonial ‘genocide’ in Namibia

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Germany calls atrocities ‘genocide’ but omits the words ‘reparations’ or ‘compensation’ from a joint statement

By Philip Oltermann, in Berlin
May 28, 2021 – theguardian.com

The Forgotten Genocide: Herero and Nama, 1904Germany has to agreed to pay Namibia €1.1bn (£940m) as it officially recognised the Herero-Nama genocide at the start of the 20th century, in what Angela Merkel’s government says amounts to a gesture of reconciliation but not legally binding reparations.

Tens of thousands of men, women and children were shot, tortured or driven into the Kalahari desert to starve by German troops between 1904 and 1908 after the Herero and Nama tribes rebelled against colonial rule in what was then named German South West Africa and is now Namibia.
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