Education, General T&T

Overcoming Education Inequality

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 22, 2020

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeLast Sunday 19 distinguished citizens (call them endorsees) recommended that the SEA be replaced since it no longer serves the interest of the students it is supposed to serve (“Replacing the SEA.” They claim that our school system has not extricated itself from its “colonial inheritances in education.” The SEA examination through which we place our students into secondary schools is outmoded. It originated in the UK in 1904, the year Joseph de Suze finished writing Little Folks Trinidad, a pioneering educational work.
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General T&T, Health, International

Be Very Afraid

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By Raffique Shah
December 22, 2020

Raffique ShahAs we come close to the end of the year 2020, millions of people around the world who believe in God in one form or other will be praying to their deity that nothing cataclysmic happens in the dying days of what is probably the most tumultuous year in our lifetime. Really, after Covid-19 swept through planet Earth with a death-dealing ferocity that numbed the mind, what worse punishment could God conjure to hurl at man to teach him just who is who in the planetary pecking order? How much more adversity can tiny Trinidad and Tobago withstand, caught as it is in the cross-hairs of an economic meltdown multiplied by a migrant crisis that has damaged our reputation as well as strained our resilience?
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Culture, General T&T, Race and Identity

The Potency of the Word

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 15, 2020

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThe savage murder of Ashanti Riley touched many of us. It led us to reflect upon the kind of society we have created and the citizens (social beings) we are cultivating. Ashanti’s murder led the prime minister to talk about “the monsters” we are cultivating within our midst. Phyllis Bruce, another mother whose Black son vanished on March 19, sympathized with Ashanti’s mother in her grief: “Even from one mother to another, I can’t find the words to comfort her. But I would say to her, be strong. Hold on. Keep courage” (Express, December 11).
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General T&T, Law, Parliament, PNM, Politics

A matter of trust

By Raffique Shah
December 14, 2020

Raffique ShahI must admit that as I monitored what was happening in the USA, the shenanigans of outgoing President Donald Trump as he sought first to defy, then later to subvert the electoral process, I all but ignored developments here at home. It was when I saw Afra Raymond, the fiercely independent activist who is also outspoken on issues of national importance, disassemble the controversial Public Procurement Amendment Bill and call on citizens to let their voices be heard, that I switched focus.
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General T&T, International, USA, Venezuela

An Existentialist Crisis

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 09, 2020

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt might be providential that Che Lewis’s corpse was paraded around the capital city at the same time that we are talking about the goals of our educational system and the Venezuelan crisis. The simultaneity of these events should make us think where our society is (in terms of values) and where we wish to go (in terms of concrete achievements).
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China, General T&T, International, Politics, Racism Watch, Russia, USA, Venezuela

It’s a topsy-turvy world

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By Raffique Shah
December 06, 2020
Posted: December 08, 2020

Raffique ShahThe ethnic mix of the Venezuelan population—51 percent are categorised as Mestizo (blend of White/indigenous/Afro), 41 percent European/Middle East /Whites)—ensures that those who are flocking Trinidad more than Tobago are almost exclusively from the first mix. They are the equivalents of the “Reds” in our population, hence they are widely acceptable, and accepted, to Trinis on both sides of our ethnic divide, as well as the “Douglars” in-between.
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General T&T, Passed on, Religion

A Macabre Display

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 01, 2020

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeTrinidad and Tobago, a weird place sometimes, is given to extremes. Imagine an embalmed man in a sitting position, placed in the tray of a hearse and given an open-air last ride past the Prime Minister’s office on his way to his final resting place: “Dressed in a suit and seated in a chair, Che Lewis’s body was placed in the back of a vehicle by the Dennie’s Funeral Home and driven around the capital city” (Express, November 26).
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General T&T, International, Latin America, Law, Racism Watch, USA, Venezuela

We Must Control Our Destiny

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By Raffique Shah
November 30, 2020

Raffique ShahIf there is not now on our statute books a law that empowers us to deny entry into Trinidad and Tobago to any alien, man woman or child, more so persons seeking to enter our territory illegally, then Government must move post-haste to rectify such anomaly that foreigners are using to breach our borders. Further, if some government in the past compromised this inalienable right that every sovereign state in the world must surely enjoy by signing on to some nebulous convention that purports to promote human rights, then unshackle us, damn it if we are deemed inhumane, sub-human or maybe animals.
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General T&T, Health, Racism Watch

Demonizing Black People

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 25, 2020

“Me nah know how we and dem a go work this out/But someone will have to pay/for the innocent blood/that they shed every day.”

—Bob Marley, “We and Dem”

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThere is a notion that Trinis are a happy-go-lucky people, a description that may be more applicable to African-descended people than to members of other groups of the population. Such a description may be more illustrative of those of us whose world view has been influenced by African religions and philosophies as put forth by John Mbiti in African Religion and Philosophy, Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, or Chigozie Obioma’s An Orchestra of Minorities.

Such a notion (“happy-go-lucky Trinis”) has led others to believe that we care mostly about the celebration of the flesh and other worldly pursuits as depicted in our carnival celebration. Some have even said that while their people were “beating books, we were beating pan,” a cavalier dismissal of an important aspect of our creativity and identity.
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General T&T, Trade Unions

BOOK REVIEW: God, The Press and Uriah Butler

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Dr. Hollis “Chalkdust” Liverpool. (2020). God, The Press and Uriah Butler. Trinidad: Juba Publications.

By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
November 24, 2020

Dr. Kwame NantambuThe history of the trade union movement in Trinidad and Tobago would be totally incomplete and unfinished if the life and times of the man called Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler are not the DNA of such a history. Butler was accredited as being the “Chief Servant of the Lord.” That was the “Buzz” in his revered personality. Butler believed that man’s purpose in life was the fulfillment of God’s purpose and as such, his inherent belief system informed him that he owed no obligation to anybody or anything but to God.
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