Tag Archives: Selwyn R. Cudjoe

Culture, General T&T, People's Partnership, Politics

The Limitations of Multiculturalism in Trinidad and Tobago

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By Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 09, 2011

Part I – Part II – Part III

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt was an amazing thing. One week after I offered my reservations about the Government’s multiculturalism initiative, David Cameron, Prime Minister of Britain, made a scathing attack against his country’s approach to what he called “state multiculturalism” at the Munich Security Conference. In doing so, he echoed Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor who, in October 2010, called for “the end of multiculturalism” in her country.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T, Media, Opposition Party, Parliament, People's Partnership, PNM, Politics, Security

Kamla’s Casual Carelessness

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 27, 2011

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOne year ago Kamla Persad-Bissessar was elevated to the leadership of her party. In May of last year she was elected prime minister of the country. Since then she has shown herself to be incompetent; of questionable intellectual maturity, and deficient in judgment. As we enter 2011, I wonder how many persons feel she is steering the ship of state in a positive direction.
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Culture, General T&T, Politics, Race and Identity

Mother Trinidad and Tobago

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 17, 2011

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeA few days after Kamla Persad Bissessar became the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago she dropped in at the headquarters of the Maha Sabha and announced blithely that the nation will adopt a multicultural rather than a transcendent cultural policy that served our nation well during its first fifty years of its existence. Such an announcement constituted a repudiation or reversal of Dr. Eric Williams’s vision that was contained in his “Mother Trinidad and Tobago Speech” that emphasized our commonalities rather than our differences. Dr. Williams envisioned a nation in which we should consider ourselves Trinidadians and Tobagonians first, anything after that.
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Features, General T&T, Passed on, Politics, Race and Identity

On Afro-Saxons and Trinbagonianism

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 12, 2011

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI regret I was not in Trinidad to share in the national grief when Sir Ellis Clarke died. My visit to Ghana over the past two weeks prevented me from attending his funeral. Michael Harris described Sir Ellis and those of similar ilk as Afro-Saxons. I disagree with such a characterization since it neither captures the essence of those gallant men and their contribution to our society nor does it tell us much about their location within the national landscape. Even in our grief we should resist a tendency to mischaracterize our patriots and set up false notions of who they were or what they ought to be.
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General T&T, India, International, People's Partnership, Politics

Conceiving the Inconceivable

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 10, 2011

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeAh never hear Becky vex so yet. “Uncle Selwyn,” she said, you know Rambachan and dem people (meaning the Foreign Affairs Minister and the People’s Partnership) just letting dem Indian people and dem come into Trinidad jus’ so. Dey ah even need a visa to come into the country now.”

She was referring to the unilateral decision of the People’s Partnership to allow Indians and Russians to enter the country without visas.
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Culture, General T&T, India, PNM, Race and Identity

Home Bound

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 30, 2010

Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe[This essay was written by Joy Clarke, a student at Wellesley College. I thought I would share it with my readers. It has been edited for purposes of length]

If literature is a signification of the emotional conscious of a people then V.S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas is a literary masterpiece. It traces the life of Mohun Biswas, a man of East Indian descent living in Trinidad following the end of Indian indentured servitude. Mr. Biswas’ life is one of struggle, pain and his longing to find a place to call home. The reader is taken on a journey to locate home on several levels. On the surface is Mr. Biswas’s profound desire to own a home while the subtext suggests that a search for a national homeland for a people who were removed from their natal homeland of India.
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General T&T, India, People's Partnership, PNM, Politics, Race and Identity, Religion

Standing Firm in Our Nation’s Faith

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 22, 2010

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThe steeple of St. Mary’s Anglican Church is the first landmark that greets anyone who enters the village of Tacarigua from its western side. Although the present building was constructed in 1901, this architectural splendor has been a part of the village landscape since 1843. On August 22, 1901, the Mirror reported that “the old parish Church of St. Mary’s is now leveled to the ground with the exception of the western wall, which it is believed will form part of the new St. Mary’s.” Directly across the Eastern Main Road is the St. Mary’s Children Home. Its first building was constructed in 1857 to accommodate East Indian children whose parents were lost during the long crossing from India to Trinidad.
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Africa, Court, Crime in T&T, General T&T, India, Law, People's Partnership, Politics

Criminalizing the Society

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 15, 2010

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI always believe that the demise of the Grenada Revolution occurred because of the hotheadedness of forty-year olds who had little knowledge of the world and people. They knew theory aplenty but were not seasoned by common sense and wisdom that only comes with age. One is seeing a similar tendency in the UNC-led coalition called the People’s Partnership.
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Africa, Culture, Elections, General T&T, India, People's Partnership, PNM, Race and Identity, UNC

Cudjoe’s Indian Time Ah Come

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Cudjoe’s Indian Time Ah Come Part 1

By Sat Maharaj – December 02, 2010

Secretary General of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha, Satnarayan MaharajWhen my friend Prof Selwyn Cudjoe invited me to deliver the feature address at the launch of his latest publication, Indian Time Ah Come In Trinidad and Tobago, my first response was that this was a set-up. Was Selwyn attempting to portray Sat Maharaj and Indians in general as a group glorifying in the political success of the People’s Partnership in a boastful way?
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Crime in T&T, General T&T, Opposition Party, Parliament, People's Partnership, Politics

Who Is In Charge Here?

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 09, 2010

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt is one thing to win an election. It is quite another thing to govern a country. It’s good to rule by consensus but disastrous when no one is in charge and the leadership functions by vaps. It is exciting when a leader is guided by a sense of good will. It is frightening when such a leader is not guided by any core principles and the ship of state is adrift and rudderless.
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