Tag Archives: Politics

No HOPE, only disappointment

By Raffique Shah
January 16, 2024

Raffique ShahTrust Trinis to set the stage for another type of public misbehaviour. It’s as if the near-collapse of good manners and social graces that have led to a behavioural pattern that span the spectrum of classes from young miscreants and criminals, to parliamentarians and holders of public office, have become the norm.

At the state funeral last Tuesday for former prime minister Basdeo Panday, we witnessed some spectacles that would cause shame and disgrace in the ­average society anywhere in the world. Here in Trinidad, though, we have once again managed to make everything into a joke.
Continue reading No HOPE, only disappointment

Principles in politics

By Raffique Shah
November 01, 2023

Raffique ShahI know, I know: the words principles and politics hardly go together. They are more like an oxymoron. But fool that I am, until the day I breathe my last, I shall strive, in whatever way I can, to have politicians and their publics see the wisdom of insisting that they find ways, making principles an imperative for those who seek high public office, and for those who put them there.
Continue reading Principles in politics

See No Evil, Hear No Evil

By Raffique Shah
June 26, 2023

Raffique ShahI am convinced that the problem with politics and governance in this country, the fact that we never seem to get it right, that having wavered between PNM in control for thirty consecutive years to the party losing in 1986 33-3 then complaining about every government having freely elected them, maybe we need to look at ourselves, not the politicians.
Continue reading See No Evil, Hear No Evil

Voting Rights in America

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 24, 2022

“Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the right to vote.”

—Frederick Douglass (1865).

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeA few days ago, in the United States Senate, the Democrats fought vigorously against the suppression of the rights of black people to vote that were passed by 19 Republican-controlled states of the union.

In spite of their best efforts, the Democrats failed to achieve their objective, which led Carl Hulse to opine: “It was a disheartening moment for congressional Democrats, who put the full force of their majority behind the issue, despite the long odds of success” (Boston Globe, January 26).
Continue reading Voting Rights in America

Let Medical Professionals Speak on COVID Vaccines

By Stephen Kangal
December 23, 2021

Stephen KangalThe emotionally charged response of Prime Minister Rowley to the Sunday Express feature article is exclusively more political than the requisite scientific in relation to his weak defense of the alleged low efficacy of the Sinopharm vaccine.

He procured it with a secretive agreement from the Chinese with a huge cost — loan in a large quantity without obtaining any expected guarantee about its expected efficacy level even though scientists from developed countries refused to accept it as a genuine vaccine because trial results were not published globally and were not accessible.
Continue reading Let Medical Professionals Speak on COVID Vaccines

Grounds for the Resignation of PM Rowley

By Stephen Kangal, Caroni
December 12, 2021

Stephen KangalThe landslide vote of 15,000 plus in the 14-1 melt-down that the PDP amassed in Monday’s historic THA Elections is an unmistakably overriding vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Rowley.

He was the chief protagonist in the Tobago campaign as well as the architect of the aborted Autonomy Bills that incited the wrath of Tobagonians by non-passage. These Bills were woefully short in details on what Tobago demanded as autonomy for their island Government.
Continue reading Grounds for the Resignation of PM Rowley

Race rules in this wasteland

By Raffique Shah
July 12, 2021

Raffique ShahIn this racially-fractured society, in which we can agree on nothing of substance, nothing that might help the nation move forward, or, to stretch this from the ridiculous to the sublime, we are a people so deeply divided that we shall never find ourselves on the same side of a battle-line should some army of the insane decide to conquer Trinidad and Tobago by force, readers might justifiably ask who in their “right mind” would want to own, rule or otherwise lay claim to the cussed country?
Continue reading Race rules in this wasteland

Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana officials in vaccine-use crosstalk

By Shane Superville
June 18, 2021 – newsday.co.tt

Dr Leslie RamsammyRemarks made by the Prime Minister during a media conference last Saturday led to a heated exchange between officials from the Guyanese government and business community and Trinidad and Tobago’s Ministry of Foreign and Caricom Affairs on Friday.

During his presentation, Dr Rowley referred to a table highlighting the number of vaccines received by all 14 Caricom countries and their associates as of Saturday.
Continue reading Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana officials in vaccine-use crosstalk

Palestinian Lives Matter

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 17, 2021

“We need to solve our problems without causing a civil war that can be a danger to our existence.”

—President Reuven Rivlin, President of Israel

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIn 1963, Martin Luther King was imprisoned in a Birmingham jail for leading a nonviolent demonstration against American segregation. As he sat in that jail, he responded to the concerns of eight white religious leaders who condemned his participation in that struggle for justice. He noted: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”
Continue reading Palestinian Lives Matter