By Raffique Shah
May 31, 2025
I have said this—what I’m about to write here—a hundred times over the past 20 years or so that we have marked and celebrated Indian Arrival Day.
First, I was among a vocal minority who expressed the strong view that the holiday in recognition of the arrival of Indian immigrants on the Fatel Razack in 1845 bringing the first indentured immigrants to Trinidad and Tobago, be named Arrival Day.
Continue reading Is this what we want?
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 24, 2025
The cracks in the PNM’s hegemony became more prominent after its defeat in the last general election. Power and cowardice hid these fissures for a long time. All one sees within the PNM now is “vaulting ambition, which o’er-leaps itself/ And falls on th’ other”. (Macbeth) This reckless ambition will lead the party into an abyss.
After the PNM’s political disaster, the former Leader of Our Grief and Sorrow accused Dr Amery Browne of ingratitude after Browne suggested they could “rig the game but can’t fake authenticity”. Robert Le Hunte says of the Leader’s imposition of Stuart Young on the party: “It wasn’t just cynical. It was obscene. It was perverse.” (Express, May 10.)
Continue reading Vaulting ambition & PNM’s reincarnation
By Raffique Shah
May 24, 2025
There was almost unison in the plaintive cry in the appeals for national unity by a significant section of the population. This festival of nation building and patriotic songs and music, that was a treat by itself. I know this country is gifted with a prolific compilation of rich ballads, lyrics and music that can “make mih pores raise”, as Trinidadians and Tobagonians are wont to say.
The occasion was the inaugural meeting of the 13th Parliament of the Republic. Time was when this was a routine parade for the military and other top brass who paraded. When Independence Day coincided with such sitting, pomp and ceremony oozed out of the uniforms of service officers and other ranks.
Continue reading No easy road to national unity
By Raffique Shah
May 17, 2025
Something positive is coming out of the political and social networks, if I may so refer to them, what with social media having given any such interaction a bad reputation in the past.
Amidst the cheering and other expressions of joy that emanated from the new UNC ministers, and the graceful acceptance of defeat from inside the PNM camp, I heard my call for the new Government to move with quiet authority, grounding with the masses and, more importantly, reaching out to them on the issue of preparing the nation for adverse weather conditions which have become near-normal for us.
Continue reading Race no longer the dominant factor
By Raffique Shah
May 10, 2025
I do not know if the UNC-led coalition that came to power two weeks ago by spectacularly defeating the PNM government in the general election believes it has the luxury of time and incumbency on its side, and the victory assures it of ten years in government. I focus on this continuous campaign mode that has taken hold of, it seems, the majority of the electorate. Having changed governments, disposing of the PNM from power in seven elections since 1956, it could be that the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago, those who are actively involved in elections, believe that’s the way to go.
Continue reading Madam PM, the hard work starts now
By Raffique Shah
May 03, 2025
I would be the happiest person in post-election Trinidad if, three months from now, the new Prime Minister achieves 50% of her goals in any one of her objectives after scoring an emphatic win over the PNM. If, in my gaiety, I make no mention of the occasion that I celebrate and appear to be claiming “victory” as my own, does it matter anyway? When UNC wins, everybody wins, including Raffique. Seriously, though, I should first congratulate Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissessar on a resounding victory. That was a performance political leaders only dream of—one she will have worked hard at in the ten years she laboured in the vineyards or wherever.
Continue reading Dump the Privy Council
By Raffique Shah
April 26, 2025
In the histories of nations such as our Trinidad and Tobago, there are times when challenges that seem insurmountable are thrown in our pathways. In such grim situations when the fabric of a nation is subjected to competing forces, warring tribes or, worse, battling gangs, the outlook is bleak. Negative forces that lay just below the surface crawl out of their caverns in their bid to capitalise on our misfortune. The general election that takes place tomorrow is one such volatile event that threatens a war for the soul of our nation.
Continue reading A fickle electorate
By Raffique Shah
April 19, 2025
Kamla Persad-Bissessar will be delighted to learn that her not-so-friendly critic, Raffique Shah, has been moving around in my limited spaces, singing loudly, “When UNC wins, everybody wins.” In fact, when I zeroed in on that jingle, I had no idea that was the UNC’s main audio-visual marketing tool. By the time I realised what it was, I turned up my volume because I couldn’t be bothered with what people thought of my singing and the damn thing is catchy.
Continue reading Critical election for everyone
By Raffique Shah
April 12, 2025
In the 45 years I have been writing a weekly column for one newspaper or other, I have never advised my readers which candidate or what party they should vote for. I started with a satirical column, “MP for the Masses”, in 1980, in the run-up to the 1981 general election, the first since 1956 that Dr Eric Williams was not at the helm of the PNM, having died in 1980.
I wrote a combination of humour, addressed the economic fortunes of T&T, took potshots at politicians—by then I had completed my one term as the elected MP for Siparia where, in 1976, I had polled the third highest number of votes—6,601—with only PM George Chambers and Boodram Jattan polling more votes.
Continue reading For whom you stain the finger
By Raffique Shah
April 05, 2025
Discomfiture was writ large on the face of Prime Minister Stuart Young, SC, as he engaged in what many a Trinidadian would term “gimmickry”, serving the people their wants and not necessarily their needs.
At a public meeting in San Fernando he felt compelled to respond to the UNC’s bulging bag of election promises to the electorate. The UNC leadership knows well that the cost of implementing a slew of tax-breaks, increased salaries and services to the people and the host of other “goodies” they appear to be drawing from a magician’s hat, will be prohibitive. They are not practical, given the fall in revenues from our main goods and services. But, audiences at their meetings react to their offers like children at a party when the piñata bursts.
Continue reading Gimmicks vs governance