Tag Archives: Selwyn R. Cudjoe

Africa, Education, General T&T, Schools

Hear ye; hair ye: listen and be enlightened

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 24, 2024

Part I

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI wanted to add my two cents to Oke Zachary’s comments about educators freeing themselves from mental slavery as it related to the SDA dragging two students from their graduation because they cornrowed their hair (Express, July 14).

Zachary gave us an informative history lesson about the important role that hair plays in the lives of African people. He started with Bob Marley who had one of “the nappiest dreadlocks” and worked his way back to the inception of the cornrow style in 3,500 BCE before going to China “with the staircase braid from 1644 straight to the Caribbean with modern cornrows from the 1970s”.
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Crime in T&T, Education, General T&T

Discoursing about crime and education

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 17, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeJust think of the contradictions. One opens the Express of Tuesday, July 9, and is greeted with the blood-splattered headline “Bloody Monday”. Then comes the sub-headline: “Triple murder rocks Tobago” and “Carlsen Field home invasion: son killed, father critical”.

One then ventures to page three and the horror of the crimes: “Hangings must resume in this country. So said a relative of Anslem Douglas, one of the three murder victims shot multiple times on Sunday night. The triple murder, the first of its kind to rock the island, took Tobago’s 2024 murder toll to 15, one more than the whole of 2023.”
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General T&T, International

As the world turns

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 10, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn June 25, 2016, I wrote in this space: “Nine days ago when I arrived in London I had hoped the UK (United Kingdom) would remain within the European Union… There was some nostalgia there but my wish wasn’t to be…

“Xenophobia won out in the end although there were other concerns. There was the split between the metropolitan heartland and country; the disconnect between the elites and the masses; those who saw themselves as global citizens and those who prized the bulldog, isolationist identity and more conservative England.”
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General T&T, Politics, UNC

Snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 02, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeMonths ago I wrote of the United National Congress’ ability to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. I saw this tendency played out in 1976 when the United Labour Front (ULF) was projected to win the election until its inglorious march from Arima to Port of Spain on the Saturday prior to the poll. I stood at the corner of Caura Royal Road and the Eastern Main Road in El Dorado when the march passed through on its way to Port of Spain. “What they didn’t say about Black People is what they didn’t know.” Such a misstep led to its defeat.
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General T&T

Rescuing a hero from oblivion

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 26, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI first encountered Philip Henry Douglin when I wrote Beyond Boundaries: The Intellectual Tradition of Trinidad and Tobago in the Nineteenth Century (2003). Since then I have been gathering information on Douglin at research centres such as the Watson Collection at Oxford University, the British Archives at Kew in London, and the T&T Archives in Port of Spain. Yet I knew I had to go to Barbados before I completed my biography on him.
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General T&T

Making Tacarigua a better scene

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 16, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI am always intrigued by how officials, government or otherwise, ignorant of the history of a place or region in which they live and work, are perfectly happy to destroy a healthy community without realising the harm they can do to the place and the people who live there.

Desell Josiah Austin, chairman of the Tunapuna/Piarco Regional Corporation, may be a young man with the best intentions in the world, but without knowledge of the community in which he lives he can cause harm. He really needs to learn a bit more about Tacarigua, the history of the Orange Grove Savannah, and the origin of Tunapuna.
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General T&T

Never sit on your laurels

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 13, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt was 2013 and the UNC (United National Congress) government decided to place a stadium and a swimming pool at the Orange Grove Savannah (now known as the Eddie Hart Savannah), a place that was used by “districkers” for recreational, health, and educational purposes for generations. Angry by this atrocity, the “districkers” of Tacarigua and the surrounding villages (Dinsley, Paradise, El Dorado, Trincity, and St Mary’s) took on government with all of its resources and prevented it from destroying one of the most idyllic areas in Trinidad.
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General T&T

Turning democracy upside down

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 04, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeDuring the early days of our democracy, Eric Williams and CLR James, founding fathers of the People’s National Movement (PNM), cited Greece as the quintessential example of what a functioning democracy should look like. Williams developed this theme in his address to the Black Writers Congress in Rome in 1959.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T

The importance of work

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 28, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeAnyone who believes the PNM Government will solve the problem of black underdevelopment, joblessness, and criminality in the depressed areas of the island had better think again. It will not happen in the near future. The elites who have taken over the party have no interest in these problems, they do not have the will to solve them, nor the intelligence to know the difference.
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corruption, General T&T

Normalising failure and callousness

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 21, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeQuestion: Would you select someone to lead a company or an organisation where, previously, that person had failed in that position and shows no sign of improving his/her leadership skills or comprehending the job-challenges that lie ahead?

This question arose last week when National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds explained why his Government retained Erla Christopher to lead the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service for another year even as crime and disorder worsen and every sign suggests they will get “worserer.”
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