by SATNARAYAN MAHARAJ

Dr Selwyn Cudjoe, an American-based teacher of African American literature at Wellesley College, has been appointed a director of the Central Bank of T&T.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning has not yet informed the population of the special banking, monetary knowledge and experience that Dr Cudjoe brings to this important position. Nor has the Government explained why local financial specialists, much more qualified, were bypassed or not considered before Dr Cudjoe.

This gentleman has every right to be concerned about fairness and equity in our national affairs. But he cannot be selective and ignore the research done by top local academics.

Dr Cudjoe should visit the Centre of Ethnic Studies at the UWI, St Augustine, and obtain a copy of a document entitled “Ethnicity and Employment Practice in T&T”.

This centre was established by PM Manning in 1991/1995 with Prof Selwyn Ryan and Dr John La Guerre as directors. These two distinguished academics investigated the recruitment practice of the Police Service.

They found, “all things being equal, and given the fact that Indo-Trinidadian candidates are better qualified (academically), it should follow that the number of Indo-Trinidadians selected for training should be higher. It seemed that they tend to perform poorly in interviews as compared with their Afro-Trinidadian counterparts.”

Ryan and La Guerre went on to give the reason for this discrimination: “for the past several years, the members of the interviewing panel have all been Afro-Trinidadians.”

The Maha Sabha is of the view that the same position exists at the Central Bank where Dr Cudjoe is a director. We invite him to produce the figures of recruitment and racial preferences as we ourselves await a reply to our demand for the data through the Freedom of Information Act.

Dr Cudjoe must explain how in a multi-cultural society like T&T the Centre for Creative and Festival Arts at UWI, St Augustine, headed by Rawle Gibbons, has a full-time teaching staff of ten with Satanand Sharma the only Indo-Trinidadian. He should tell the public that more than 80 per cent of the staff and students at COSTAATT are Afro-Trinidadians.

What are the implications of this situation? According to Cudjoe in a Newsday article, “if most of the formally educated persons are of one race, then other races slide into second-class citizenry that cannot be good for the society.”

Another tertiary-level institution offers associate degrees. The Cipriani College of Labour and Co-operative Studies has Dr Roosevelt Williams, an Afro-Trinidadian, as its principal. He leads an institution that from cook to CEO, from janitor to director, is overwhelmingly Afro-Trini. Does Dr Cudjoe comment on this imbalance?

Dr Cudjoe must understand that the Maha Sabha and those he describes as “cohorts” live in a world of shared knowledge and information, and when he quotes cases of black student affirmative action in the USA, we have instant access to the opposition to affirmative action, even by Afro-Americans.

Sitting on his academic high, Cudjoe writes in the Newsday of August 22, about Devant Maharaj of the Maha Sabha: “I don't know if Maharaj has ever been on a university admission committee to select undergraduates or graduate students.”

This shallow intellectual arrogance ignores the fact that one is no longer required to travel to the moon to access information about our lunar neighbour.

Regarding a quota system demanded by Cudjoe for Afro-Trini students at UWI, he seems unaware of the latest development at the University of Michigan.

On June 23, 2003, the Supreme Court struck down the Michigan Admission Undergraduate System which awarded 20 points to minority applicants based solely on black skin colour.

Time magazine, reflecting on this judicial pronouncement, wrote:

“Many civil right lawyers agree that the University of Michigan could be the Alamo of affirmation action, the place where they make their last stand.”

Dr Cudjoe's advocacy of Afro-Trinis' preferment at UWI ignores all the meritocratic changes in the American education system and writes: “There is no reason why admittance should be based on an ‘A' on a final exam such as the GCE.”

He went on to attack the education system that exists worldwide when he writes: “Grades or exams or notions of IQ are, at best, dubious and incomplete reasons of one's ability to be successful at a university and alternatively to perform in the real world.”

The real problem that Cudjoe does not want to address is the anti-intellectual culture growing within himself and the community which he claims to represent. He should desist from blaming everyone else for the problem of low academic achievement of some students.

He cannot blame Maha Sabha or Parsuram Maharaj or the UNC or the Ramayan for the underachievement of Afro-Trinbagonians in education. After all, Afro-Trinidadians have been, and still are, in control of the Ministry of Education since the birth of the PNM in 1956.

The problem with Cudjoe, Afros and education is essentially one of culture. This is not only a Trinidad problem, more a genetic one.

In the US, where Cudjoe lives, works and teaches, blacks tend to lag behind in schools, colleges and universities.

Afro-Trinis spend too much time with dub, rap, boogieing in the panyard and playground and little time with books. The truth is that Carnival culture with mas and BET role models are doing more harm than good to our youth.

Afro-Trinis should try hard to Indianise themselves and their attitude to books rather than try to Creolise Indians.

SATNARAYAN MAHARAJ is the Secretary General of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha