Monthly Archives: April 2020

Crime in T&T, General T&T, PNM, Politics, Race and Identity, Racism Watch, Religion

Black Power and Indians

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Indian Officer Leads
African Soldiers in Black Power Revolt
“Creolised” Indians Sowed Seeds for Birth of ULF

By Raffique Shah
June 09, 2000 – trinicenter.com

Raffique ShahIN 1970, I was the only Indian officer in the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment. I was also the youngest officer, having graduated from Sandhurst in July 1966, some four months after I had turned 20. When I returned from England in January 1967 to take up duties as a platoon commander, it was the first time I got to know the Regiment (as it was, and still is, commonly referred to), since I was sent to Sandhurst in 1964 without any prior training locally. At the time, fewer than five per cent of soldiers were Indians, a ratio that may still exist, although I suspect the numbers will have moved up slightly.
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Crime in T&T, Education, Finance, Recession, Schools

In Defense of Teachers

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 29, 2020

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeAlberta Smith (not her real name), my dear friend, has been a primary school teacher for thirty years. She didn’t like last week’s article and didn’t put water in her mouth to tell me so. She sent the following response which I was free to reproduce once I omitted her real name. She wrote:
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Agriculture, Food, General T&T, PNM, Politics, Recession

Hungry people, angry people

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By Raffique Shah
April 27, 2020

Raffique ShahMy younger brother Farouk caught me unawares one evening last week when he telephoned me saying, “The PM used the ‘F’ word today!” “What?” I asked in shock, thinking that either Prime Minister Keith Rowley or Farouk was going off. “He did!” Farouk persisted. “He spoke about food.” The joke was on me, and we enjoyed a hearty laugh at my expense.
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Finance, Food, General T&T, PNM, Politics, Recession

A COVID Recovery Road Map with Too Many Junctions

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By Stephen Kangal
April 26, 2020

Stephen KangalA third Road Multi-Sectoral and micro and macro conceptualised Map is now being engineered and brainstormed by the PNM Government. Both the previous 2020 and 2030 Vision Road Maps were shelved because the PNM is politically notorious for conceptualization plans but total failures when it comes to critical implementation commitments.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics

Assessing the leader

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By Raffique Shah
April 21, 2020

Raffique ShahWhen a nation wages war, and when that war is just, it is the duty of every able-bodied citizen to support his or her country, each according to his ability. In the current situation, the entire world is at war against the invisible CORVID-19 virus that is wreaking death and destruction in an unprecedented global attack. In most countries, people have rallied behind their governments, battling in the frontlines and from their homes, executing simple strategies that are formulated to deny the killer-virus a fertile environment in which it thrives, hence containing it and starving it to death.
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Education, General T&T, Politics, Schools

“All Ah We in This Together…”

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 20, 2020

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeAs a teacher, I was interested in the exchange between Anthony Garcia, the minister of education (MOE), and Antonia De Freitas, president of the TTUTA, with regard to how best to continue teaching our nation’s pupils while schools are closed because of the coronavirus pandemic. The MOE wanted to “determine the extent to which students had access to learning materials while schools were closed” (Newsday, April 11) so it could determine the best platform to deliver online teaching for our pupils.
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Agriculture, Crime in T&T, Finance, Food, General T&T, PNM, Politics, Recession, UNC

Road Map To Recovery Team Needs Rethinking

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By A. Hotep
April 17, 2020

Road Map To Recovery Team Needs RethinkingPM Dr Keith Rowley’s “Road Map to Recovery” team is mostly the same tone-deaf people who have us in our financial and social crisis today. There was no inclusion of members of the African community who advocate for addressing our racial and cultural issues which remain at the heart of disunity, insecurity and discriminatory social behaviours in this country. Why was the Opposition leader not invited to be part of this group? I am not aware of members of this team placing environmental concerns at the top of their agenda. Where are those who are concerned about the development of our agriculture and water management sectors? I rather suspect some feminists would also have similar concerns about being omitted.
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Christianity, General T&T, Hinduism, Religion

Is COVID-19 the Flaunting of God’s Sovereignty?

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By Stephen Kangal
April 14, 2020

Stephen KangalThe Honourable Mr Justice Frank Seepersad in his electronic Easter Message to the PCTT (Express 13 April, p.17) would seem to posit that the current exponential and unprecedented rate of the destruction of human lives now nearing 100,000 wrought by COVID-19 would appear to be, inter alia, a grim manifestation/reminder of the sovereignty of God over all things.
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Agriculture, Finance, Food, General T&T, Health, International, PNM, Politics, Recession

Hooked on foreign foods

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By Raffique Shah
April 14, 2020

Raffique ShahLarge mobs of presumably hungry consumers virtually laid siege to fast-foods restaurants across the country last Monday evening after Prime Minister Keith Rowley announced that all restaurants and retail food services will be closed for business until the end of this month. Embedded in that eruption was a conundrum this country faces as it battles the COVID-19 virus.
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General T&T, Health, International, PNM, Politics

Black Betrayal (In the Age of the Coronavirus)

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 13, 2020

“They say the sun will shine for all/But in some people’s world, it doesn’t shine at all./ So much been said, so little been done./ They still killing the people/ And they having their fun”

—Bob Marley, “Crisis”

PART 3

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI have been writing about the plight of black people in Trinidad and Tobago for a while. Like Marvin Gaye, sometimes it “make me wanna holler/The way they do my life” (“Inner City Blues”). I have argued that we will never solve black impoverishment unless we see it as a national problem that demands the same resolve that we brought to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
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