By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 18, 2025
The People’s National Movement came into being against the backdrop of the representatives of black and brown people who met in Bandung, Indonesia, to oppose colonialism. In 1955, 29 countries representing 1.5 billion people (or 54% of the world’s population) demanded a greater share of the world’s financial resources.
Continue reading PNM sells out to the rich
By Raffique Shah
January 18, 2025
I do not think that I carry the proverbial “blight” that people who when they speak or merely mention something good that’s happening, it turns sour. Still, I do not feel as confident as I ought to be commenting on the respite the nation has enjoyed in the murder rate that was dizzying, bloody, almost macabre. Hours before Prime Minister Dr Rowley advised the President to declare a state of emergency, the murder rate was astounding, taking this country into a bloodbath that was horrible even to think about.
Continue reading Young faces acid test
By Raffique Shah
January 11, 2025
It would be quite a thing if the leadership succession issue in the ruling People’s National Movement were to erupt into something akin to war, while the party has often been described as the best organised in the Caribbean.
I had planned this column before Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announced his proposed resignation, and subsequently the naming of his successor, Energy Minister Stuart Young. That grabbed national attention and with it, controversy, before I could write. But that is politics for you—unpredictable in the most stable of times and immutable in the worst of times.
Continue reading Be thankful for Rowley
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 28, 2024
Three recent events cemented in my mind that the poor and the not-so-poor will suffer much more over the next five years than they do today if the present Government is not changed.
The PNM must move aside to allow us to inhale a new breath of freedom, experience greater competence in running the country’s affairs, and to assure us that we can expect a more normal life in the future.
Continue reading Vote out the PNM
By Raffique Shah
December 28, 2024
The world is what it is.
Having stolen one of Vidia Naipaul’s more thought-provoking opening phrases, frankly I don’t feel guilty. I do not believe I stole anything from VS. I’m sure he has quoted or fallen back on many a Trinidadian writer for original material to start his considerable portfolio of novels that made him famous. “The world is what it is” is as powerful a line as Dante Alighieri’s “Abandon all Hope, ye who enter here” in his 14th-century narrative poem, “The Divine Comedy”.
Continue reading Put books in prisons