The Hidden Agenda

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 26, 2011

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn Monday next (Emancipation Day) black folks will come out in full ethnic regalia to commemorate the emancipation of our forefathers and foremothers. They will march from the Brian Lara Promenade to the Savannah and make uplifting speeches (as they should) about our condition. The next 364 days thereafter they shall continue their slide into penury and humiliation as the People’s Partnership (PP) government does everything to ensure that African people eat the bread the devil kneads. In this new dispensation no mercy will be shown and no sympathy offered.

When the PP came to power the mouths of its leaders were replete with sentiments of transcendent love and inter-racial unity. Kamla was the queen; Jack Warner was the king; and the royal retinue included resurrected Africans such as Makandal Dagga; Errol McLeod, Ashworth Jack; Rupert Griffith, Winston Peters, all of whom Cro Cro characterized as “lick-bottom Africans.” “Lick-bottom” may not have been the most felicitous adjectival phrase but it captured the essence of a particular condition. He understood that after all was said and done all of those court jesters would be left with extended lips ready to praise or to kiss appropriate persons and places as their power waned within the coalition.

It didn’t take long before the affections ceased and extended lips weren’t sure whether to kiss; to cuss; or to praise. One year after the initial victory the queen announced changes in her Cabinet. Whatever pretences were made in the heat of victory realpolitik quickly showed its ugly head and Sat Maharaj began to demonstrate his power within the PP. Although we thought Jack was king we soon realized that he was merely a regent posturing as Hindu god until the ruler reclaimed his birthright.

Wade Mark got the word early and married in full Hindu rites. Jack did not show as much foresight. He was still under the illusion of one-love politics and interracial unity. When Kamla gave Devant Maharaj, Sat’s right-hand man, most of Jack’s Ministry, and superseded Jack in every meaningful way in the Cabinet and in the party, Jack knew his time had come and Hindu nationalism was entrenched. If he thought that a non-Hindu would be granted free movement within the royal household he was in for a big surprise.

After Jack’s dethronement eleven of the sixteen critical ministries were given to Hindus: Glen Ramadharsingh (Minister of the People and Social Development); Tim Gopeesingh (Education); Surujrattan Rambachan (Foreign Affairs and Information); Devant Maharaj (Transport); Chandresh Sharma (Local Government); Winston Dookeran (Finance); Roodal Moonilal (Housing and the Environment); Prakash Ramadhar (Legal Affairs); Vasant Bharath (Food Production); Beau Tewarie (Planning, Social and Economic Restructuring) and Anand Ramlogan (Attorney General). The head goddess is also a Hindu.

As soon as these ministers assumed office Sat outlined PP’s new political direction: “Serious housekeeping is needed in the PP. There is an urgent need to look at the strategic positions that influence the Government and its progress. Patrick Manning in his political glory had placed within the corridors of power ‘his people.’ He has placed them there and now they frustrate the process and progress of any government other than his own. The PNM loyalty charge [given by whom, he does not say] attached to so many people that still hold office today and seem to be untouchable is a PNM strategy to frustrate. The PNM has entrenched and embedded within the Public Service party faithfuls for a possible 10 years of ‘control.’ While the PP holds the office, Patrick Manning and PNM appointees hold the power.” Only a pogrom, PP style, can rid the nation of this PNM plague.

Less we forget the Constitution gives each citizen the right to join any political party he wishes to support. However, PP doctrine decrees that once the PP wins, all of a citizen’s fundamental rights, including his right to employment, become null and void unless he is a Hindu. “Serious house-keeping” becomes the order of the day. Smash citizens’ rights; denounce his right to chose his political alliance; deny him a livelihood and make sure he is pauperized. To them, this is the essence of democracy.

We are faced with a frightening choice: the chief guru calls for “serious housekeeping.” Anything that looks black or sounds PNM ought to be eliminated. His disciple is much more explicit: “Execute all Muslims.” Lesser disciples are even more intolerant of citizens’ rights. Anil Roberts, Minister of Sports, calls for the dismissal of Andrew Jupiter and Frank Look Kin, who have worked in the Ministry of Energy and the Energy Industry for 77 years because he believes they support PNM. In PP country, none is safe; none is free. Only one’s adherence to Hinduism guarantees full citizenship rights.

The PP will continue to erode our citizens’ rights unless we demand that they discontinue their victimization against non-Hindus. We are going down a dangerous slope with enormous speed. Let us say “hold up” before it’s too late.

58 thoughts on “The Hidden Agenda”

  1. This analysis is to the point and an interesting study of what is taking place since this government took over. For example, Kamliar is yet to fire a Hindu, very quick to fire Africans or non Hindus and beats around the bush when Indians close to her misbehaves. She is very transparent as far as her behaviour is concerned yet she professes ‘one-love’. There are those Africans who after one year in office and all the “missteps” continue to believe that she should be allowed to show that it is not what she does but what she says she does that’s important. Those who follow like the two Jacks, McCloud, Wade Mark, the Griffiths and others continue to look like stooges as they defend this woman who lies with impunity. Meanwhile African leadership is the worst I have seen in fifty years. There is not one African leader who is sane enough to even colnsider himself an African in public, far more fight for African values. The iconic Daaga is hiding somewhere comfortable in the halls of power and Carribbean capitals not talking about what it means to be a ‘Makandal Daaga’ in Trinidad and Tobago today but continues to blame the PNM for the backward movements that Africans are experiencing in the past year. Do we really have any black leaders.

      1. No David Abdullah, one time champion of the working man a la Cipriani Labor College/ Trade Unions?Well,I see the 1% rule is alive also in Jambalaya/ calaloo countr,yes?
        Half Japanese , and Afrikan , makes one Asian , like Tiger, I guess.
        As an extension to that argument, probably , 1% Indian , makes one Indian too one assume, as they see more values in their Indianness,and PP Party power shift, to answer T-Man’s query. Hopefully he and the higher echelons of the regime , appreciate what that entails . That 25 % and growing , expect to get some tangible returns , for their votes, and not necessarily ,to be rounded daily across the nation ,as they go about their business.
        By the way, how is that cross country, Canadian champion daughter of yours doing T-Man. Majoring in Criminal Justice at the Edmonton University?
        Ah tell you kian , these European adorers ,from V.S Naipaul ,to T-Man , and many British/ canadian educated unmentionables, of this regime. They can never see a flaw in European historical operations,whether white racist Apartheid South Africans, or incompetent imperialist.They would kiss the feet of Eurocentric fake experts, but as for members of ‘kinky head , big but nation?’ That’s a horse of a different color.They could never do anything to advance the cause of humanity.
        The fact that you have to ask what values Afrikans have , speak volumes about ‘you alls mentality,’and ample evidence , as to why we will remain a backward 3rd world country , long into the future.

  2. There is nothing hiddden in this agenda.

    Partly because dealing with Black people Hindus do not need to be subtle nor covert.

    Hindus have made high-decibel accusations of having been oppressed–not by whites–but by Black Trinis.

    They have made of this accusation, an industry with political, economic, and PR clout … to the extent Black “scholars” regurgitate this in appeasemenmt.

    Also, Black people, and I say this with sadness, are the only people in T&T who when given an insult are also expected to pay for it, and in gratitude, take it as communion.

  3. “When Kamla gave Devant Maharaj, Sat’s right-hand man, most of Jack’s Ministry, and superseded Jack in every meaningful way in the Cabinet and in the party, Jack knew his time had come and Hindu nationalism was entrenched..”
    Devant has proven himself and so is deserving of the post. As for Jack the truth is he had his hand too deep in a scandal that rocked the world. Besides Jack is in charge of $7 billion highway. That is enough for him at this time.

  4. neverdirty
    Also, Black people, and I say this with sadness, are the only people in T&T who when given an insult are also expected to pay for it, and in gratitude, take it as communion.

    Kian
    For example, Kamliar is yet to fire a Hindu, very quick to fire Africans or non Hindus and beats around the bush when Indians close to her misbehaves.

    You both have struck the nail on the head. No where in this world with similar demographics in political regime and population distribution is there any difference in this trending. The problem is that black leadership continues to harbour illusory hopes that they can kumbaya the way to change. If in a thousand years or thereabouts these cultural predispositions and attitudes in the land of origination it is ludicrous and stupid to harbor illusions that will change among those determined to reduce African populations to their new world dalits. And this is the agenda, make no mistake.

    Black leadership in the Caribbean exhibit a psychology of acceptance to the Aryan Supremacist attitudes that inhabit the regimes of Guyana and T&T. Whether it is Panday, Jagdeo or Kamla, the modus operandi is the same. In a sea of black people in this geographic region we are allowing a few who see perceive themselves as the inheritors of the Aryan Supremacist legacy to carry out social and ethnic stratification in nations where our ancestors slaved for three centuries. It is time to say enough!!!!!

  5. it is ludicrous and stupid to harbor illusions that will change among those determined to reduce African populations to their new world dalits. And this is the agenda, make no mistake.

    It will avail them nothing. I say that on the basis of prophecy, which foresaw this “trending”, and which also lays out the ultimate end:

    2 Esdras 15:46-49
    And thou, Asia, that art partaker of the hope of Babylon, and art the glory of her person: 47 Woe be unto thee, thou wretch, …

    The ultimate end of Babylon is woe. And the ultimate end of those who are partakers of the “hope of Babylon” also is woe. Asia is so described, and also described, by the Creator, as “thou wretch”.

    What is the “hope of Babylon”? Ultimately what it boils down to is the wrongful theft of the land and/or labor of others, whether that theft is accomplished through physical means, or through political and economic and financial means. The program of colonialism and slavery is the program of this twin theft of land and labor. The program of Aryan Supremacy likewise is this twin theft, through social and religious (caste) subjugation.

    Colonialism and slavery have morphed in its method away from brute physical methods to methods based on ideology, and through subtle workings of finance capitalism and what it means for resource allocation, i.e a legalized method of the aforementioned twin theft.

    In the battle for the mind, we are supposed to accept that in a “free market” society, the social outcomes we are witnessing are “fair”, because we all have the same opportunity. Moreover, as neverdirty has pointed out, we are supposed to accept the slander that says that Afro-Trinis discriminated against the Indo-Trinis, therefore the outcomes we are witnessing reflects the natural superiority of the Indo, after all they have risen over us despite our (Afro-Creole) efforts to keep them down!

    Meanwhile, the truth of the matter is that they have adopted an aggressive, but subtle and deceptive, strategy precisely to put and keep the Afro-Creole in a subordinate position. Moreover we are supposed happily to accept this subordinate position because the outcome occurred fairly and squarely through the working of the “free” market, and through the workings of “democracy”.

    Teefing in common entrance, fabrication of resumes, fraud in contract awards, resolutely favoring their own kind, are all dismissed as having any kind of explanatory power.

    And of course, the narrative of Indian Arrival stoutly maintains that their suffering was if anything greater than that of the Afro-Creole in slavery. The fact that they were *paid*, in money and in land, is never suggested as a key factor that gave them access to money capital as a way to develop. Nor do they acknowledge that it was PNM policy and Afro-Creole fairness and generosity, at least as to education, that brought them up from illiteracy and backwardness on the plantation.

    What evidently they don’t know or acknowledge is that God promises WOE to the wicked.

    Therefore, I will repeat the scripture that I quoted some time ago, perhaps they will get the message this time, though I doubt it:

    Revelation 22:11
    He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still.

    They will know what it means when the woes begin.

    One thing they should be aware. We the Afro-Creoles are of the house of Israel. The final end of those who make of us a spoil, will not be a pretty one. Nor is that final reckoning still far off.

    Shalom.

  6. Devant Maharaj was dismiss from an organization representing people of Indian origin across the diaspora because of his negative utterances towards Afro-Trinbago citizen, yet still this prime-minister saw it of no consequence and appoint this person a minister. This cannot be right in a country like ours. His views have always been to promote his own kind.So was the intention of the KKK in the USA.

  7. “After Jack’s dethronement eleven of the sixteen critical ministries were given to Hindus:”

    It was Eric the red the nation first Prime Minister who describe the Indian population as “recalcintrant”. A word that was echoed by PNM saga boy Fitzgerald Hinds. This was just a few years ago. This was during the time when Hindus were virtually non-existent in the PNM cabal. As the body bags continue to cover the body of young Afro males in Laventille and Morvant, this issue of national leadership cannot be attributed anymore to the Afro population. They have single-handedly ruin the reputation of a once great nation by killing “en masse”. By virtue of such behaviour they have abdicated the throne that was once lined with ivory and gold.

    And so another power base has emerged in the dawning of a new era. One that was once considered “recalcintrant”. And it is no surprise that a son born in the bowels of PNM ideology recognises this…hmmmm Cheers to one and all. To the queen K and all.

    1. Dr. Willimas referred to the behaviour of Indo Trinidadians as recalcitrant, not indo-Trinidadians. He was referring to their attempts to separate themselves from the population and demand special rights from the government as if their needs were different. From the time the *Hindu* Indo-Trinidadians saw themselves as a major demographic they sought political power over the country and once they did not achieve it they cried racism, notice the cry from muslim, indo-Trinidadians is not the same? The Hindu, Indo population has never sought the upliftment of the nation just their demographic and then everyone else. But arguing this with someone you makes no sense because u do not see it that way, but i reply still just to let you know that you are wrong despite what u think.

    2. mamoo why don’t you stop with this dotishness, Eric William refered to a recalcintrant minority, which was the leadership of the opposition party (and indian), who wanted to remain a colony. But in no way was that a representation of all indian people living in trinidad and tobago.

  8. After reading Selwyn’s biased political analysis of the situation in T&T, it is obvious that he has not spent a lot of time in the country recently. His venomous attack seems to be a disappointing reaction to the loss of his political position as an unqualified member of the Central Bank Board and its numerous perks. Surely, he knows that replacing political appointees on State boards is common practice universally when a new government is elected. He also seems to be sulking as a result of his prominent exclusion from the roster of speech makers at this year’s Emancipation celebrations. Do not blame Hindus for that.
    To suggest that “the People’s Partnership (PP) government does everything to ensure that African people eat the bread the devil kneads” goes beyond the boundaries of common decency. This is sour grapes taken to the ridiculous extreme. Black folks will come out on Emancipation day and they will remember and celebrate with pride because in T&T they have a lot to be proud of. The successes and dignity of black folks in T&T cannot be denied, no matter who is in power. Is Cudjoe suggesting otherwise?

    “When the PP came to power the mouths of its leaders were replete with sentiments of transcendent love and inter-racial unity” and Cudjoe provides no concrete evidence to refute the leaders of the PP. Selwyn’s credibility was seriously hampered when he stooped to use Cro Cro as someone providing specific evidence to support his divisive and cruel postulations. Cro Cro has no credibility in T&T even among intelligent PNM supporters. He is a plain and simple hate merchant. Insulting the African members of the PP is very unbecoming of someone who claims to be an intellectual. Maybe Selwyn should restrict himself to fiction and literary analysis and avoid political analysis. He gets an F for his rant of biased opinions, generalizations, name calling and a total lack of evidence.

    Contrary to Cudjoe’s speculation regarding Jack’s less prominent position in the government, Jack is still a force to be reckoned with. The PM has skillfully given Jack a temporary cooling off period in response to the FIFA heat. Jack still controls a huge budget, is in full command of the UNC, is still extremely popular in his constituency, and basks in the admiration of the majority. Lament not for Jack for he will return.

    Cudjoe complaint that eleven of the sixteen critical ministries were given to Hindus is very mischievous and shows a lack of knowledge of the workings of governments. These ministers were either elected by the people or endorsed by the PM and the President. The previous government was dominated by Christian Africans and they were either elected by the people or endorsed by the former PM and the President. This is how democracy works and in our system of government we accept that.

    Cudjoe also attempts to incite readers by suggesting that Sat holds some sort of regal power within the government. This is nothing but a fictional fable being spun to divide the population, considering Sat’s lack of credibility in many circles. Finally, to suggest that this government will “erode our citizens’ rights unless we demand that they discontinue their victimization against non-Hindus” is bitter hatred based in bigotry and recklessness.
    Surely he realizes that Hindus are only 25.6% of the population, even though Indians comprise over 43% of the total population. Any attempt by this PM to create some sort of Hindu empire will be met with great hostility. Is this the reason for Cudjoe’s mischief?
    The fact is that Indians have accepted African dominated governments in T&T for some 40 years since Independence and these governments have for the most part, treated the Indian population fairly.
    Why are some Africans finding it so difficult to accept the will of the majority?

    1. Quoting:

      The fact is that Indians have accepted African dominated governments in T&T for some 40 years since Independence and these governments have for the most part, treated the Indian population fairly.
      Why are some Africans finding it so difficult to accept the will of the majority?

      An Indo Government was also elected by the “will of the majority” in Fiji. The native Fijians, to their credit, rejected that arrangement, because ultimately illegitimate. The world did not rally to the cries of the Indo government there, because the situation was seen for what it was … a usurpation by a Johnny-come-lately outsider granted too many “rights” under Westminster democracy.

      Although less clear-cut in the case of T&T, the situation is the same.

      Afro-Creole civilization in the West Indies was established long before “Indian Arrival”. The first boat from India carrying just a handful of Indians arrived here ca. 1850, a full generation after Emancipation. The last boat arrived in the early 1900s. By contrast, the first boat of kidnapped Africans would have arrived in the West Indies in the early 1600s, the last in the early 1800s.

      And I say West Indies, rather than narrowly T&T, because the West Indies as a whole was a colonial unit, with vestiges still present in the form of the West Indies cricket team, and the University of the West Indies.

      The fledgling independent West Indies Federation was in part scuttled because of the machinations, even back then, of … yes … the “recalcitrant” minority Indo population. Their eyes and heart were set, already then, on political and economic domination, and there was no advantage to them in being an even smaller minority in the Federation as a whole.

      Yes, Westminster democracy allowed them under the rules to play a part in the dismantling of Afro-Creole civilization. Thanks to British divide-and-rule strategy, as in Fiji, the Johnny-come-lately Indians were handed a democratic club with which to launch an assault on the host civilization that gave them space to live and indeed prosper.

      Such an assault, and indeed power grab, was not legitimate in Fiji, and it is not legitimate either in the West Indies.

      Democracy can work, maybe, when all are loyal to the same civilizational and cultural matrix. When a significant demographic constituency is in fact advancing a rival and alien civilizational and cultural matrix, what you have is not contention for power under one house, but an alien house and presence seeking to destroy or subdue that of the host. That unfortunately is what Indo, nay Hindu, rule in T&T amounts to. It is a clash of civilizations, and the signs of it are all around us.

      The Afro-Creole rage is inchoate, but it is there. Cro Cro is a prophet of this rage, for he sees it more clearly, and articulates it better than most. If there is a strong Afro-Creole element that was repelled by Cro Cro’s imagery, it bears testimony to the quality of fairness that represents a large part of the Afro-Creole civilization that we have developed here in T&T and the larger West Indies.

      But both Prof. Cudjoe and Cro Cro are right. In a clash of civilizations, when your homeland is under attack, you do not give aid and comfort to the invader, no matter what grouse you may have with your own. I would not myself have used Cro Cro’s imagery, but the point is well taken; what the lick-bottom quislings are is weak of mind and blinded by one or other blandishment of the devil. To repeat Prof. Cudjoe’s more incisive imagery, they are eating the bread de devil knead. Woe to them too!

      Be all that as it may, the rules of democracy go out the window, when used as cover to carry out a nefarious assault on a whole civilization and way of life. Like the native Fijians, the Afro-Creole in T&T would be well justified to resist this evil assault. Indeed, I fear God’s judgment if we don’t.

      Shalom.

      2 Esdras 15:46-47
      46 And thou, Asia, that art partaker of the hope of Babylon, and art the glory of her person: 47 Woe be unto thee, thou wretch, …

      1. The native Fijians are the indigenous people of the Island. The Caribs and Arawaks were the indigenous peoples of the West Indies.
        Like the native peoples of North America, they deserve special rights including self government and taxation benefits.

        1. You prove the validity of the scriptural rebuke of Asia: “Thou art partaker of the hope of Babylon.”

          You are basically saying that the Afro-Creole civilization that you found upon Indian Arrival has no host civilization rights that you need to respect. You can live in his house when you’re weak and need help, but it’s alright for you to turn around and mash it up, slandering him along the way.

          The scripture in question continues as follows:

          2 Esdras 15:48-49
          48 Thou hast followed her that is hated in all her works and inventions; therefore, saith God, 49 I will send my plagues upon thee; …

          Therefore, God is handing down an indictment against “Asia”, and pronouncing sentence.

          The indictment is that you are following after Babylon in all her works and inventions. Under Babylon system you steal the land and labor of others, relegate them to reservations, and allow as how they should get “taxation benefits”, i.e. crumbs from the devil’s bread.

          You obviously do not see the wickedness of that arrangement, however nicely dressed up in legalisms such as “indigenous people”, “terra nullis”, “right of conquest”, “Westminster rule”, etc., etc.

          These will carry no weight under God’s Law, you can be sure of that. Woe is pronounced upon Babylon! And woe is pronounced upon “Asia” for seeking to ape Babylon in all her wicked ways!

          Woe is also pronounced upon those who slander their erstwhile benefactors, those who are bearers of false witness, those who lie, cheat, steal, and are willing to “sleep with the devil” to get ahead. Etc.

          Well … enjoy the devil’s bread while you have it.

          The sad part is that you will suffer the full fate of Babylon, while having enjoyed only the last few crumbs of Babylon system.

          It will never occur to you, nor to your pundits, secular as well as religious, that the Afro-Creole could have been your salvation.

          We the Afro-Creole are scattered Israelites of scripture. Notwithstanding the curses that have been our lot for the last 2,500 years or so, to us it is given that those who bless us will be blessed, and those who curse us will be cursed. It was your choice. You chose Babylon system.

          And you incur God’s ire further by cloaking yourself in your own conceit (“art the glory of her person”).

          The Most High is a merciful God, so you may yet have the opportunity to repent and find some way to atone… as the king and people of Nineveh did when Jonah prophesied to them.

          Shalom.

          1. I respect all my neighbours and live in love and perfect harmony with them. That is why my view of T&T is optimistic and I do not feel any intimidation by any one ,governments included.
            You continue to use scriptures to mask your questionable views, including your insinuations of destruction.
            You irresponsibly throw around words like “cheat”, “lie” to make false generalizations and accusations about entire groups of people.
            You seem like a literate, educated person. How could you be so biased against people with whom you live, interact, breathe and share space with every day. I say “good morning” to my neighbors every day with a clear conscience. But, the possibility exists that you do not live in T&T, and has missed the interaction with people of all races. The GOD of which you speak is a loving GOD who fosters peace, harmony, cooperation and goodwill.

    2. “The fact is that Indians have accepted African dominated governments in T&T for some 40 years since Independence and these governments have for the most part, treated the Indian population fairly.
      Why are some Africans finding it so difficult to accept the will of the majority?”

      Why is it that Indians see it as “African dominance”? No one has ever stopped an Indain from joining the PNM, ANR, NJACK, CLUB88, so how can you ppl call it African Dominance? Has an Indo-Trinidadian ever been denied a job? Health care? Freedom of speech (provided it is not slanderous or erroneous)? Freedom of worship? Housing? Education? Is it solely because that Indians did not have complete political power the perception of racial discrimination and “African dominance” arose.

      I know of more cases of afro-Trinis experiencing racism in a *real* way than Indians. UWI med school is a perfect example. I brings tears to my eyes to know that I know 5 people! 5 PEOPLE! who have lost their jobs for no valid reason and are highly qualified and I can put my head on a block to vouch that their are of high moral and integrity.

      You may not b racist but many of your ppl are.

      1. “I know of more cases of afro-Trinis experiencing racism in a *real* way than Indians. UWI med school is a perfect example. I brings tears to my eyes to know that I know 5 people! 5 PEOPLE! who have lost their jobs for no valid reason and are highly qualified and I can put my head on a block to vouch that their are of high moral and integrity.”

        I could not get a job when I went job hunting during the PNM years. Police exams passed but never passed the interview stage. It was strange though only Afro Trinis doing the interviewing. Same with fire and other services applied for. But did I swoon over and died? No, today I am much better for it. Tell your overqualified 5 friends that the government is not the primary source of employment. They can earn their way like I did through a lot of hard work. And their future is much brighter being out of work because it provides them with an opportunity to do something new. Just ask the founder of the chain of Holiday inns. Fire from his job went to several banks for loans until one believed in him. Today he is rolling in doh. He did not quit and life got better for him as it did for me….Cheers.

  9. In my opinion, and one which I hope is incorrect, Trinidad & Tobago is like a vehicle, running out of gas and time, and hurtling along a highway from which there are three off ramps.

    One of these, given the rising tensions between the two majority races, is the ramp taken by the Tamils and Sinhalese of Sri Lanka: civil war.

    The second is the ramp taken by the Bosnian Army of genocide against Bosnian Croats and others. What is interesting is that between these peoples, who have lived side by side, and intermarrying, these episodes of ethnic cleansings committed by one side or the other go back as far as the time of Julius Caesar.

    The third ramp is one where they come to understand the historical and social narratives which both separate and unite them.

    These meta-narratives or grand storyings, essential begin with how each of the two, one from a continent the other from a country, arrived from elsewhere in T&T, and has each group fared since from forces over which they initially had little or no control.

    The beginning of their narratives, never seamless nor clear cut begins with the unalterable and pernicious historical fact that there would be no Indian Arrrival in T&T had it not been for African Emancipation from slavery; and farther back that there would be no such Emancipation were it not for the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (one of three, the others being the trans-Saharan dominated by the Arabs, and the trans-Indian Ocean also called the Hyena Trail for obvious reasons, dominated by Muslims, Indian and Chinese potentates).

    These points of origin within these two meta-narratives have themselves spawned other narratives by each group of itself and of the other.

    For the Africans, the fundamental narrative of themselves is one of shame, denial and sometimes one of militancy. The Trini African narrative about Indians, it is that these people—no distinction between Hindu nor Muslim–are untrustworthy, and are capable of committing any act regardless of how heinous and egregious in order to succeed.

    For the Indians, the fundamental narrative of themselves is that they are hardworking, would sacrifice today’s comforts for tomorrow’s success and gains. Their narrative against African Trinis is that these people are base, degenerate, lazy, greedy and jealous of Indian progress and would, if given opportunity to, would oppress Indians. Indians not born at the time can recall without effort the names of Idi Amin and Burnham as examples of Africans who ‘wronged Indians’.

    Indians, like whites and others, see slavery essentially as an act of history in which Africans were, if not the only ones guilty, were also among the most guilty. Africans enslaved Africans is the mantra.

    To me, the fundamental challenge facing African Trinis, is not Indian dismissiveness, triumphalism, and deceit, but the utter ignorance of self which is almost encouraged and glorified by Black leadership and parents. Indians are doing for themselves, as they should. If this means taking advantagee of a people who are approachable and seem not to value what is otherwise valuable, whi is to be blamed? Except these conditions of ignorance and disdain sew the seeds for catastrophe, the seedlings of which are already thrusting into the daylight of uncontrolled criminality and violence.

    Africans, unaware of their own history and of others cannot or do not counter this base lie. Yes, there were Africans who sold Africans. However, this condition had several common aspects. One is that every other peoples, Jews and Irish had their Kapos and Orangemen; individuals who assisted their oppressors against their people. These were not at the top of the food chain of oppression, but were often at the lower rungs. Indians had their arkaatis, treacherous Indians who assisted the English in ensuring indentured Indians for transport. These, too, were not in the positions of power but often committed these acts from impoverished and threatened positions. To use their actions to downgrade the evils of indentureship is similarly ignorant and hurtful as Indians blaming Africans for slavery.

    Between the two there is disregard and an encouraged ignorance. Many Africans are unaware of the historical details which Indian activities like Divali contain and which directly refer unfavourably on Africans and Black people, and of the hierarchy of virtue in Varna culture based on skin colour.

    Indians, and most African Trinis are unaware of the fundamental train of historical accts with contemporary impact that is inherent in the statement, without Emancipation there would be no Indian Arrival.

    From this has come, first, the history of perfidy committed by England against Africa and Africans. presence of Indians, especially those of the Indenture era, in T&T (and elsewhere, for example Fiji). Secondly, while perfidious Albion or the English, while they were bribing Indians to come into indentureship by offering them land, were simultaneously passing laws and making edicts against the former African slaves acquiring land. Land previously available as Crown land was decreed by the Colonial office as only being available to impoverished former slaves at one pound sterling per acre!

    This act, and others preventing the former slaves from engaging in any business not allowed by the former plantation owners set the stage for Indian enrichment and African impoverishment. In fact, by 1900 according to the 1935 Moyne Commission into poverty among the Black populations in the West Indies, Indians then controlled over a million acres of land; land not previously available to them in India.

    Without knowledge of, and acknowledgement of these historic meta-narratives, and if their derivative social attitudes of disdain, ignorance, entitlement and conflict remain unaddressed, further negative relations will unfortunately intensify, and do so while losing time and space for making decisions which are just, wise, and redemptive.

    Whether or not, one considers these outcomes man-made and/or beyond, if the T&T vehicle continues along the ramp of ignorance and triumphalism, destruction will not arrive, stealthy as a thief in the night, but will burst forth with the force and brightness of a lightening strike.

    1. “One of these, given the rising tensions between the two majority races, is the ramp taken by the Tamils and Sinhalese of Sri Lanka: civil war.”

      Trinidad is not polarized by race, it is nation that is a model of tolerance for the whole world. The analogy of the Tamil/Sinhalese conflict is stupid at best. Why? Because the the Tamils basically existed as a homogenous society to the Northern part of Shri Lanka. It was easy to isolate them.

      The main source of possible ethnic tension in T&T will emerge from Port of Spain and Point Fortin, areas that have traditionally supported the PNM and yearns for the glory days of Manning. Days when billions disappear under the majical wand of Manning’s reasoning. The future of T&T is bright and promising. There will always be those who out of envy feel that things should be different, but the world has change and people need to just get use to it, instead of foaming at the mouth.

    2. Quoting neverdirty:

      The third ramp is one where they come to understand the historical and social narratives which both separate and unite them.

      Narrative is too morally empty a term. The connotation is somehow that we all have a right to our narrative, and everything will be okay if only we all allowed the Other a right to their narrative.

      No. We do not have a right to tell lies under the guise of having a right to one’s narrative. We do not have a right to slander. We do not have a right to bear false witness.

      I think we the Afro-Trini understand all too well when lies are told to secure advantage. As a people without guile, we are accepting to a fault, and forgiving to a fault. But we recognize slander when it is directed against us.

      Part of the Indo-Trini narrative precisely involves a slander — the slander that they were somehow the victim of Afro-Creole oppression — against the host civilization.

      And yes, we are the “host” civilization, because we were here first, and yes, because we developed a civilization that is distinct in many ways, and was well formed long before Indian Arrival. And that civilization embraced the whole of the West Indies.

      But I digress. My point is that it is not lack of understanding of the Indo narrative on the part of the Afro-Creole. It is rather rejection of the lies, and especially the slander, contained within it.

      What it boils down to is simple. We don’t need fancy words like “narrative” to explain it. They are like an ungrateful wretch that you lent a helping hand to when they needed it, who then turn around and slander you after your help is no longer needed.

      Let us not forget that it is God that calls “Asia” a “wretch”, because they are “partakers of the hope of Babylon” (see scripture quoted in a previous post). That truth is borne out in our experience here in T&T. I will not argue with God.

      God gives them the possibility of repentance, and atonement. But otherwise, the sentence of woe long ago pronounced will be upon them, as a group, as it was upon us, the true Israelites, as a group.

      What form that woe will take I will not be one to try and prognosticate. But we only need to look around the world, and to our own not so distant past, to know that all options are on God’s table.

      Shalom.

      1. “Let us not forget that it is God that calls “Asia” a “wretch”, because they are “partakers of the hope of Babylon” (see scripture quoted in a previous post). That truth is borne out in our experience here in T&T. I will not argue with God.”

        God calls Asia “wretch”, yet the Chinese economy is number 3, Japanese number 2 and India number 4. In the mean time African economies are at the bottom of the ladder. People are starving and dying in Ethopia by the thousands. Aids have ravaged the continent. The quality of life is so low… In the Congo over 20,000 women are raped each year. Now tell me where the wretcheness truly exist Yoruba Israelite. If a prophet prophecies falsely he must be stoned to death.

        1. Your attempted proof of contradiction fails because you have not considered the time dimension.

          In ancient Babylon, they were drinking and having a good time when the end came (Daniel 5:4-6). The same will be the case for modern Babylon, and those who embrace and ape Babylon system. Belshazzar lost control of his loins when there came the writing on the wall.

          So too now, modern Babylon and its partakers, will be drinking and having a good time, celebrating the high performance of the economy, and etc., when judgement time come.

          At the same time, Israel will be raised up again. That is what scripture says. You are not required to believe it.

          It is interesting that, like TMan, you prove the prophecy. There is the same conceit, and there is a mind totally given over to Babylon system.

          Let the fate of Belshazzar be a warning to you. Or not. Your choice.

          Shalom.

      2. I refer to meta-narratives, or the original historical faactrs of how each of the two groups, Africans and Indians arrived in T&T. The elemental fact which joinbs these two meta-narratives, from which other narratives arise, some being tisssues of lies, is that were it not for the Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery and the resistance of the former slaves to be re-enslaved, there would be no Indian Arrival Day, or night in T&T.

        And the term, “narrative” describes a precise construction of a recounting of past events to learn from them by way of fiction or non-fiction, lessons useful for the present and future.

        In T&T today, the “narrative” of dominance in which Africans have ‘oppressed Indians’ is missing only one legal demand, that of ‘reparations’ being paid by Black people to Indians.

        Indirectly, these reparations are being exacted daily and brutally, and in the end will excerbate the already tense circumstances which now underline the contemporary “meta-narrative”: the likelihood, of both co-existing in peace or in conflict.

  10. And yes, we are the “host” civilization, because we were here first, and yes, because we developed a civilization that is distinct in many ways, and was well formed long before Indian Arrival. And that civilization embraced the whole of the West Indies. –Yoruba Israelite.

    Yoruba the only time you “arrived” here was the day you were born, not thousands of year ago as you are saying. And the day you die that is the day you leave. I was not here thousands of years ago, I only arrived in Trinidad in the 1960s. My past I had none, my future was shaped by my family and myself.

    If I were to believe the historians the true host of T&T were the Carib and Arawaks. But I aint never seen a Carib or an Arawak. Further to all of that they were called Indians because they were believed to be the descendants of East Indians. They were the ones who made the way for you and your “civilization” (lol). I am sure your ancestors hands were dripping with their blood in Arima and other parts. Does that make you a mass murderer Yoruba, according to your logic –yes. According to my logic no because I am accountable for myself. Not my entire ancestral past… Nuff said.

    1. Ask any Hindu pundit the question “why am I Hindu?”. The answer you get will put paid to your entire line of argumentation.

      Shalom.

      1. “Ask any Hindu pundit the question “why am I Hindu?”. The answer you get will put paid to your entire line of argumentation”–Yoruba Israel.

        That Yoruba is again another one of your misguided concepts. Let me say people are not born Hindu, Yoruba, Muslim, Chinee, Christian, Jain, etc. People place these labels on them Yoruba. For instance if an African is born China is he Chinese? Or if a Chinese person is born in Africa is he African? The label must change to African-Chinese or Chinese-African or Africhin/Chinafri. To summarize whet I just said it is nothing but a label.

        Yoruba Israelite you have self identified as a Yoruba, people who came on the slave ship from West Africa. You have also identified as an Israelite meaning that you hold to the tenents of Judaism. Therefore your identity as a Trini does not exist. You prefer to identify with Africa and Zionism. I dont see your connection to Trinidad. Can you explain your connection to the mother land sweet T&T? Like the prof you connection to Africa remains strong. Personally my connect to T&T runs 5 generations, my ancestors built the T&T economy, yours ran away from rice and sugar plantations. Had it not been for rice and sugar Yoruba T&T would have not fared better than any African nation.

        1. Tread lightly Mamoo; your people didn’t build the T&T economy, your people helped the Colonials destroy T&T’s economy. My people didn’t come as indentured serfs, they came from Africa and integrated with the Native Amerindians. They cleared T&T’s forests to make it suitable for the mono-crop agriculture preferred by the Colonials. They were there when Cocoa ruled. They left because the Colonials instead of paying them a fare price for their Cocoa, the best in the world, chose instead to develop Cocoa plantations in Africa. So basically your people were no different than what is today called union busters, or scabs.

          My people had no need for rice nor sugar, just like your people had no need for crude. Truthfully, the Sugar industry for decades was being subsidized by the revenue generated from Oil. Funny how the so-called racist PNM government chose to support Cane farmers but left Cocoa farmers to scatter in the wind. I return to towns like Sangre Grande that my people’ built and all I see are drunken East Indians and an infrastructure that has been left to decay, so don’t come here talking about $hyt you know nothing about.

          This discourse is teaching me a lot; I’m beginning to understand why and how Europe, centuries behind Africa in development, came to surpass her. Africans just gave it away.

        2. Mamoo, you speak as someone who unfortunately glorifies ignorance.

          Among the Africans who were enslaved and sent to the Caribbean, the majority were Israelites. In fact, even today, more than 70% of the African population of sub-Saharan Africa are Israelites according to DNA studies.

          I attended a synagogue in North America where a white Jew from Europe did a presentation on these. His was not a warm welcome by far.

          In addition, and from my grand-parents, many people in T&T even today whose names are Niles, DePeiza, DeSouza, Gabriel, Nathaniel, Josephs, etc., are Jewish, at least in names.

          In my own family, growing in Morvant, today’s Nazareth for bad name among Trinis, we knew from our parents the dietary laws, and many other traditions passed down to us. Some followed, some did not.

          The ignorance which you exhibit is understandable, but not inexcusable–no ignorance is excusable, especially by one more than willing to express an opinion on a relevant matter.

          So, your characterization of Yoruba Israelite as being a “Zionist” sums up this ignorance of which I speak. Mind you, I do not speak–at least intentionally–in disdain, nor for reasons of malice in my description of your position.

          Finally, you might not know the following facts. In fact, many Trinis, including most African Trinis are unaware of the following: that the oldest synagogue in the Western Hemisphere is located in Barbados, and that in Barbados and in Guyana the Black people there have higher numbers of Israelites than anywhere else in this hemisphere (Brazil also, especially in Sao Paolo).

          Also, that Laperouse cemetery in Port of Spain, on the Wrightson Road side still has burial plots where “Jews” including my grand-parents have been buried.

          Shalom!

          1. Quoting neverdirty

            more than 70% of the African population of sub-Saharan Africa are Israelites according to DNA studies… I attended a synagogue in North America where a white Jew from Europe did a presentation on these.

            These DNA studies conducted and analysed by white Jews are useless. I have no problem with DNA science per se. But deployed to establish who has “Israelite” genes is less than useless, because to do so, you need a reference sample.

            The white Jews cannot be the source of such a reference sample, for the simple reason that they are not Israelites, i.e. of the seed of Israel. Those of Edomite strain are however of the seed of Isaac, so there will be resemblance in the DNA stemming from that. Those of Khazar and Samaritan/Sephardic (gentile) strains will also show some resemblance, because of mixing with the Edomite strain. But the simple fact is that modern “Jews” cannot be the proper reference sample for such a study.

            They would have to exhume Jacob’s bones if they are to work with the only proper referent.

            No. The Israelite identity of Afro-Creoles, and of many tribes still in Africa, cannot be established using the white Jew as the referent. Any incidental resemblance along the paternal line is due to the common ancestor, Isaac, of what is now a small proportion of today’s Jews, the Edomites.

            In addition, and from my grand-parents, many people in T&T even today whose names are Niles, DePeiza, DeSouza, Gabriel, Nathaniel, Josephs, etc., are Jewish, at least in names.

            Those of Jewish, as distinct from Israelite descent, may nevertheless be of the house of Israel. All slave descendants of the Americas may claim to be of the house of Israel, as a matter of choice, regardless whether paternity traces back elsewhere than Jacob.

            The son of the “stranger” may be grafted in, under Israelite law, if they physically mix with the Israelites and walk our walk with us.

            There was such a “mixed multitude” that came up with the Israelites out of Egypt, and the Law required that they obtain equal inheritance of land with seedline Israelites. However there were restrictions on joining the congregation of Israel. There were restrictions, even among seedline Israelites, on who could come into the temple and sanctuary. (But the priests with this privilege obtained no grant of land; Yahweh was their inheritance. I mention this because a priestocracy can be an oppressive thing, if filthy lucre comes into the picture along with religious law and precept.) My point though is that we the Afro-Creole need have no apprehensions based on what strains may have crept into our respective bloodlines.

            All of us who are walking the walk of the Israelite “sufferahs” in this land, and physically and culturally attached to the house of Israel, are Israelites. Some of us are Israelites by blood, meaning we have a paternal bloodline stretching back to the patriarch Jacob (I count myself in that category based on spiritual knowledge given to me); others are Israelite by grafting, either stretching back to the mixed multitude of the original Exodus, or stretching back only a few generations since arriving on these shores.

            Either way, Yahweh says that his house shall be a house of prayer for all people (Isaiah 56:6-7, Ezekiel 47:22).

            The Indo-Trini has that option, and some may well be entitled to call themselves Israelites also, some by grafting, and some by bloodline descent stretching back through India, along the paternal line from Jacob. For example, I remember being guided some time ago that the Samaroo family (of the Samaroo Jets steelband) is Israelite in origin, with Samaroo being a variant of Samuel.

            I am saying all that to end with this conclusion. Those of us who are Jews (i.e. Edomite, Khazar, or Sephardic/Samaritan) and descended from the white Jews who were the principal architects and beneficiaries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, may also nevertheless opt to attach to the true house of Israel, if they are grafted in, and for all practical purposes walk the walk, and share the joys, triumphs and sufferings of true Israelites.

            If they so identify, they may also be mere Jews, who “say they are Jews and are not,” as Christ described them, meaning to say that their patriarch is not Jacob (via Judah), as they claim or let others to assume. Most Jews who identify as “white” would obviously fall in this category.

            I hasten to add that it is not for me to tell anyone what their bloodline ancestry is. That would be presumptuous. So I speak in terms of broad scriptural knowledge and principle.

            The matter is important, since we the true Israelites have lost our identity as prophesied (Jeremiah 17:4, Deuteronomy 28:64, Genesis 15:13-14). In these end-times it is a matter of urgency that we reclaim it.

            As we do so, it is important that we do not let the question of our identity end with some vague statement or understanding that well, we are “African”. That’s not enough.

            The simple fact is that our enslavement is the single most important event that has shaped the globe over the last 400 years, and it did not escape God’s knowledge and attention. As a matter of fact, we the Afro-Creoles are the people spoken of in the Book, from Genesis to Revelation. We are the Israelites who are at the center of God’s plan, and who will inherit the kingdom. You may hear, or forebear.

            Shalom.

  11. Mamoo Wrote
    Further to all of that they were called Indians because they were believed to be the descendants of East Indians. They were the ones who made the way for you and your “civilization” (lol). I am sure your ancestors hands were dripping with their blood in Arima and other parts. Does that make you a mass murderer Yoruba, according to your logic –yes. According to my logic no because I am accountable for myself. Not my entire ancestral past… Nuff said.

    Bollocks. That just demonstrates how damn backward you really are. The indigenous peoples of the Americas are called Amerindians because Columbus set out for India and when he found himself in the Americas anyone he met there had to be Indian to avoid Ferdinand and Isabelle of Spain who financed his journey from severing his head. There was never any intellectual speculation or theory that the Indigenous peoples of the Americas were the descendants of East Indians. This capacity to fabricate data that has no foundation is the sordid manifestations of your deceitful and backward reasonings.

    We do not have to prove a T&T identity to you. For one thing, we predate you in these parts. Secondly, you claim a link to Arab and Indian and then have the gumption to challenge Africans claim to their motherland. You really are a piece of excrement.

    Our connection to T&T reside in graveyards, struggles, enforced labor and paid up costs that predated the arrival of your ancestors. Your ancestors did not build the T&T economy. You did not start agriculture. Your ancestors landed on wharves that were built by ours. They settled into work areas that were developed by ours. To the same extent you go to the US and reap the benefits of the struggles of Africans without paying a cost, you reap the benefits of the blood, sweat and tears of the ancestors of Aficans in T&T. Your inability to count before a particular point and time seem to be a trait that is genetic.

    Examine this world and what is around that benefit human kind, and document what your ancestors contributed. You generally arrive after the battle is over to share in the spoils of victory. You do have the honour of belonging to the ethnicity and culture that introduced institutionalised racism into human stratification. In that context, you were more developed in this context than even the Europeans, who piggy backed on that and refined it, but really just followed the play book developed by your ancestors line by line.

  12. Keith Williams wrote “We do not have to prove a T&T identity to you. For one thing, we predate you in these parts..”
    “The British census of 1803 counted 28,000 people, a tenfold increase in 20 years; of these, there were 20,464 slaves, 5,275 free nonwhites, and 2,261 whites. About half of the free people and most of the slaves spoke French, and the rest of the population was divided between Spanish and English speakers. The Amerindian population continued to decline, with several hundred members scattered in rural settlements”.–Library of Congress.

    Trinidad did not have a large slave population. In fact many of the slaves were island imports, long after slavery after the 1956 elections over 50,000 islanders were imported into sweet T&T. Many more came from Grenada, in fact there were more Grenadians in T&T than in Grenada. They settled mainly in Port of Spain and Point Fortin. They were given ID cards and told to vote PNM. Of course the PNM stole all elections after that by fixing the boundaries.

    I suspect Williams that your ancestors were those who came by the boat in the 1950s hence your apprehension to disclose your roots. Many islanders I find to be amongst the racist of the lot.

    As for clearing the pathway. The British opened up many more sugar estates after Emancipation. The land was abandoned by the slaves and the indentured labourers took on the task of building the T&T economy. The land they lived on were lands that were abhored by the slaves because it identified in their mind with suffering.

    I am not saying that the contributions of the African is anything less than anyone else in T&T. I am sure your are very proud of your heritage as you should be. I am just trying to correct some of your errors.

    1. Excerpt from Race Relations in Colonial Trinidad 1870-1900: Bridget Brereton

      “The Rise of a coloured Black Middle Class”

      “There was a small group of families of mixed African and European descent who were descendants of the French free people of colour settled in Trinidad since the 1780s. Secondly, there were the people both black and coloured who can be described as ‘self-made.’ They were the descendants of the Trinidad ex-slaves, or of ‘liberated’ African immigrants, or of immigrants from the Eastern Caribbean… or Venezuelan immigrants of Spanish-African-Amerindian descent.”

      Consider the difference between 1780 (established presence of Africans and African descendant peoples on the isle of T&T) and 1845 (established arrival time for Indians). In addition Indian’s weren’t brought to settle the Island they were brought as migrant workers, much different than even the emancipated African slaves who arrived between 1838 and 1845; translation there would be no established community of East Indians until the late 19th Century.

      It is no wonder that during my time in Primary school government workers had to constantly drag little East Indian children away from their parents farms in order to give them an education; and this is the thanks Africans get. I suggest they tread lightly because Trinidad is shaping up to become the next Uganda. The next Idi Amin is being born in those Trinidad slums as we speak, and as history proves it doesn’t end well. If Trinidad is your home Mamoo, try learning and respecting her history; appreciate those shoulders of the Giants on which you stand and maybe your children won’t be scattered to the four wind.

    2. MMoo, you really need to read your history before making the statements you do, for example, ‘the slaves abandoning the plantations because they were reminded of slavery.’

      The former slaves did not abandon the plantations. They were forced off the land by edicts in 1838 by the Colonial Office by which Crown lands formerly available to anyone who could occupy and farm it for at least 30 years in order to acquire ownership, was now to be sold to former slaves for one pound sterling per acre.

      This was to avoid, “demand for wages for labour” from plantation ownerss who still demanded of the Black people that they labour as before. Tghe resistaance of the former slaves were the only reason, not the main reason, but the only reason why your forparents–if sent before the second war–were indentured. Theere would be no Indian Arrival were it not for African resistance and |Emancipation.

      Also, while the former slaves were forced, while impoverished, to pay for the lands they had ploughed and openedd up, the Indians were bribed to come by being given five acres per person who stayed.

      These are the historical and unequivocal facts; facts which too many Indians–not all–want to change by way of revisions of T&T’s history. They must valkidate to themselves, even more than a century after this injustice, their presence here. They are being aided aand abetted by the facts that a big lie, repeated and not countered becomes the eventual ‘truth’. How many of your radio stations, politicians and scholars dare speak the truth, not to the population of T&T, but to themselves and their children?

  13. What is extremely interesting about this debate is that as we go back and forth on issues, the Chinese and Indians are infiltrating every part of Africa and being welcomed as entrepreneurs, investors and capitalists. They are also buying up prime agricultural land. The Indian government is presently funding projects in Egypt,Botswana, Guinea,Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Zambia, to name a few.In addition, private Indian firms and individuals are making heavy investments in many African countries.
    The African countries do not seem to be too worried.

    Indians in T&T are not going to be too concerned if the PP is tossed out of office.The community will continue to prosper and assert its economic and professional power.
    The loss of government seems to be a major traumatic event for the PNM and its supporters because of the dependence on reaping the political harvest and the apparent inability to prosper economically and professionally as a cohesive group.That loss of power and the toll which it is taking on many is reflected in the barrage of antagonistic commentary and hateful vitriol which is being spewed on this blog and other media sources.

    1. I’m betting that Africans in Uganda and elsewhere will not soon forget Amin and what he stood for; so I doubt you Punjabis are better situated in Africa than the Qinaman. Further; Ghandi’s history in South Africa is now public record, so consider any in-roads India makes as temporary. Nothing will be different, much like their cousins the Dom/Roma the Punjabi will always overstay their welcome.

    2. “What is extremely interesting about this debate is that as we go back and forth on issues, the Chinese and Indians are infiltrating every part of Africa and being welcomed as entrepreneurs, investors and capitalists. They are also buying up prime agricultural land.”T- Man.
      This welcoming spirit T-Man ,speaks more to the none racist mindset, of Global Afrikans , often to their detriment.
      You conveniently forgot to add one vital thing Cuz T, which is that Indians, Chinese , Arabs ,and Europeans , and similar fringe tribes , have been and remain welcome by our African women as well, while the conniving bastard , of the aforementioned groups ,will quicker kill their own women , and girl children ,as opposed to allowing them to do the same with said Africans male counterparts- for some strange reasons.
      Fortunately in Sweet, Sweet, T&T , aka Rainbow country, we do not have that problem , as attested by our rapidly growing, though confuse demographics- .
      Not certain if it’s a good thing however. We will let time be the judge, come next election , ent?

  14. Quoting Mamoo:

    You have also identified as an Israelite meaning that you hold to the tenents of Judaism. Therefore your identity as a Trini does not exist. You prefer to identify with Africa and Zionism. I dont see your connection to Trinidad. Can you explain your connection to the mother land sweet T&T? Like the prof you connection to Africa remains strong.

    Quoting Tman:

    How could you be so biased against people with whom you live, interact, breathe and share space with every day. I say “good morning” to my neighbors every day with a clear conscience. But, the possibility exists that you do not live in T&T,…

    My Indo interlocutors want to know my connection to T&T. I will stifle my indignation that they feel they have a right to question my connectedness to this land. My family came here and founded one of the company villages that was set up in virgin forest ca. 1815. Before that, my ancestors were somewhere in America — one of my ancestors carried the name “Billy, Potomac” because he was picked up on the Potomac river, somewhere in the Washington DC/Maryland/Virginia area. Others were sent to Nova Scotia, the Bahamas, Jamaica, St. Vincent, Barbados, Sierra Leone, and other places.

    Therefore, the Afro-Creoles of my family were scattered to the Americas at latest by the early 1800s, and at earliest, the early 1600s, when the first slave boat landed in Jamestown, Virginia.

    I am of the seventh generation of my family in T&T, which puts me two generations before Mamoo, and he most likely is one of the early Indian arrivals. In my family, we were literate and accomplished long before the first Indian arrival. We took up weapons and fought for our freedom in America, before coming here to Trinidad as “‘Merikins”. We are a genteel family, but my father and grandfather both were of fierce spirit, definitely not the lick-bottom sort, and both suffered for it. I likewise.

    Therefore, I do not mince words. I speak plainly the truth as I know it.

    My issue with the Indo population in T&T is not a matter of petty bias. My issue precisely is the issue formulated by Prof. Cudjoe, namely the hidden agenda, except I do not believe it to be so hidden. As a young boy, one of my Indo friends told me that the pundits that came around smoking ganja and huddling with the Indian families were telling them to “buy land, and sell only to other Indians” because “he who owns the land owns the country”. So the plan was afoot way back then, the late 50s. It is a plan consciously to beggar thy neighbor. This was the “recalcitrant” minority of which Dr. Williams spoke. I believe the vast majority of the Indo population to go along with the hidden agenda. There is none in public life that speaks out against it, or repudiates it, except perhaps for the odd Muslim. Raffique Shah comes close. But that’s about it.

    Be that as it may, I am called to speak to the scriptural and prophetic aspects of things, not just in T&T, but the world, and especially as it pertains to the scattered house of Israel, of which the Afro-Creole of the Americas is part.

    That the Afro-Creole is Israelite is not a matter of opinion or belief, but knowledge. The people that call themselves Jews, and now occupy the land of Israel, are the impostors spoken of by Christ (Revelation 2:9, 3:9, John 8:44) and Daniel (11:14). They control our holy books and records because we were scattered out of that land, as prophesied by Moses (Deuteronomy 28:64). And we have no handed-down knowledge of our status as Israelites because we lost our heritage as prophesied (Jeremiah 17:4). We lost even our names.

    Our enslavement likewise was in fulfillment of curses put upon us (Deuteronomy 28:68) by God for our disobedience (Deu. 28:15). And our present condition and history in the Americas is in fact a sign (Deuteronomy 28:46) that confirms our Israelite identity.

    We have Israelite brothers in tribes across the length and breadth of Africa, “beyond the rivers of Ethiopia” (Zephaniah 3:10). Many Israelites are therefore African in that sense, but are Shemites, while most Africans are Hamites, descended from one or other of Ham’s four sons — Kush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. Mizraim (Egypt) was our original land of bondage from which Yahweh brought us up. And various Hamite tribes had a hand in selling us into slavery, some the descendants of ancient Mizraim (e.g. Wolof of Senegal), as did some black Shemitic tribes such as Hebrew Edomites (e.g. Idoma, Akan (Genesis 36:27)), and Abrahamic Ishmaelites (Arabs), operating in places like Sudan, Zanzibar, and even in West Africa.

    In addressing these matters, I am called first to speak to my brethren, the children of Israel. I am tasked to “cry aloud, spare not, lift up my voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression” (Isaiah 58:1). My people are guilty of many transgressions. They routinely violate the 1st commandment, the 2nd commandment, the 3rd commandment, the 4th commandment, and the 5th commandment. The Xtians who think they are least in need of instruction are the most guilty. They eat pork. Many are uncircumcised. (That may do for heathen Xtians, but not for Afro-Creoles, since we are subject to the Abrahamic covenant.) In fact, except for their violation of the 4th commandment, Afro-Creole Muslims are more likely to be righteous in the sight of God than are Xtians. But I do not hate Xtian Afro-Creoles, and I do not have a “bias” against them. They are my brethren. If I lift up my voice to them it is my intention to bring to them the truth that I am sent to give them.

    As to the Indo-Trini, I am again called upon to prophesy. I am like Jonah sent to Nineveh. He prophesied doom to Nineveh, but because king and people put on sackcloth and ashes, and repented of their sins (Jonah 3:6), the prophesied doom did not materialize. All prophecies of doom are conditional. What happens depends on the response. That is why, in all my pronouncements of woe, I hasten to mention that repentance and atonement may yet be accepted by God.

    If the response is denial, or hilarity, or sniggering, or the Rig Veda is older than your bible so we know better, etc., you can be sure that the doom prophesied precisely will be the result. This is the situation of the Indo-Trini today and their not-so-well-hidden agenda. It is a beggar-thy-neighbor, Babylonian agenda accompanied by arrogance and conceit. Moreover it is the behavior of an ungrateful wretch. And God has condemned it (2 Esdras 15:46-49 as already quoted on this blog).

    Assuredly, it shall come to pass that heathens will cling in their numbers to Israelite coattails saying “we will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you” (Zechariah 8:23). The slanderers, the conceited, the arrogant, and the partakers of Babylon system will be unlikely to get a sympathetic response.

    I am here to tell my Indo countrymen that nothing escapes God. And everything important that is happening in the world today has been prophesied. The Indo-Trini falls into the category “Asian” for purposes of the scripture I have been quoting. God has an issue with you. Prof. Cudjoe, and I, and thousands of other Afro-Creole Trinis, can bear witness against you. In fact our cry has reached up to Heaven. And God’s pronouncement upon you, as for Nineveh, is “woe”. You may hear, like Nineveh, or forbear. The choice is up to you.

    The response thus far of my Indo interlocutors is to prove the scripture. Their conceit and arrogance (“art the glory of her person”) is evident. One, clearly no friend of the goodly Professor, calls him familiarly by first name. He condescends to call me “literate” while suggesting how loving he is to all his neighbors, and how I would be too if only I lived in T&T. Meantime there is a good chance that my grandfather the school principal taught his father. (Reminds me of Vidia Naipaul, that ungrateful wretch, who does not acknowledge his Afro-Creole teachers such as CLR James). Their embrace of Babylon values is also evident in their scant regard for the Afro-Creole “host” civilization that granted them succour upon Indian arrival. One is dazzled by Asian economic “success”, oblivious to the slave-like conditions suffered by Chinese labor (as we saw right here in T&T with the workers from Shanghai), and dalit serfdom and subjugation in India.

    They do not know it, but the terms of participation offered to them by the Father of our nation, Dr. Eric Williams, were the best that they could hope to get in the eyes of a watchful and just God. The invitation was to find space under the roof of Afro-Creole civilization, and there find an equal place, eschewing Mother India, and embracing only Mother T&T. Instead they held fast to Mother India, and built up a rival house to subdue or supplant the Afro-Creole civilization that succoured them upon arrival. One considers even the mention of the term “Afro-Creole civilization” something to snigger at, i.e. “lol” (sic).

    I am here to say that God has a problem with that. And he has a problem also with the Afro-Creole quislings ready not only to put a stranger over us in violation of God’s law (Deuteronomy 17:15), but also even to facilitate the destruction of the house our ancestors gave blood to build. I leave it to Cro Cro to add additional items to the charge sheet.

    Be all that as it may, my task is to blow the trumpet. I do so now making it clear that I do so as a servant of the Most High.

    To the Indo-Trini, I am as a Jonah in Nineveh. To the Afro-Trini, who is Israelite whether he knows it or not, I am as Isaiah, crying aloud and showing my people their transgressions.

    In either case, the point is not to condemn — for only the Most High has that power — rather to warn, so that appropriate action might be taken to avoid the doom that would then otherwise be inevitable. The Most High God, Yahweh, is a God of love and mercy, yes, but he is also a God of justice and retribution. Those who make of us (the Afro-Creole) a spoil, and those who eat of the devil’s bread, will pay a heavy price. The time for that reckoning is not far off.

    Shalom.

    Jonah 3:8-10
    8But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. 9Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? 10And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.

  15. As for the Israelite and the Hindu; your argument is a circular one; the origin of your religious ideology is the same: Abraham = Brahman and Sarah = Saraswati.

    1. Quoting karibkween:

      As for the Israelite and the Hindu; your argument is a circular one; the origin of your religious ideology is the same: Abraham = Brahman and Sarah = Saraswati.

      I have admired your other contributions, but here you are mistaken.

      Even if Abraham = Brahman and Sarah = Saraswati, so what? The fake Jews go further and claim for themselves Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Jacob, without any veils needing to be uncovered. They even claim to worship the same God, though perhaps for good reason, they dare not utter the name Yahweh.

      Yet they, the fake Jews, are called out by Yeshua (Christ). “Ye are of your father the devil” he tells them. He also says to us, “I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are of the synagogue of Satan.” Etc. (I have cited chapter and verse elsewhere in case you wish to look it up.)

      My point is that those with the devil’s seed in them can take something good and righteous, and twist it beyond all recognition.

      Any Johnny-come-lately can come to T&T, and claim to be “Trini 2 d bone”, while the original Trini has to strain mightily to see any resemblance.

      No my sister, you need to be more discerning. We the Afro-Creole are true Israelites. That is a simple statement of fact. We cannot run from it because an alien people are in our house, stinking up the place.

      They are in fact the chief perpetrators of Babylon system today. Asia are relative late-comers to Babylon system in its modern manifestations — land and labor theft through political, economic, and financial trickery, and social and religious subjugation.

      Tman is so caught up in it, he is unable to see how he convicts China and India both, as they go about their neo-colonial adventures in Africa and elsewhere, however deceptively cloaked. It is Babylon redux. God lays out a simple but incisive charge against them: “they are partakers of the hope of Babylon”. And they have followed “her that is hated in all her works and inventions”. Moreover, they are “the glory of her person”, i.e. conceited and arrogant.

      Yahweh’s words are truly like a hammer, that breaketh rocks into small pieces. The Indo-Trini stands convicted as charged. Not by me. But by God. Are there exceptions? Maybe. Lot and his two daughters escaped the judgment on Sodom when it came. So God will take care of the exceptions. But he promises woe to them, as he promised woe to Sodom. He also promised woe to us, the true Israelite, now Afro-Creole of the Americas, when we transgressed his righteous law, and as a scattered people in captivity, our feet have known no rest for over 2,500 years.

      So any pronouncement of woe by God should be taken seriously, and the Indo-Trini is so advised.

      But please. Any word resemblance between Abraham and Brahman does not render equal the Israelite and the Hindu in terms of behavior. Nor are the Israelite and the Talmudic Jew equal. Scripture promises very different destinies for both. It is our turn to rule next. But we are to do so in righteousness, and in a total repudiation of Babylon system in all its forms.

      Shalom.

  16. The loss of government seems to be a major traumatic event for the PNM and its supporters because of the dependence on reaping the political harvest and the apparent inability to prosper economically and professionally as a cohesive group.That loss of power and the toll which it is taking on many is reflected in the barrage of antagonistic commentary and hateful vitriol which is being spewed on this blog and other media sources.

    When you become cognizant that claims that Indians developed T&T, thus relegating Africans to passengers on the growth and development of our twin Island Republic, your indignation will be seen for more than the deceitful and ego masturbatory venting it really amount to be. Africans are concerned because they can detect and discern the inherrent supremacist slant that inundate the perspective of some Indians, especially those like you. They can also recognize what I have been pointing out all along. That your purpose on this blog is to silence to any response to the cultural racial supremecist predispositions that reveal themselves in fabrications that East Indians built T&T so that that version will remain unchallenged to massage your insufferable racist ego.

    Yes Africans are welcoming to every stranger to their continent. Like I have written on innumerable occasions, we have no legacy of cultural and religious belief systems that exclude based on race. In addition. India Forays into Africa is subjective and based on getting access to resources that nation do not have. Do not give us this BS about India helpinh Africans. India stands to gain more from its adventurisms in Africa than Africans from its presence there. India is by no means a developed nation when three quarters of its population, amounting to more than the entire population of any single nation in the world with the exception of China, live in squalor and poverty.

    I belong to the African diasporian family, and this intrusion of India into Africa is not in any means being viewed without suspicions. Already in Liberia the new president had to change the conditions on an Indian Led Steel conglomerate that sought to do exactly what the white man had done for generations in Africa. On the Western Cape of South Africa there is acute consciousness and protest over the racist behaviour of Indians in that area. Not to mention what goes on in Eastern African nations.

    Africans will fare no better if they allow India to replace the colonial masters of the past. In fact they will fare worse. Because what we can see when we examine the shared prejudices of these two groups is that while they are equal in the historical realm of institunalized racism, there is a sophistication and intellectuality that allows broad spectrum of the white population to rise above those prejudice, but this does not exist among Indians. You are more likely to see whites joining Africans in their struggles and activisms against racism, than you are likely to see East Indians doing like wise. And that is the yard stick black people must begin to use when making judgements on the level of trust we have for groups.

    1. Who speaks for these?

      http://www.gowanusbooks.com/white.htm

      WHITE LIKE ME: By Anthony Milne

      “With the sea change in public affairs that has occurred in the last two and a half years since an Indian-dominated government took over, we’ve begun to hear increasingly loud complaints from Indo-Trinidadians about black racism during the forty-odd years beginning just before independence in 1962. This was also a concern expressed during the Malborough House conference in London that originally gave us that independence. And it’s not just Indians who worry. The rest of us have often felt the same way but haven’t dared to speak out.

      One of my relatives, of Portuguese descent, remarked: “It’s not our money they want, it’s our souls.” He meant that the then black ruling class wanted to undermine the self-confidence of local whites.

      I don’t mean to suggest that local whites are all saints. I am sorry to say there are some who express racist views, just as do African- and Indian-Trinidadians. (I say “local white” and not “French creole”, though the two terms have in some people’s minds become synonymous and wide-ranging. Probably most local whites are French creole or have some link to them. And some French creoles, whether they like it or not, have a drop of the Congo in their Seine.)

      On November 24, 1783 (French creole Arrival Day?) the Spanish promulgated a Real Cedula para la Poblacion y Comercio de la Isla de Trinidad de Barlovento (“Royal Decree for the Population and Commerce of the Island of Trinidad”; “barlovento” simply meant “windward”). This second Cedula dealt specifically with Trinidad, and French settlers began coming here with their slaves in much greater numbers after 1783. They came with French-speaking free blacks and mulattos who held their own slaves. Grants of land were based on the size of families and the number of slaves they owned, though free black and coloured landowners, no matter how many slaves they owned, were only allowed half the land that whites were. That, essentially, was how the first French creoles–the first local whites, except for a few Spaniards–settled in Trinidad. Others came later: soldiers in the British forces that captured Trinidad in 1797 and republicans fleeing from royalist French forces.

      Some of the old family names eventually died and new ones were introduced. Some are still familiar today: de Gannes, de la Bastide, Beaubrun, Le Gendre, de Gourville, de la Foret, de Boissiere, Peschier, Cazabon, Rochard, Vincent, Cipriani, Bernard and Borde. Irish, Germans and a few English came too and, like some of the Spanish, married into the French families, which is why today some true-true French creoles don’t have French names. After the English took over, Scots and English came too, not to mention Portuguese, Syrians, Lebanese and Chinese.

      Any equal-opportunity legislation must apply to the descendants of these people–at least twenty percent of Trinidad and Tobago’s population–and as Trinidadian as anybody else.”

      1. Quoting karibkween quoting A.A. Milne “White Like Me”

        …Any equal-opportunity legislation must apply to the descendants of these people–at least twenty percent of Trinidad and Tobago’s population–and as Trinidadian as anybody else.

        In scriptural terms, Dr. Eric Williams’ “Mother T&T” formulation was just and righteous, only a little too generous in its Westminster assumptions.

        What does scripture require?

        1) One tribe is given to be in charge. In the case of the house of Israel, that tribe is Judah. One family sits on the throne. This is a system of monarchy. And Israel is not permitted under the Law to have a “stranger” sit on the throne (Deuteronomy 17:15).

        2) The stranger in the midst must not be oppressed. The precept is clearly and succinctly expressed thus: “Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 22:21).

        From these two principles, it is a short leap to the formulation by Eric Williams of his Mother T&T policy, which asked for loyalty to Mother T&T from all citizens, and promised all an equal place in return.

        That is more than scripture requires. For scripture does not contemplate two-party contention for political power, in a set-up where what is really in issue is a clash of civilizations.

        Where there is a host civilization, the stranger, i.e. the Johnny-come-lately, should make few demands other than to be treated fairly and without oppression.

        Under Westminster democracy, Indo contention for power in Fiji succeeded, albeit only for a time, at the expense of the rights of the host, rights clearly implied in scripture. In Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew put in place a kind of concordat that put certain areas off-limits for political discourse, e.g. race and religion, but in effect guaranteed Chinese rule, while granting fair treatment (non-oppression) to all other groups. In T&T, the PNM of Eric Williams never came to grips with just how far the “every creed and race” formulation should be taken under Westminster democracy. The recalcitrant minority proved too recalcitrant.

        So the host tribe, that should have the right to rule, simply gave it up, to another tribe that showed scant regard for the host civilization, and is in fact hard at work (the hidden agenda) setting things up so that they remain unchallenged ever again. Meantime, unlike in Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore, there are clear indications that “beggar thy neighbor” policies and actions are in play. I won’t list them here.

        So by the example of Fiji, and Singapore, Dr. Williams was too generous with the recalcitrant minority. And by scriptural precept, we would have been perfectly justified in ensuring that no challenge ever was mounted to the house the Afro-Creole built in these parts.

        I come now to the French-Creole, and “what about them?”

        Well the same scriptural principles apply, but additional factors come in.

        1) Slave society was unjust, unfair and moreover cruel.

        2) Continued rule by “massa” was therefore simply not on. It was illegitimate. And they were a small minority. So power had to pass to the Afro-Creole, the element which put the social and cultural stamp on this civilization which we created with not a little blood, sweat and tears, along with huge helpings of talent, creativity, and a natural inclination to fair play and fair-mindedness, despite all.

        3) But passing power over to the formerly enslaved is not sufficient. Scripture requires repentance. It also requires reparations:

        Isaiah 42:22
        But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore.

        There is no real repentance without reparations. The French-Creole in the society is in no position to ask anything of Mother T&T until they first Restore that which was taken from the Afro-Creole.

        4) In the absence of that settling of accounts, judgment is left up to God. The rules for this are simple:

        a. We pay first for our own individual sins. That applies to everybody.

        b. In addition, we pay for the sins of our king (i.e. tribal leadership) invariably because we become partakers unless individually we repudiate leadership that is wicked. See 1 Kings 14:16.

        c. In addition, we pay for the sins of our ancestors, because we become culturally bound by their iniquity, and because we become partakers of ancestral sins through inheritance. The son of the slave master who inherits the proceeds of ill-gotten wealth — land theft and labor theft in one form or another — is partaker of the sin of the forefathers.

        Therefore, the French-Creole has a huge meal of humble pie awaiting, unless there is genuine repentance, which requires reparation.

        This is the sense of the story told in the Gospels of Christ and the rich man (Matthew 19:21). There is nothing per se wrong with being rich; what may be wrong with it is how the riches are obtained. Under Babylon system, almost every rich man is enjoying, directly or indirectly, the proceeds of land theft and/or labor theft. So when Christ told the rich young man to give all his riches to the poor and follow him, he was not establishing a precept that one needs to be poor to be righteous, but rather that where riches have been ill obtained, the only way to fulfill the requirement of true repentance is to give it away, and thereby find God’s forgiveness for sin (treasure in heaven).

        The moral there should be clear. But this is between the French-Creole and God, individually and collectively.

        As to social and political policy, the question hardly arises. No one has sought or extracted any reparations from French-Creoles. As a class they are hardly on the bread line. As a class they are more likely to be employer than employee. And as employees they are hardly likely to face discrimination when seeking employment. So what’s the problem?

        Shalom.

  17. Well, it’s been a really long time since i’ve actually commented on this blog but it’s always the same old story about race man! Why do you people take on Selwyn Cudjoe and his ridiculous rantings about race so seriously? I think the guy has paranoid personality disorder. I picked that up since i was in 4th year medical school. I cant believe the lengths you people would go to criticize one another’s race and religion to prove what? That one superior to the other? That Cudjoe is King of African Empowerment? You all like this history thing to explain everything eh! Well hear this! Every race made and is still making significant contributions to the development of T&T in all sectors of the economy and if people like Cudjoe want to keep living in the past and write dotish articles about how much Hindu, Christian, Afro,Indo, Chinee or whoever in the government, well let him continue living in the past. I didnt see him writing articles like this on behalf of East Indians when the PNM administration was in power! It real different when the tables take a twist eh! That’s why don’t get bogged down with people like Selwyn Cudjoe and Sat Maharaj! You will get grey listening to them! I am one proud kinky head Afro-trini who could say that people of all races and religions shaped my life into what i am currently, from nurturing me as a child straight up to being a doctor and still nurturing me. I would never go as low to criticize any one race as some of the comments I am seeing for this article. The tone of these comments make you people sound very insecure about yourselves, but moreso, it makes me wonder how much interaction you people have with races/religions other than your own! It always boils down to an argument about Africa and India to just make one feel more bad than the other! I say Afro-Trinis cannot survive without Indo-Trinis and vice versa. Who think otherwise, well keep the thoughts to yourselves!!

  18. Emancipation Proclamation.

    I came across the distant sea to a land I never knew,
    The journey was long and tiresome as time only grew.
    There on the planations of Trinidad my life began,
    The whip of the white man I could not understand.
    Each day my burden grew and grew
    This life I could not construe.
    Until the freedom bells began to peel,
    Across the land slavery soon to be repealed
    Today the blood of my ancestors seem so far,
    A distant past I see where a people became free.
    The voice of their determination, fills my imagination,
    I think of all their sacrifice to make a life in emancipation.
    And now I rejoice in this unfettered freedom,
    A prominent citizen in this wonderful nation.
    So let us rejoice together in the bond of hope,
    And remember through their difficulties we learned to cope.

    Dedicated to my African family… Lets keep the ties that bind strong in the bond of love.

  19. Do posters understand why the difference between some Muslim-Indo-Trinidadians and the Hindu-Indo-Trinidadians?

    There might have been muslims who came as indentured serfs; but quite a few of them came as merchants from the Middle East after the British gained control of the island. They were among the Syrians; Lebonese, and Saudi Arabians. Some married into East Indian families where Money and Land United. Middle Eastern muslims were just as happy to marry Muslim-African-Trinidadians as they were to marry Muslim-Indian-Trinadians. Much like Catholicism being the uniter among the Latins (French, Spanish, Portuguese, Canary Islanders) Islam was the uniter of Arabs, Africans and some East Indians.

    I can remember an Indian-Trinidadian neighbor lamenting about his grand-children’s disregard for their religion; all except for his Doughla grand-children. Many of those with the name Ali; Aziz; or Mohammed can trace their ancestry to the arrival of the ‘free’ Middle Eastern merchant class that came with the British.

  20. If Manning wouldn’t have lost focus, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. He gave his position away by not leading the country forward transparently.

  21. it is interesting to note that jack Warner (phenotypically African) was instrumental in the formation of the PP and in the elevation of mrs. Bissessar to political prominence. Jack’s actions were altruistic and mirrored genuine concern for a better Trinidad and Tobago nevertheless he was in for a rude awakening. The reality is that ethnic politics and machivellian realpolitik still is the order of the day.
    The question that we should ask ourselves is : Why is there such an absence of genuine statesmanship and true patriotism in this country?
    It seems to me that there is serious mistrust between the two major races in Trinidad and Tobago and this mistrust has led to unfairness and injustice on both sides. The new paradigm should be a call to transparency and accountability in governance and the disbursement of public funds.
    As it appears the East indian intelligentsia are in a non-violent war of dominance and control against the Africans and non-indians in the country. Their agenda is economic,political,educational, and spiritual control of Trinidad and Tobago. Of course they cannot do this on their own. There cause is helped by men like Jack Warner and others of that ilk. They also are helped along by the war (violent) that Africans are waging among themselves. To the extent that Africans reject spirituality,education,morality,fatherhood and unity of economic institutions and support we are unwitting supporters of the agenda of the Hindu/Indian intelligentsia.

    Thank you.

  22. Trinidad and Tobago is in a critical stage of its development if there are two contending forces then it is axiomatic that one will benefit at the expense of the other. It is also unfortunately true that the policy of “by any means necessary will be employed” Follow with me the this scenario :

    Race A seeks to destroy and weaken Race B Race A has the capacity to subvert the judicial process, Control the ecomomy through manipulations of prices in the private sector,Control the disbursement of loans to entrepreneurs,Limit access of students to certain key professions, Influence the media directly and indirectly,and increase their holdings in RealEstate and property holdings. Race B has some of these capacities but on a factorial of say 50% of race A. Race B now compounds their defeat by disunity,infighting and a Licentious non-intellectual culture. The result Race A wins and will continue to do so until Enlightenment,and serious self-consciousness comes to Race B.

    Thank you.

    1. Quoting Roger Morales:

      The result Race A wins and will continue to do so until Enlightenment,and serious self-consciousness comes to Race B.

      Based on the logic you have advanced, this conclusion is only as valid as the assumptions that went into it.

      The axiom that you left out is the only one that counts in the end: the God axioms as expressed through unerring prophecy.

      1) God has pronounced woe on “Asia” for sins precisely exemplified by the Indo in T&T — see earlier contributions to this blog for more detail.

      2) God has promised to redeem the scattered Israelites — including the Afro-Creole, which as a group fulfills all the curses that had been placed on (true) Israel, and by which we would be identified. As Israelites, the Afro-Creole shall inherit the kingdom of God on earth, as we emerge from the “woe” that we have suffered for over 2,500 years.

      3) The majority of us will be cut off and die before that happens (Zechariah 13:8). This will take care of the licentious, and others who eat the devil’s food in one way or another.

      4) Those who afflicted us will be judged and we will come out with great substance (Genesis 15:13-14).

      5) Their kings and queens will lick up the dust of our feet (Isaiah 49:23), that’s how completely the tables will turn.

      6) God has made our condition as hopeless seeming as it is, to glorify his own name, so that all may know that our redemption will be the work of God (Isaiah 52:5-6, Jeremiah 23:7-8), not something wrought by our own strength. This follows the pattern of the Israelite Exodus out of ancient Egypt, where not only did Yahweh (God) redeem two million souls out of bondage, but did it in a way that left no doubt that it was only by Act of God, not by the strength of an essentially defenseless people. So shall it be again this time around.

      Shalom.

      1. Yoruba Israelite says —“The axiom that you left out is the only one that counts in the end: the God axioms as expressed through unerring prophecy.
        1) God has pronounced woe on “Asia” for sins precisely exemplified by the Indo in T&T — see earlier contributions to this blog for more detail.”

        Yoruba your “prophetic utterances” is amusing to say the least. It gets even more amusing as time goes by, but I am sure you are man who have convinced yourself of certain ideas and there is nothing anyone can say to turn “your ship around”. Here is an example of what I am saying.
        Admiral “move out of my way”
        Response “sorry sir can’t move”
        Admiral ” I am a US battleship armed with harpoon missiles and a squadron of fighter planes”
        Response “I am a lighthouse, your move”

  23. Mamoo:

    It is your choice whether you hear or forebear. But God will not be mocked. So be of no doubt as to the seriousness of your position (1 Chronicles 16:22, Psalm 105:15).

    Shalom.

    Amos 7:14-15
    14Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit: 15And Yahweh took me as I followed the flock, and Yahweh said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.

    1. Amos 7:14-15
      14Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit: 15And Yahweh took me as I followed the flock, and Yahweh said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel

      Yoruba, Amos is one of the minor prophets in the Bible sent to prophesy to the Jews. I fail to see your connection with Amos since he existed in the post exhilic period of Jewish history. But keep us entertained.

      1. I fail to see your connection with Amos

        Let me then spell it out for you. Like Amos was called, so was I called. I am a servant of Yahweh.

        What I write is not out of the imagination of my heart, which is why I back what I say with scripture.

        So I repeat my warning to you: (i) God is not mocked (Galatians 6:7); and (ii) he says of his servants “touch not mine anointed” (1 Chronicles 16:22, Psalm 105:15).

        I hope that is clear to you now.

        Shalom.

        PS. For your information, Amos’s ministry was pre-exilic (ca. 750 BCE), not post-exilic. And he was of the northern kingdom, therefore not “Jewish”, period.

  24. IT will always be difficult for any country to develop economically and socially with two races so dominant in terms of numbers. And this is very much evident by each and everyone of your views. Barbados is closer to first world status than TnT , and this is mainly because of the dominant factor of one race.you’ll are pathetic to say the least.Enough with Indian arrival day every one came here at sometime or the other,even the true native Indians.

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