By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
January 10, 2011
For many decades, the notion has been bandied about that a “Black Power Revolution” occurred in T&T between February – April 1970; however, the purpose of this article is neither to posit a definitive critique of the events of 1970 nor to question its historic legitimacy.
Continue reading Legacy of 1970 events: Revolution, what revolution?
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 10, 2011
Ah never hear Becky vex so yet. “Uncle Selwyn,” she said, you know Rambachan and dem people (meaning the Foreign Affairs Minister and the People’s Partnership) just letting dem Indian people and dem come into Trinidad jus’ so. Dey ah even need a visa to come into the country now.”
She was referring to the unilateral decision of the People’s Partnership to allow Indians and Russians to enter the country without visas.
Continue reading Conceiving the Inconceivable
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 30, 2010
[This essay was written by Joy Clarke, a student at Wellesley College. I thought I would share it with my readers. It has been edited for purposes of length]
If literature is a signification of the emotional conscious of a people then V.S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas is a literary masterpiece. It traces the life of Mohun Biswas, a man of East Indian descent living in Trinidad following the end of Indian indentured servitude. Mr. Biswas’ life is one of struggle, pain and his longing to find a place to call home. The reader is taken on a journey to locate home on several levels. On the surface is Mr. Biswas’s profound desire to own a home while the subtext suggests that a search for a national homeland for a people who were removed from their natal homeland of India.
Continue reading Home Bound
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 22, 2010
The steeple of St. Mary’s Anglican Church is the first landmark that greets anyone who enters the village of Tacarigua from its western side. Although the present building was constructed in 1901, this architectural splendor has been a part of the village landscape since 1843. On August 22, 1901, the Mirror reported that “the old parish Church of St. Mary’s is now leveled to the ground with the exception of the western wall, which it is believed will form part of the new St. Mary’s.” Directly across the Eastern Main Road is the St. Mary’s Children Home. Its first building was constructed in 1857 to accommodate East Indian children whose parents were lost during the long crossing from India to Trinidad.
Continue reading Standing Firm in Our Nation’s Faith
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 15, 2010
I always believe that the demise of the Grenada Revolution occurred because of the hotheadedness of forty-year olds who had little knowledge of the world and people. They knew theory aplenty but were not seasoned by common sense and wisdom that only comes with age. One is seeing a similar tendency in the UNC-led coalition called the People’s Partnership.
Continue reading Criminalizing the Society
Cudjoe’s Indian Time Ah Come Part 1
By Sat Maharaj – December 02, 2010
When my friend Prof Selwyn Cudjoe invited me to deliver the feature address at the launch of his latest publication, Indian Time Ah Come In Trinidad and Tobago, my first response was that this was a set-up. Was Selwyn attempting to portray Sat Maharaj and Indians in general as a group glorifying in the political success of the People’s Partnership in a boastful way?
Continue reading Cudjoe’s Indian Time Ah Come
By Trevor Sudama
December 07, 2010 – newsday.co.tt
I was astounded by Panday’s lack of concern for the future of the sugar workers when he was the leader of the Government.
I myself was involved in the struggles of sugar workers in the sixties and early seventies. I was a candidate of the United Labour Front in the 1981 General Election in a sugar growing constituency.
Continue reading An act of gross betrayal
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 23, 2010
A foolish person opined that I was catering (they used the word “kissing up”) to Sat and Kamla because I dedicate Indian Time Ah Come, my most recent book, to Sat, Kamla and the East Indian struggle for justice. He even seemed perturbed that I asked Sat to offer the feature address at the launching of the book and more aggrieved that Sat agreed to do so.
Continue reading Indian Time Ah Come
By Trevor Sudama
November 09, 2010 – newsday.co.tt
It is said that those who do not learn from the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them. It is my view that it is a government’s duty to have a holistic view of the circumstances and situation of the various elements of the society and, in the light of that assessment, pursue the national interest which may be defined as the greatest good of the greatest number.
Continue reading Clico, Panday and the oligarchy
By Stephen Kangal
October 21, 2010
Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar and her itinerant Foreign Minister Suruj Rambachan have both been extolling the important benefits of establishing closer functional links with our diaspora based in metropolitan Caribbean enclaves in North America and Europe as the rationale for radically reforming the priorities of our foreign policy. In fact both now have a shared political/administrative responsibility for the conceptualization and conduct of our foreign policy.
Continue reading Connecting our Foreign Policy with the Diaspora