By Raffique Shah
October 05, 2008
With Ronald Reagan now dead and Margaret Thatcher barely alive, I shall resist the urge to blame this global financial crisis solely on them. In many ways, they cannot be blamed for today’s debacle. Some enterprises Thatcher divested should never have been state-owned: a trucking business (National Freight Corporation), 27 railway hotels, carmakers Jaguar and Rolls-Royce. Why would any government engage in such ventures?
Continue reading Vision and visionaries to steer us through crisis
On what basis can PM Manning justify spending an astronomical $503m (one percent of the 2009 budget that is equivalent to the sum for the construction of the Tobago power plant) to host the Summits of the Americas and the Commonwealth in 2009 if not to boost his already inflated ego? What diplomatic goodwill and political and economic benefits will accrue to the pauperized people of T&T from hosting these Conferences when we are burdened with a poverty rate of 27%? The poverty gap is widening and pensioners on fixed incomes are ketching their “nennen”.
Im sorry to say that I think that John McCain is going to be the next president of the United States. After the long night of Bush horror any Democrat should easily win, but the Dems are screwing it up and McCain has been running more-or-less even with Barack Obama in the polls. The Democrats should run on the slogan “If you liked Bush, you’ll love McCain”, but that would be too outspoken, too direct for the spineless Nancy Pelosi and her spineless party. Or, “If you liked Iraq, you’ll love Iran.” But the Democrat leadership is not on record as categorically opposing either conflict.
Sarah Palin, it seems, is about to topple the Presidential apple cart. My friend Louis Lee Sing (we were in Chicago to look at the T&T vs. USA soccer match) is afraid. “Selwyn,” he says, “it seems as though Palin might do it.” It’s all about the best made plans of mice and men and thunder striking from afar. Here, in Chicago, the home of Obama, there is cautious optimism. In Boston where I teach, there is tentativeness about how to interpret Palin’s candidacy; and in New York where I visited the last weekend to take my daughter to dinner for her birthday signs of apprehension abound.
Citizens of T&T must now awake. Let us discard our politically partisan lenses with which we have viewed and assessed the recent conduct of governance by PM Manning. We must demand immediate answers from him on what is going on with the defence of the integrity and continuing ownership of our abundant, rich-yielding maritime patrimony from the creeping encroachment of Barbados.
The Ugandan cultural group Ndere recently completed a very successful tour to Trinidad and Tobago as part of this country’s Emancipation celebrations. The term ‘ndere’ means flute, and this name appropriately captures the richness of the Ndere experience. The troupe was founded by Stephen Rwangyezi in 1984 to promote and develop African culture and arts, rekindle African pride, and to organize, develop and enable the artistically talented but socially disadvantaged young people to better their lives and realize their ambitions. Theirs is a mission to rekindle the sense of self, pride and confidence among Ugandans which were shattered by colonialism that branded every African cultural practice as evil, primitive, shameful, and backward.