As long ago as 2007, readers of this column were introduced to the phrase “breakdown of ordered legal control in the face of anarchy or banditry” as I began my predictions about where we were headed. The phrase belongs to Professor HLA Hart, who was a famous professor of Jurisprudence …
Read More »How Haiti helped liberate the Caribbean and South America; and their oft-forgotten heroes and heroines
“[…] The continuous revolts and burning of the plantations by the Africans, following the Haitian Revolution, removed the profits from the sugar industry and forced England to end the system. This culminated in the Emancipation Proclamation of 1 August 1834. “Trinidad and Tobago, as well as the rest of the …
Read More »Caricom’s shame! How Jamaica, Haiti and Bahamas orchestrated ‘unfounded’ attack on T&T over Venezuela migrant crisis
“[…] It’s difficult for me to understand, much less find justification, for why Jamaica, the sitting chair of the OAS Permanent Council at the time, failed to rule on whether to allow Guaidó’s agent to level unfounded charges directly accusing the T&T government of culpability in the Venezuelan tragedy. “[…] …
Read More »Judging Columbus through history (Pt 4): Genocide and white supremacy in Trinidad
The following is the last in a four part series by historian Dr Claudius Fergus on the enduring—and arguably unjustifiable—heroic standing of Christopher Columbus in modern society: Socialist thinker Karl Liebknecht compared European imperialism to a cyclone spinning across the globe, driven and sustained by its militarism that “crushes people …
Read More »CARICOM is two-faced on Haiti; Baldeosingh slams Beckles’ flawed logic in “s**hole” response
“Haiti is the only member of CARICOM whose citizens require a visa to travel to any other CARICOM nation. In other words, although CARICOM leaders pay lip service to Haiti, they also know that Haitians might leave their failed state—which is the diplomatic way of calling a country a ‘shithole’—and settle …
Read More »Claude’s Comments: The truth about Africa, Africans, their diaspora and their depiction in western media
The description of “African countries” and their diaspora in Haiti as “shitholes” goes way beyond the racist vulgarity of a decadent American President. It is merely a kind of sordid culmination of centuries of disparagement of Africans and Africa in the interest of western capitalism and white supremacy. But how …
Read More »Caribbean dignity unbowed; UWI vice-chancellor explains what Trump and USA really owe Haiti
“Haiti’s Caribbean vision illuminated America’s way out of its colonial darkness. This is the debt President Trump’s America owes Toussaint L’Ouverture’s Haiti. “It’s a debt of philosophical clarity and political maturity. It’s a debt of how to rise to its best human potential. It’s a debt of exposure to higher …
Read More »Claude’s Comments: Why loud Caribbean silence as Haiti marks 214th anniversary of Independence?
If, as Americans do, Haitians counted the birth of their nation from the launch of the revolutionary war, August 2017 would have marked the 226th anniversary of Independence. Instead, they chose the end of the Revolution, 1 January, 1804. On New Year’s Day 214 years ago, after his decisive defeat …
Read More »Balderdash and intellectual acrobatics; Fergus responds to Baldeosingh on race and Afro-history
“[Kevin] Baldeosingh […] uncritically regurgitates the defunct racist hypothesis that ‘darker-skinned people’ are judged less intelligent and ‘more primitive’ than ‘fairer-skinned people’. “[…] During the first century of this era, Ethiopians were the majority in the town of Barygasa (now Baruch) in western India. By the time of the Mughal …
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