Tag Archives: societal change

“[…] Trinidad and Tobago has very low levels of reported trust given its GDP per capita… Most people do not trust the police. Most people do not believe justice is meted out fairly… There is even mistrust in the Road March competition with year-on-year allegations of the ‘Soca Mafia’. “[…] …

Carnival is supposed to be joy. It is colour and music and rhythm and release. It is sweat on skin, feathers in motion and the collective permission to forget who we are for a moment. Carnival, we say, is culture. Carnival is freedom. Carnival is who we are. And yet, …

On 7 April 2002, at the time when the House of Representatives was deadlocked 18-18 and was unable to elect a speaker, the first of these weekly columns was published. It was entitled Equal Shame. I pointed then, at the outset of my journey as a weekly columnist, to our …

We can’t pretend that this society, our society, has not become ugly and hateful. The place has been practically reduced to internecine warfare, spewing venom-like mud volcanoes. Try as you might to avert your eyes and focus on the little sparks of decency and beauty that still refuse to be …

“[…] The entitlement, indiscipline and misdirected priorities of some lawless citizens who inconvenience and endanger law abiding citizens will not be tolerated anymore. No discipline will be met with no tolerance. “No one will sway me from cleaning up this lawless dump to benefit citizens who try to live decent …

“[Critics] suggest that a caring state relies on education, while a punitive state relies on force. This binary view, however, obscures the reality of how safety and civil order are actually maintained. “[…] The assertion of law is not an abdication of care. On the contrary, it is often the …

“[…] Ordinary citizens know the challenges all too well: waiting lines that stretch for hours before a doctor can be seen; appointments pushed months into the future; shortages of essential medicines, forcing families to search from pharmacy to pharmacy at unaffordable prices. “Equipment is outdated or broken, leaving patients without …

A PEOPLE’S aspirations can never be defeated. This is the lesson of our history. I started with aspirations here to articulate my own position about regional relations within Caricom. Regardless of what governments do, an aspiration to regionality is the tidalectics of the Caribbean. We value our connectedness whether in …

“[…] We are losing hope in the ability of our economy to provide good jobs for us. A smaller share of the working age population has been participating in the labour market. “[…] The decline is largely driven by falling male participation from above 80% to just above 60%. Female …

“[…] Dale’s death forces a hard truth… I’m grieving. “But I also feel sorrow for Ishmael’s family. Because the system failed him long before he failed himself…” The following post on the sentencing of Ishmael Clarke for the murder of police constable Dale Mayers was submitted to Wired868 by Mayers’ …

On most maps, Trinidad and Tobago is a small smudge near the mouth of the Orinoco River. In real life, it is a place of astonishing biodiversity, and a place that bigger powers have long treated as useful. Empires, oil routes and warships have passed along this coast, rearranging both …

I don’t recall ever seeing such a high level of apprehension in our space. Do you? It’s coming from a multitude of shadowed places, so many that it is difficult to put a finger on any one thing as the root. Armadas and squadrons loom on our horizon. Conflicting reports …