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“[…] Dr Selwyn Cudjoe’s obsession with the PNM leader seems to have completely obfuscated his ability to be balanced and fair in his writing.
“[…] He never once engaged the point that Dr Keith Rowley was making when he referred to the Opposition as unpatriotic louts—in relation to their discourteous treatment of Indian billionaire businessman Mr Naveen Jindial, who visited the PM in June 2024, and who was interested in the Petrotrin refinery…”
The following Letter to the Editor was sent to Wired868 by Jozanne Beharry from Arima in response to a column by Dr Selwyn Cudjoe on the perceived behaviour of Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley:
It seems to me, that every time the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago speaks, Express columnist Dr Selwyn Cudjoe reacts as if he got stung by an army of ants in one of the most vulnerable parts of his body. He yelps in agonized hostility against Dr Keith Rowley.
It is quite staggering and eye opening to see the effect that Dr Rowley stirs up in Dr Cudjoe, and to witness his almost weekly tirades, which have become quite boringly predictable, and irksome.
Case in point his column last Sunday 2 November, headlined The ultimate barbarian, in which he called the prime minister “an unsophisticated bully” and “the most obnoxious leader we have had in our 62 years of independent rule”,
He referred to the PM as incivil and went on to borrow the former prime minister Patrick Manning’s overused raging bull description about Dr Rowley.
Last Sunday, he unleashed his own brand of sophisticated bullying against Dr Rowley whose cardinal sin was referring to his critics in the Opposition UNC as “unpatriotic louts”.
Photo: OPM
The dictionary meaning of louts is uncouth, rude, stupid, awkward. Are these words any better than those used by Dr Cudjoe: “unsophisticated bully”, “incivility”, “base” and the worst of them all a “total barbarian”—as the headline stated.
Dr Cudjoe’s attacks on Dr Rowley seems to be following the same trajectory of rape allegations made against him (Dr Rowley) and his father by the Opposition, and which today are still recorded in the Hansard of the Parliament.
It also follows the trajectory of insults against Dr Rowley’s “blackness” and the UNC’s “Hide your children from Rowley” campaign, in the lead up to the 2015 general elections—when the Opposition sought to demonise the PNM political leaders as a predator who was coming for their children.
(via Newsday)
Dr Cudjoe’s obsession with the PNM leader seems to have completely obfuscated his ability to be balanced and fair in his writing. In fact, while he labels the PM as this uncouth, barbarian, he himself uses his intellectualism, as a political cutlass against the PNM and Dr Rowley.
He never once engaged the point that Dr Rowley was making when he referred to the Opposition as unpatriotic louts, in relation to their discourteous treatment of Indian billionaire businessman Mr Naveen Jindial, who visited the PM in June 2024, and who was interested in the Petrotrin refinery.
Mr Jindial, who was demonized in the Trinidad Parliament and by the UNC, was featuring prominently at the CHOGM—where no lesser person than the Commonwealth Secretary General featured him in her report, which was prepared for 56 heads of the Commonwealth.
Dr Rowley’s point was simply that while Mr Jindial and his company were good enough to do business with all the Commonwealth, the Opposition Leader and the UNC felt he should be chased and banished from Trinidad and Tobago, and not even allowed to bid on the refinery.
Dr Cudjoe refused to comment on the salient point of the PM’s commentary.
What a tragedy to see how this scholarly globetrotter has allowed himself and his pen to be used to denigrate rather than uplift, not just the Prime Minister but a party he claims to love and a country which has birthed him.
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