I have a bit of advice for Mr Kamal Persad, coordinator of the research centre of The Indian Review: if you truly wish to defend the reputation of “the Indian-Trinidadian intelligentsia” (your description), as you claim in your latest “letter to the editor” in the Trinidad Express of 6 February, …

This week’s column is prompted by two reports last week that made global news. Although reproduced in local media, they would hardly have been expected to create waves within non-academic communities. One of these reports welcomed a new frontier of knowledge of human evolution: the CNN headline, “Modern fossil find …

As The UWI settles into its second semester for the current academic year, the public may be anxious to hear from the St Augustine Campus administration what name it has chosen for the university’s oldest hall of residence, having already repudiated Viscount Milner after whom that hall has been identified …

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 …

In November 2017, the Spiritual Baptists of T&T solemnly commemorated the centenary of “The Shouters’ Prohibition Ordinance,” the second wave of legislation designed to eradicate Afro-Caribbean Christianity. In 1927, Grenada was hit by the third wave, the “Public Meetings (Shakerism) Prohibition Ordinance.” The tidal wave of state persecution of Spiritual …

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 …

“[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 …

“The great Karl Marx, for example, declared the Haitian Revolution ‘the most significant victory toward the advancement of universal freedom’. Without excluding the contribution of every ethnic constituency, the fact remains that, in the 20th century, African peoples maintained that leadership role. “According to [Dool] Hanomansingh and other like-minded activists, to include …