“For the large masses of working people in Trinidad, Carnival, particularly Jouvert, was always about subversion, defiance, sarcasm dressed up in deceptive hilarity. It was one of the very few avenues by which they were able to openly express how they felt about the unfairness of their lives, the hypocrisy …
Read More »Master’s Voice: Eyeballing the abyss; what prospects does 2018 hold for old colonials and new societies?
Mazlow, one of my Facebook friends and occasional adversary, loves to use that phrase by Nietzsche about staring into the abyss with eventually the abyss staring back. Our abyss is in the form of not so much failing institutions but institutions that were never set up to succeed and are …
Read More »Master’s Voice: The end game? Gambling with facts is playing Russian roulette with T&T
The more I hear about the issues surrounding the casinos and gaming industry, the more confused I get. My confusion is probably going to come through clearly here. I mean, who exactly is the villain in this piece? Who is the victim? It have any at all? Kinda fitting, I …
Read More »Master’s Voice: The defeatist class and the history that’s never taught in our schools
In many societies such as ours, there’s a class of people many—though not necessarily all—of whom have university backgrounds. I call them the “Defeatist Class” (DC). Whenever anything remotely progressive comes up, they surface to challenge ideas, customs and models that hold us to a period or paradigm meant to …
Read More »Master’s Voice: The re-colonisation calls of Bruce Gilley and our paralysis of analysis
Let me say, straight out the box, I have no issue with Professor Bruce Gilley for the same reason I was pleased that Donald Trump won the US elections. I see the storm brewing online and the many calls for retraction, apologies and so on. Reaction was swift, as was …
Read More »Master’s Voice: Independence or in dependence? Sledgehammer diplomacy on we birthday
I was once told that I have the diplomacy of a sledgehammer. It was during an online discussion on religion and I was simply presenting the facts as is, with my interpretations; and with the attitude that, if it offends your religious sensibilities, well, hard luck! Get over it! I …
Read More »Racist thoughts precede racist actions; why Charlottesville and Kaepernick should matter to T&T
“Class determines how they express their racism, that’s all. Poor racists are more overt, elite racists are more insidious” (Facebook comment) “[O]ur intellectual leaders have been so preoccupied with the campaigns against the hard-line white supremacists who make no compromise in their flaunting of Western civilisation that we have sometimes overlooked …
Read More »Master’s Voice: Too paralysed to analyse; fossilised Afro-Indian attitudes to European realities
I was going to delay my ranting until Independence Day. But a couple things—including the events in Charlottesville—pushed me to decide to leggo the ramble one time and done. Almost immediately after I wrote my piece on “model” policing, two early comments illustrated exactly what I was speaking about. One person offered up a …
Read More »Master’s Voice: Police modelling and model policing; why we need back the Union Jack
Right. Everybody who is NOT a millennial––and you of the Independence Generation in particular––I have one polite, humble request. Before 31 August, anywhere you pass and see the Red, White and Black flying, please, PLEASE stop, pull it down and hoist the Union Jack back up for me. Please. Seriously, …
Read More »Master’s Voice: You vs Euro; the continuing emancipation battle for ownership of self
MOST OF US ARE EMANCIPATED ALREADY. UNFORTUNATELY. No, I haven’t gone completely mad. I just thought I’d try to grab your attention and so make you understand the importance of understanding the power words have. Today is Emancipation Day when we celebrate the end of the enslavement of African people. …
Read More »Master’s Voice: Between a marabunta and a jep nest; our two July days of infamy
Monday was the anniversary of that infamous jailbreak, two years ago, and I should originally have submitted this piece to be published on that day. But I think that it’s better if it appears today, between that 24 July anniversary and the anniversary of another infamous episode in this country’s …
Read More »MASTER’S VOICE: Behind the brutal battering of Bayshore’s beige buffers; ignore rage at your peril
My laptop real pick a fine time to stage a sick-out. Almost immediately all kinda things start happening. Fr Harvey get beat up…. by people who vex with him for forgiving those who actually beat him up; Saudi Arabia accused another country of supporting terrorism… That’s right… Saudi Arabia making accusations like that, …
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