Guest Columns

“[…] We have bought into the Western, capitalist idea, that the individual bears sole responsibility for their success or failure—history and current extenuating circumstances be damned! This, of course, is a fallacy, a distortion of the truth that absolves us, and the rest of society of any responsibility to our vulnerable …

“[…] The very prosperity that slavery brought to British capital was to eventually make slavery redundant. The capital accumulated throughout slavery led to investments in science, technology and engineering, created the industrial revolution, brought into being productive forces based on machinery, speeded up the process of proletarianisation of the British …

Malaysia are many thousands of miles away but share many similarities with Trinidad and Tobago. They beat us to independent status by five years, adopted the Westminster system of governance and enjoyed key financial growth through industrialisation. They are divided along ethnic lines and as such practice race-based politics. They …

The decision as to which party or person to vote for in our General Elections is seldom a single-issue decision. It is folly when our pollsters try to imagine that we vote based on ‘what is the biggest issue confronting us now?’—since many such issues are themselves complex. In the …

The 2020 election campaigns have presented a kind of sameness or familiarity which is uninspiring. I get that their main objective is to energise their respective bases, but as comedian Sprangalang would say ‘allyuh go keel we’. Given these uninspiring attempts to excite the population, I conclude that both major …

The Trinidad and Tobago government came in for high praise for its phased re-opening of the economy while a large percentage of businesses were aware of initiatives meant to cushion the blow of Covid-19, according to a study by Market Facts and Opinion (MFO) published on 17 July 2020. However, …

Lewis Carroll’s classic ‘Alice in Wonderland’ encapsulates our nation’s present predicament and many of our leaders. He could have been describing Trinidad: “There is a place, like no place on earth. A land full of wonder, mystery and danger! Some say to survive it, you need to be as mad …

The statement that Trinidadians are undisciplined has never sat comfortably with me. The statement insinuates that we are unable to carefully control the way we work, live, or behave, especially to achieve our goals. My intuition is that, as a people, we do what the system allows and whatever we …

As we go through five weeks of intense political campaigning, in the lead up to the 10 August General Election, expect to hear the word ‘marginal’ used a lot—be it ‘marginal seat’, ‘marginal constituency’ and, the perennial favourite, ‘key marginal’. ‘Marginals’ are a vital part of our electoral landscape, as …

Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith has refused to implement the recommendation from Police Complaints Authority (PCA) director David West on the police killings of Joel Jacobs, Mr Israel Moses Clinton and Mr Noel Diamond in Morvant on 27 June. Yesterday, West ‘formally advised the commissioner of police that officers involved …

“[…] How many business people can write an honest account explaining their rags to riches story, or share a history that can serve as a roadmap for others? “If any of them opt for the challenge they would have to omit the bribes and protection money they pay, the tax …

“A single spark can start a prairie fire,” Mao Zedong, 1930. This observation came back to my mind in the witnessing of the events of the last seven days. Mao had meant then that the revolution would start small but was possible in China—not too different from all the recent …