Guest Columns

During an interview for the Industrial Court’s 50th anniversary publication, Journey to Gold, Basdeo Panday told me that ‘Indian people’ tend always to search for and support a pahalwan—a wrestler, gladiator or strongman—to fight on their behalf. ‘Bas’ himself was finely suited. He was a real wrestler donning the presidency …

I address two issues of public importance today. First is the emerging controversy over this country’s attendance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) meeting to be held in Malta next week. And second, I join the chorus of frustrated voices crying out for something to be done to curb …

Of all the photos following ISIS’s horrendous assault on Paris, among the most moving are those of the long lines of people waiting to donate blood outside hospitals where the wounded had been taken. There’s a good chance that among them were persons of Islamic faith standing in line to …

I cannot understand the national outrage over the video posted on the Internet that shows several Trinidadian Islamic “jihadists” somewhere in Syria, dressed in combat gear, firing rifles on what appears to be a range, and inviting their Muslim brethren to join them in holy battle in “Hijra”, wherever that …

Over and over, the deep-seated self-devaluation lurking deep inside the Caribbean psyche keeps tripping us up.  At every opportunity to step forward and declare ourselves boldly to the world, the degenerative disease of self-doubt bites hard and forces us back. No, we can’t. Not we, insignificant sardines in a world …

In 1963, Malcolm X referred to the assassination of President John F Kennedy as a case of “chickens coming home to roost.” He had made this statement in response to a question after a speech delivered in December of the same year. He was suggesting that the failure of the …

Choosing a leader to take the United National Congress forward, backward, sideways, or keep it stagnated, is the business of members of the party. It is not for me, who never belonged to any party other than the original United Labour Front, and that very briefly, to tell UNC members …

In an interview with i95.5’s Dale Enoch last week, Mr Gregory Aboud, the President of the Downtown Merchants Association (DOMA), was once again lamenting the state of his city besieged by wreckers. He seemed convinced that business in downtown Port of Spain has fallen victim to a wrecker conspiracy driven …

With crime, especially murder, being the number one issue on the national agenda for more than two decades, the police cannot escape being targeted as the most blameworthy for the barrels of blood in which the nation is swirling. In the most recent sensational case, the Tobago double-murder, the police …

Under the deluge of data and detail, Trinidad and Tobago remains a society run by the old privilege of “contact” with power rather than the individual’s right to information. Know the right person and all is yours; demand your right to know and chances are you will hit the wall …

A homemade video of a child being abused and forced to drink milk is yet another window opened into the culture of violence in T&T. You can be sure that had the perpetrator and amateur filmmaker known that police would be searching for them, they would not have uploaded that …

If a mere ten percent of the sums of money quoted by almost every new PNM minister as having gone to waste or astray under the previous government is factual, then at least a billion dollars was squandered or stolen during the tenure of the People’s Partnership.   If the …