View Point

“People never seem to think that a breach of the rights of even one individual, means that that breach can apply to all. It is why the judiciary so staunchly defends the rights of even the most depraved of society…” The following Letter to the Editor on proposed amendments to …

What, a young British schoolboy was asked somewhere in the early 1980s, is Black Power? His response was a name: ‘Clive Lloyd.’ As the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago emerges from Carnival and begins a largely muted celebration of the anniversary of the epoch-making 1970 Black Power Revolution, some other …

Carnival post-mortems are usually futile because the vested interests in Carnival are so strong that those with the power to make changes will not attempt to solve congestion on the parade route, the marginalisation of traditional mas and other problems. Nevertheless, all praise to Pan Trinbago, under the presidency of …

Desperadoes Steel Orchestra is in no position to refuse the generosity of the prime minister, but the population can. We can tell Dr Keith Rowley that the reasons Despers left the ‘Hill’ are still with us and may even be more deeply entrenched as we count the daily shootings, killings …

When Terri Lyons led Karene Asche and Heather Mac Intosh in a clean sweep for women in the National Calypso Monarch competition on Carnival Thursday, it may have reminded many of Denyse Plummer’s 1988 boast that woman is boss. However, for those willing to go back two more years to …

This Carnival, I felt like Black Stalin with his refusal to sing about ‘Dorothy’ while grave social injustices exist. The breathtaking interview and official announcement by the CEO of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), Haydn Gittens, in the FCB IPO scandal are shameful. The SEC exists to ensure the soundness …

The entry of the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) under the leadership of Makandal Daaga (then Geddes Granger) into Port of Spain on Thursday 26 February 1970, represented the beginning of the most dynamic and significant period in the history of Trinidad and Tobago. NJAC had convened a March through …

“If you believe only in facts and forget stories,” Cassandra Clare writes in Lord of Shadows, “your brain will live but your heart will die.” So here is a short story that illustrates, I think, how the brain keeps itself alive, serendipitously collecting its own facts. Green Corner, Port-of-Spain, circa …

Lloyd Best used to say that Trinidad and Tobago is a country where people walk about with their heads empty. That may explain why, for so many of us Trinis, facts are sacred things. “Facts are facts,” India’s Jawaharlal Nehru once declared, “and they will not disappear on account of …

The late ‘De Fosto’ opened his 1993 Carnival song Is My Turn with words: “For too long I have been knocking on the door. Now I fed up, I don’t intend to knock no more. This time I going to break it down.” He then launched into ‘now is my …

Dr Hollis ‘Chalkdust’ Liverpool suggested that everything happening in Trinidad and Tobago and elsewhere pales in significance to the ongoing ‘Murder Frenzy’—be it the Law Association’s fight to remove Chief Justice Ivor Archie, or whoever putting ‘dog in the curry’. But, last night, the nine-time Calypso Monarch champion was wrong. …

A case of racially-charged ‘offensive behaviour’ filed by TV6 journalist Kejan Haynes against then Progressive Empowerment Party (PEP) political leader Phillip Edward Alexander will be referred to a Tribunal for adjudication, after the Equal Opportunity Commission (EOC) rejected Alexander’s defence and a conciliatory meeting between the two parties failed to …