As campaigning intensifies for the next general election in T&T more citizens should be paying closer attention to at least three distinct features of the process amid desperate but fading tribal cleavages. As an aside: I think the contest will come later rather than sooner, despite prevailing speculation. I also subscribe to the concept of a fixed date. To be clear, politics’ ethnic characteristics persist. But try polling the younger cohorts and you will be surprised at the extent to which the Gen Z bunch (about 40 percent of the population), together with the traditionally independent s ..read more

Almost as if on remote cue, the recently released International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Global Wage Report 2024-2025 strikes some amazingly familiar chords when cross-referenced against the ongoing Salaries Review Commission (SRC) issue and accompanying discussions surrounding what is essentially a question of wage inequality among T&T workers. I had originally thought about directly engaging the SRC matter, including the Prime Minister’s astounding manner, but noted the contribution of fellow GML columnist, Helen Drayton on Sunday. In my view, she has inserted the clearest, most princ ..read more

By this time next week, the formal, global news agenda would have narrowed so tightly that even the tiniest gaps will be finding little meaningful space for other things, including matters of urgent importance to the rest of us in these tiny, united states of the Caribbean. Mass atrocities including ethnic cleansing and genocide in several places are already ill-expressed as skirmishes on the margins of what is really important. The slaughter of children and babies in Palestine some kind of routine, justifiable proportionate response to another form of “terror.” Mention of last week’s BRICS en ..read more

At the height of some of the more punishing pandemic measures when official policy remained challenged by the urge to err on the side of extreme caution (if one erred) there arose pugilistic doubt about the role of personal responsibility in addressing the risks then at hand. Inspired largely by political preference and apparent ignorance of basic tenets of the development process, one sceptic (who should have known better) accused me of being among an emerging cohort of “personal responsibility evangelists.” I had at the time argued in favour of people in their individual and collective space ..read more

A recent neighbourhood interaction led me back to a September 18 submission on this page related to the impact of climate change on the world of work, including some observations being made right here in the Caribbean. I had shared a story involving a neighbourhood postal worker who was witnessed taking a rare breather in considerably intolerable heat one morning. I was in the company of friend and colleague, climate change expert Steve Maximay, who suggested that whatever the precise meteorological outcomes – like the heat that day and torrential rainfall last Monday – countries all over the ..read more

Nothing like a big sporting event to ignite emotions typically associated with the flying of one’s own national flag and tearfully rendering the national anthem. For some, like my nephew “B” and people I am sure you know, the latter exercise includes notes not reflected in the official music score. That is probably because the anthem was written with phenoms like Ella Andall in mind! Lesser mortals change keys when we reach “here every creed and race.” But it does not always require authentic credentials to stimulate this level of sentimentality when it comes to sport. I remember for instance ..read more

It was not among the planet’s finest hours, but the outcome of COP29, held in Baku, Azerbaijan last week at minimum confirmed the indispensability of multilateralism as a singularly important mechanism for achievement of collective survival objectives. It could have all ended in absolute shambles but did not. That will certainly be on offer when the “1.5 to stay alive” slogan born in the Caribbean is conclusively proven unviable through lived experience. Already, extreme weather events in Europe and North America have dispelled prior notions of invulnerability on the part of the big and strong ..read more

Offered the rare (and flattering) pleasure of addressing one session of a cross faculty co-curricular programme hosted by birdsong at UWI last week on what I consider to be “the value of pan”, it challenged me to summarise and sharpen some of my longstanding views on the steelpan phenomenon in T&T. What inspired the invitation, I was told, was a comment I had made in a recent column that successive national budgets were failing to mention the value of the instrument in all its manifest dimensions, even as its autonomy as a national asset requires greater recognition. I have contended that ..read more

This year, I assigned myself the painful task of monitoring public opinion on cynical breaches of the law, common decency, and the duty of community care when it comes to noise pollution in our country. Yes, I have been constantly reminded of the assured futility of such campaigns. “Drop it, Wesley. Ain’t gonna happen” is the now routine response to my view that there are ways to assess the state of our civilisation, and the phenomenon of noise impunity is one that should be firmly resolved. Like-minded individuals and organisations have become used to the fact that vocal protests are easily d ..read more

(First published in the T&T Guardian on October 16, 2024) My favourite cricket team anywhere nowadays is the West Indies Women’s T20 squad aka the West Indies (w) … with a small “w”. The “real” West Indies team requires no such qualification since everybody knows when we talk about Caribbean cricket, we are referencing the West Indies (M). It’s one of those things about “cricket lovers” that the West Indies dominated version of the sport ended on or about August 28, 1995, at The Oval in London. The West Indies (M) scored 692/8 and declared in their final innings. There meanwhile appears n ..read more