If you’ve been observing the local markets for debt and equity over the last few years, you could be forgiven for comparing it to one of Kingston’s famous street dances. Both spaces were characterised by tremendous creativity, energy, and dynamism...
Kenneth Ramchand, professor emeritus in English at The University of the West Indies and Colgate University in the United States, is famous for his command of the English language, his pioneering leadership in West Indian literature, and his...
The actions taken in the troubled St Ann Municipal Corporation, culminating in the ousting of Mayor Michael Belnavis, are a small-but-significant signal that all may not be lost in the national fight to overcome ethical dilemmas. Responding to...
I believe I understand fully why opinion polls of the Jamaican people do not show political corruption to be a factor in determining voting behaviour. Counter-intuitively, this is because corruption is rife in Jamaican politics. If I believe...
Reference is made to the article by Mr Imran Khan, public relations officer of the government of Guyana, wherein he sought to influence the ruling of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in a matter currently before the court with a judgment due by...
Implicit in Seymour Panton’s admonition against parliamentarians being conduits for private philanthropy is a call for a debate on what ought to be the role of members of parliament (MPs) in a politics that thrives on patronage. In a way, too,...
The call for justice and equality has been loudly raised and now reverberates through the corridors of the world. In the course of this volcanic eruption, statues have been torn down; protests have erupted through the world, as if a sleeping giant...
As Jamaica prepares to open its borders to international travellers, there is a strong debate between the health camp and economic camp about the speed with which the Jamaican economy is being reopened. The Medical Association of Jamaica sent out a...
Jamaicans, on the face of it, have a paradoxical attitude towards corruption. We know it is a problem, moan a lot about it, and want it to go away. Yet, corruption, the pollsters say, has little impact on how we elect governments. Voters,...
It’s a pity that life is “so urgent”. For, were it not, suggested C.L.R. James in Beyond a Boundary, his classic study of history, race, class and colonialism in the West Indies through the lens of cricket, he would have spent a year talking to a...
Another CARICOM Day has passed. It was acknowledged to varying degrees across the region and at diplomatic missions overseas. The CARICOM secretary general, Ambassador Irwin LaRoque, made a statement on Saturday, July 4, congratulating the...
I remember, in the days of my youth, scoring a deciding goal shortly before the final whistle blew in a football match. My elation was short-lived as, on leaving the field, I was bombarded by supporters of the other team shouting “teef” in my...
Recently, I saw a post by one of my past students asking, what would Mrs Cooke have to say at assembly the Monday morning after the death of George Floyd. I smiled to myself and thought, “They were really listening.” As an educator, I felt it was...
As Jamaica prepares for its next cycle of parliamentary and local government elections, the campaign debate will, hopefully, clarify that municipal authorities are not supposed to be handmaidens of ruling-party legislators. At least local...
The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is currently deliberating on the most important non-case that it has ever had to hear. The leaders of Guyana’s main opposition, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP), have brought an appeal to the CCJ seeking to...
The public has a legitimate interest in, and an absolute right to know, the substance of the ruling by the director of public prosecutions (DPP) on whether Lisa Hanna, the People’s National Party’s member of parliament (MP) for South East St Ann,...
Until vaccines (hopefully) offer safe, effective and long-term immunity to the SARS-CoV2 virus, we will be forced to avoid congregating, intimate greetings, unprotected outings, and we must reduce our exposure time to public spaces. We need to...
Recently, I found myself reflecting on the story of Abraham and Isaac, found in the Bible (Genesis 22). According to the tale, God commands Abraham to offer Isaac, his only son, as a sacrifice, a burnt offering. Abraham obeyed and took Isaac up a...
Face the truth. Two-thirds of those placed in high schools will wish that they had been assigned elsewhere – to what they and the society consider a ‘better’ school. Saying that a large proportion will be going to one of the six schools they...
Born a decade after Jamaica’s independence and having come to adulthood long after the ideological skirmishes of the 1970s, Prime Minister (PM) Andrew Holness often portrays himself as a post-independence leader who doesn’t carry the baggage of the...
Delroy Chuck’s major error was to apologise. Don’t ever apologise to a mob, and certainly not if what they’re accusing you of is nonsense. It won’t end well. By very definition the hive-mind of social media, once activated, intends to use you as ‘...
These overdue questions are being asked directly of Jamaica’s justice minister on the occasion of the 127th anniversary of the birth of the Right Excellent Norman Washington ‘N.W.’ Manley – a Rhodes scholar some six decades before him – whose...
The driver of the grey Mitsubishi Pajero who crushed the skull of Demar Lilly while stealing a bottle of his honey is still at large at the time of writing. But the silence is deafening so we shall move on. Dr Alfred Xuma was the first black South...
Former Energy Minister Andrew Wheatley is guilty of nothing! And anyone who says that he is, is just as guilty of what he is being accused of. Of course, I put my helmet on after the first stone is thrown at me for that introduction. However, we...
On a visit to Senegal in 2018, I got caught in a surprisingly hostile conversation about the origins of hip-hop. I’d been invited to speak at a colloquium on ‘Reclaiming Black Civilizations: Finishing the Decolonization Process.’ It was one of...
