Mahogany CoConut Blog

ByPachamama The entire leadership of West Indies cricket must be fired, immediately! When we say the leadership we are not speaking about Darren Sammy alone. We include the members of all the Boards, executive management, selectors and team management. Nowhere in Christendom has any set of managers been so inept, produced almost (20) years of failure and like a petty dictatorship in a banana republic, has held the people of the Caribbean ransom to their autocracy. In addition, the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) outsources capital development cost to the people of the Caribbean, has generally failed to produce a structure that could support the senior team over time, seems incapable in getting its financial affairs in order and rigidly enforces a bankrupt colonial policy of social conformity.      Darren Sammy, a St. Lucian, has for quite awhile been positioned to take the captaincy by the President of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) another St. Lucian...

By Pachamama The recent controversy about an alleged letter presumably written by the signature of eleven (11) Democratic Labour Party (DLP) members of parliament, their unwillingness to follow through after it came to light and the failure of the Leader of the Opposition to see this as an opening to repeat his political shenanigans of 1994, indicates that the hidden hand of white corporate power and the so-called party fathers who are at work to maintain the Fruendel Stuart regime. The letter and the discussion since, suggest a mere demand for a meeting with Prime  Freundel Stuart, to discuss his leadership and was largely inspired by a recent poll, in four marginal constituencies, indicating that the DLP could lose the next general election. It was this type of request for a meeting that led to the ouster of Clyde Mascoll as opposition leader in 2007.  Its discovery and surreptitious release to the press, in our judgment, speaks volumes about the behind-the-scenes intrigues,...

The current nonsense now rupturing the Democratic Labour Party, should not surprise anyone remotely monitoring the political scene in Barbados. Ever since his becoming Prime Minister, Freundel Stuart, has been deemed uncharismatic.  Soon after  he had taken over the reins of the D.L.P, after the death of Prime Minister, David Thompson, the knives came out. The charismatic, Minister of Finance, Mr. Christopher Sinckler, has been apparently  crowned the new Errol Barrow! Mahogany Coconut, will not bore readers with the fiasco of the letter that was alleged to be signed by eleven parliamentarians, seeking a meeting with Stuart , to discuss the slippage of the ruling party. Suffice it say, that the Nation Newspaper , gave the impression , that there was some advanced plot to remove the Prime Minister. We all know that organ has a real stake in seeing the Opposition Barbados Labour Party led by former Prime Minister Owen Arthur, returned to office. We leave it to the...

OBAMA, SARKOZY, CAMERON, BUSH #1, BUSH #2, BLAIR, CLINTON and the United Nations Should BE TRIED FOR GENOCIDE, CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY, CRIMES AGAINST NATURE, and the USE OF weapons of mass destruction (WMD) – ALL WAR CRIMES .    by Pachamama Everywhere white people have gone they have left a trail of mass crimes against all the peoples of color of this world. Never before in the history of mankind have we entered an epoch where one racial group is so intent on maintaining their dominance that they are willing to develop the most powerful weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to be held by them, almost exclusively, while constructing a international network of institutions to prevent others from defending themselves using the same means. They are weapons of mass destruction which continue to kill innocent civilians for thousands of years after their initial use. Americans are not generally aware of the biological, technological and environmental war crimes committed against the in...

By Franklyn W Knight, Jamaica Observer, Wdnesday, December 21, 2011 BY the 19th century, historical works on the Caribbean were joined by a flood of reportorial publications as the genre of travel literature developed and works of all sorts proliferated. Some were very good. The insightful political accounts of Alexander von Humboldt on Cuba (1805) and William Sewell (1862) as well as the travelogue of James Anthony Froude (1888) stand out. With the abolition of slavery during the 19th century, that age of state and nation building with its new sensibilities and complex problems deserves the special attention given by writers such as Swithin Wilmot, Bridget Brereton, Barry Higman, Patrick Bryan, Brian Moore and Michele Johnson, Gordon Lewis, Roberto Cassá, Frank Moya Pons, Alejandro de la Fuente, and Melina Pappademos. After 1700, the importance of the Caribbean in Atlantic history was well established and those writers who attempted a regional Caribbean coverage had to demonstrate s...

Mahogany Coconut joins in wishing all Barbadians a happy Independence Day on Wednesday, November 30 th.   Forty five years ago, at the historic Garrison Savannah, Prime Minister Errol Barrow, lowered the Union Jack and lifted our new bright, black ,blue and yellow Broken Trident. We Barbadians use as our motto:” Pride and Industry.”  We go about our business with a sense of calmness and success that remains a mystery to many. Within the Caribbean our idiosyncrasies are well known: we are sometimes described as  more British than the British themselves; we sometimes appear a bit snobbish but those who have lived amongst us, know that we are just as generous, friendly and are accommodating as any of our wonderful neighbors.  Our quaint identity is our major strength, although it sometimes appears a bit colorless.  We may  never be instant and perpetual limers and party officialdoms like the Trinis; and we may never rival the tireless tenacity of our Jamaica...

By Pachamama In academic circles the last hundred years or so are generally considered as the period where the British and the Americans almost exclusively ruled more than the ‘western’ world. But where does real power lie? Is it in the hands of the known political elites? Or is it in the hands of the economic elites? Is there no discernible difference between the economic and political elites? What do we call a system where the political, economic and military elites are the same people representing the same interests?  Why are maximum and irrational efforts made by the so-called political leaders to ensure that all governments comply with the given notions about global governance – the so-called international community? Are there viable and competing models to structure global governance and where are they likely to lead us? Should we even trust the given notions for global governance? Is the Westphalian bifurcation of 1648 still determining the course of geo-political events? Mo...

By Selwyn Ryan Trinidad Express 11/20/11 Story Created: Nov 19, 2011 at 10:51 PM ECT  Story Updated: Nov 19, 2011 at 10:51 PM ECT  This is an excerpt from a paper presented at Miami Book Fair International on Wednesday. The political and economic problems currently being faced by Caribbean countries are extremely worrying. Even in Barbados, which is generally seen as a model nation. The only exception is Trinidad and Tobago, which is not as fiscally challenged as the others. The CLICO problem is, however, strangling the Trinidad economy and the truth is that nobody seems to know for sure what Trinidad's true economic position really is. The information seems to be a closely guarded secret. The political Opposition is alleging that it is just a matter of time before the Government becomes bankrupt because the Government was on a borrowing spree. In the meantime, there are problems in the energy sector. The price of oil is high, but production levels have dropped drastically. W...

By Pachamama It’s once more the time of year when the elites in Barbados automatically instigate actions of petite nationalism that are said to be consistent with an independent state/actor. However, when one examines the existential realities within either the political, economic, social or technological spheres a very different judgment could be made. Over the years many of us have presented arguments for a very different kind of nationalism, a different kind of Barbadianness. A nationalism that presents a Barbadian that comes from a longer history and that elevates the place of the indigenous peoples within our collective imaginations. A nationalism, which recognizes the indigenous people that have lived on this here land from the time before time - long before the invasions of Columbus. A nationalism that is not so wedded to the former colonial masters that it is near impossible to property understand our past, alter the present and shape a self-determined future. A nationalism, ...

By OBSERVER News - Monday, November 14th, 2011. ST JOHN’S, Antigua – AIDS Secretariat Counsellor Educator Oswald Hannays has expressed concern about the increasing incidence of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and the impact on the fight against HIV and AIDS. He explained to The Daily OBSERVER that persons with STIs such as gonorrhoea and Chlamydia are “at greater risk of contracting HIV.” He said more people are also presenting with genital warts, herpes and the human papillomavirus HPV. Hannays also highlighted the “trending bisexuality” especially among younger residents as a potential contributor to the rise in the HIV. “If you are going to have unprotected sex with both of those partners, if HIV enters that equation, it is going to likely spread to three persons,” he lamented. The counsellor educator urged the youth to re-examine themselves, focus more on education and access information that is accurate. He stressed that while “a huge volume of information is available o...

All Caribbean people, join in extending our heartfelt sympathies, to  the families and loved ones, of all those , who lost their lives last night, in the horrific road accident,in Choiseul, St.Lucia. Fourteen lives lost is a tragedy of monumental proportions. We now urge all Caribbean governments, to embark on national comprehensive road repair programs, designed to improve the travel of those, who depend on both public and private mass transport, by using the minibuses and other methods of transportation throughout the region. While we at Mahogany Coconut, would not use such a tragedy to blame any party or individual, we remain aware that there are many roads and bridges, throughout our region, that are themselves nothing more than "accidents waiting to happen." Once again we extend our sympathies and prayers to all those who will be forever affected because of this terrible tragedy.

Most true nationals would consider the abolition of slavery and the attainment of independence as the most significant dates in our history.Therefore like all patriotic Barbadians I will be celebrating our forty fifth anniversary of independence with a sense of pride and achievement. However it is most distressing that the collective political managerial class made up almost exclusively of Black Barbadians has failed to deliver Republican status after forty five years of independence.Progressive thinking citizens would have thought that becoming a republic was the next logical step. It is also extremely interesting that we seem to be moving heaven and earth to sponsor a sporting event, while becoming a republic has been put on the back burner, in order to appease those who cannot bring themselves to be finally rid of the monarchy. There are two issues which clearly reveal the confused  state of our national psyche: failure to remove the Lord Nelson from its current location, a...