Mahogany CoConut Blog

The Caribbean Is One Nation. TOO LITTLE TOO LATE – IS IT A GENERALISED COLLASPE OF CAPITALISM? by Pachamama Dr. Kenny Anthony For years we have been the canary in the cold mine for misguided Caribbean elites as we shouted to the top of our voices our central refrain that capitalism has failed and that that failure presented Caribbean peoples with equally great opportunities to play a larger role in the world as we determine our common destiny. Despite our best efforts nobody in officialdom in a backward Caribbean took us seriously. The elites in academia, like Hilary Beckles, thought it impossible - impossible for capitalism to collapse. The elites in economy were so busily gorging themselves with the crumbs from massa’s table to think about such a tectonic shift and its implication for Caribbean peoples. The political elites, like Chris Sinckler, Mia Mottley, Owen Arthur and their parties were, and still are, so captured by a faux and dead political-economy model that they

                                                          The Caribbean Is One Nation. President Danilo Medina We call on the Government of the Dominican Republic to repeal the nefarious rulings of the DR constitutional court and return the dignity to those Haitians born of Hatian descent in the Dominican Republic, by restoring their rights to be citizens.    We further make it public that we will oppose the Dominican Republic becoming a member of CARICOM  unless this blot is removed from its affairs. The Haitian people seem to have been identified, as the one people in our region, who must suffer indignity after indignity; be it political, natural or man made.  Haiti has been treated, not as the most progressive post slave society in our region but as an unwanted step child by the entire region. Yet in the face of betrayal and ruthless internal and external political machinations, the Haitian people, whenever given the opportunity demonstrate an inherent resolve, not so rea

                                                           The Caribbean Is One Nation. An outrageous ruling By Ralph Gonsalves Story Created: Oct 21, 2013 at 8:39 PM ECT Story Updated: Oct 21, 2013 at 8:39 PM ECT  Ralph Gonzalves  Following is the text of the letter from the Prime Minister, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, to  Dominican Republic (DR   ) President Danilo Medina, in response to the recent ruling of the DR constitutional court that upends the status of people of Haitian descent who were born in the Dominican Republic. The government and people of St Vincent and the Grenadines are deeply distressed that the constitutional court in the Dominican Republic has, in a recent ruling, denied citizenship to persons of Haitian descent born in the Dominican Republic. This court decision in effect renders stateless, huge numbers of these persons of Haitian descent.  Surely, this ruling by the court is unacceptable in any civilised community. It is

                                              The Caribbean Is One Nation. Sachin Tendulkar Caribbean people worship God and others. However, we also worship cricket. We have this amazing ability to go to a cricket match and support the other team if it is performing well.  When it comes to recognizing cricketing greats there is no other group from the cricketing world, that is so generous with its assessments and compliments. That is why the current group of West Indies players is probably more responsible for hypertension, in the region than any poor diet. They spectacular and consistent failure to recapture our glory is only matched and possibly surpassed by the inept political leadership that cannot seem to rid itself of backward thinking. We recently learned that Sachin Tendulkar, India’s most outstanding batsman, has decided to retire from the game and it is fair to say he goes out as perhaps the greatest batsman of his generation. We are not going to rehash his severa

                                                      The Caribbean Is One Nation Ground Provisions Today, Wednesday, October 16, 2013, is World Food day. World Food Day commemorates the founding date of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in 1945. This year, the World Food Day theme for 2013 is: Sustainable Food Systems for Food Security and Nutrition. The Mahogany Coconut Group (MCG) is convinced that the Caribbean region is quite capable of developing sustainable food systems for the proper nutritional benefits of our peoples.  These international days, such as World Food Day, usually designated by the United Nations, must be viewed from a Caribbean perspective in order for them to have any real significance for our region. The MCG is therefore proud to tell the United Nations, that we have always had to find ways to fight of starvation, from the days of slavery, and we have always   with great ingenuity provided our people with food systems that gu

                                                    The Caribbean Is One Nation. Once more a senseless act of incredible cruelty has led to the death of a child in the Caribbean. We refer to an article reproduced from the Trinidad Guardian Newspaper and carried in Mahogany Coconut: “Toddler Murdered in Trinidad”. The Mahogany Coconut Group will continue to highlight such atrocities against our lovely and innocent children WHEREVER AND WHENEVER they occur in our region. We realize that there are many who want us to sweep such acts under the proverbial carpet but we will not. We are astounded that national papers will have lead stories of corrupt politicians and a political deviant, who apparently is a now serious contender for the highest political office, while relegating this murderous act against one of our children to a few lines. We seem more inclined to use our media as tools of a decadent and widening political managerial class of bold faced sycophants than to highlight the

                                                      The Caribbean Is One Nation. Month-old infant slammed to the ground in Point Published:  Tuesday, October 15, 2013 Yvonne Webb Trindad and Tobago National Flag Point Fortin Mayor Clyde Paul yesterday called on the authorities to deal swiftly with a self-confessed child killer. Paul’s comment followed the arrest of a Cap-de-Ville man who admitted to slamming one-month old Andre Feroze Mowlah to his death on Sunday. In a statement to the police, the child’s mother said this was the fourth time her male relative had attempted to kill the baby in a fit of anger.  She said the first time, two days before the child celebrated his first month of life, the man threw baby Andre down on some grass. Twice after, in the days that followed, he did it again, but the child suffered no visible physical injury. On Sunday, shortly before noon, the woman said she had an altercation with the man and he threatened to kill her. In

                                                          The Caribbean Is One Nation. by William Skinner George Lamming I recently read that the distinguished Caribbean novelist, thinker and defender of the oppressed, Mr. George Lamming state that:  “ “The time is overdue for the Caribbean to be at the centre of the curriculum at all levels of the region’s education system, from primary to tertiary and not simply as a subject of geography but as an organic path in understanding who we are as one people .” (Trinidad Express Weds. Oct. 9 Th .) He made this statement to Mr. Rickey Singh, one of the leading Caribbean journalists, in welcoming the Caribbean Court of Justice decision, which sided with Jamaican Shanique Myrie, in the now famous case brought against the Barbados government, involving treatment meted out to her by Barbados custom officials. As the region tries its utmost to survive the ravages of the current recession, we have been fed an abundance of economics an

                                                            The Caribbean Is One Nation. Michael Manley The late Prime Minister of Jamaica, Mr. Michael Manley, in his outstanding book, The Politics of Change, said there are three approaches to politics and therefore there are three approaches to the use of power. According to Manley: “There are men, perhaps the majority, who see power as something to be acquired for its own sake. Then there are those who see power as something to be used for the purposes of minor adjustments in the society. Finally, there are the idealists who seek to arrange fundamental change.” While we cannot for certain say why our current group of political jokers, masquerading as leaders in our region entered politics, we are convinced that the majority of them falls into the category of self promotion and they feel entitled to strut about this region behaving as if they are the new slave masters or the direct descendants of the colonialists. Their egos

                                                          The Caribbean Is One Nation National dish? Tuesday, October 8 2013 The Scarlet Ibis Given these facts we would think that every citizen would appreciate the beauty and the importance of these birds to so many of us. The Scarlet Ibis is a bird of startling beauty, and it attracts thousands of visitors to the Caroni Bird Sanctuary each year, hundreds of these visitors coming from overseas just to enjoy the sight of flocks of these birds coming in to roost in the mangrove at sunset. Their presence, along with other wetland attractions, provides stable employment for dozens of birding and wildlife guides who take people into the Caroni Swamp each evening just to see the arrival of the Ibis. But there are people in our country, people who live among us, for whom nothing is sacred, sacrosanct, respected or protected. These are the people who will pay large sums of money to go to certain restaurants to eat our Scarlet Ibi

Caribbean Flags                       The Caribbean Is One Nation                                                                                                  . "Economic development is something much wider and deeper than economics, let alone econometrics. Its roots lie outside the economic sphere, in education, organisation, discipline and, beyond that, in poli tical independence and a national consciousness of self-reliance.”  ―  E.F. Schumacher ,  Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered   We are quite aware that small is beautiful. That is why we may come across sometimes as being belligerent in our critique of the current Caribbean leaders. They simply do not realize that our relatively small geographical area has been the main reason we have survived for the past two centuries. Our limited size and population gave our leaders a better chance of rapidly organizing our citizens as we were emerging from colonialism and charting our way toward self gov

                                                    The Caribbean Is One Nation.      Shanique Myrie The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), has awarded Jamaican national Shanique Myrie, $75000. and has ruled that the Barbados Government , breached her right of entry, when she arrived at the Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA), on March 14, 2011. Ms. Myrie had claimed she was verbally abused, subjected to a cavity search and denied entry into Barbados. Barbados Foreign Minister, Ms. Maxine McClean, had been one of the first to dismiss Ms. Myrie's claim.  The Mahogany Coconut Group, will continue to insist, that all Caribbean nationals be treated with respect by customs, police and airport personnel, when they are travelling throughout the region. We can only hope that this decision, alert customs and airport officials to the expectation, that they must treat fellow Caribbean travellers with the dignity and respect they deserve. As the Mighty Stalin remin

                                                             The Caribbean Is One Nation. Coconut Sweet bread We are happy to provide a link below on how to make coconut sweetbread .  We use the coconut and its milk for many different purposes. The dry coconut shell is used to make souvenirs; we use the coconut oil for skin and hair care and use it in the preparation of our food ; the coconut water is consumed in great portions and even as a great drink mixer ; we eat the soft jelly and the hard jelly as well and we also drink the coconut oil for some digestive purposes. As the Mahogany Coconut Group stated our very first post, we see both the mahogany and coconut as  signs of strength and two incredible products (trees) that have given and continue to give our region a source of both enjoyment and income. Here is the link for a great recipe and beautiful illustrations. Enjoy! http://caribbeanpot.com/how-to-make-coconut-sweet-bread/

                                                        The Caribbean Is One Nation. Caribbean Renewable Energy Forum (CREF) 2013 Logo In a previous article, we highlighted a speech given by the late Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Eric Williams. Dr. Williams, spoke of a huge food project that never saw the light of day. Around that time he also spoke about the effects of the “so-called energy crisis” in 1973 and said that the increase in oil prices resulted in the ability of the Trinidad and Tobago consumers to spend more money on food. It was Williams’ hope to use the bounty from oil prices to improve food production. However, this is a world now far removed from that scenario because while oil is still the major source of energy, there has been a shift to others sources and the buzz words are now energy conservation and renewable energy. We now have to concentrate on using less oil and electricity and make a shift to solar, electric driven cars and wind energy.

                                                       The Caribbean Is One Nation. Dr Eric Williams  The current recession has brought home to Caribbean governments, the importance of food production. Ever since the arrival of tourism as one of the region’s leading foreign exchange earners, agriculture has been put on the back burner and food production has dropped considerably or has not increased substantially. We are quoting a number of excerpts from an address given by the late Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Dr. Eric Williams, to the Convention of the Caribbean Veterinary Association in August 1974. “The price of our imported food continues to rise aggravated by the rise in freight rates, insurance etc., We remain at the mercy of all the imported inflation of developed countries, at a time emphasizing what His Excellency the President of Gambia had just said, when famine stalks many parts of the world today, and the prospects are that the situation w

                                                           The Caribbean Is One Nation. United Nations Logo As we celebrate International Day of the Elderly, today October 1st., we take pause and remember our own Caribbean elderly, past and present, who have built this region from a slave society, to one of independence, regional pride and sovereignty. We believe that over the last half century, we have lost a golden opportunity to involve our seniors in more decision making regarding regional affairs. The educated elite has chosen to seek answers to most of our problems from outside the region and a main casualty of this myopic approach, has been a rich oral history and customs that have either been ignored or forgotten. Our culture risks becoming a Hodgepodge  of watered down historical offers severely afflicted by cultural penetration. We are also experiencing the proliferation of nursing homes and other elderly care facilities throughout the region. We urge all gove