Mahogany CoConut Blog

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                                          Barbados Must Deal with Unfinished Business Robert"Bobby" Clarke       By William Skinner   We often speak of unfinished business and sometimes this saying takes on very interesting twists. Back in the late sixties and seventies, a progressive group of black Barbadians, spoke about the unfinished business bequeathed to us by our decadent colonial masters. They told us that failure to radically reorganize the society, would eventually lead to the marginalization of the poor black citizens. Of course, the then political class adroitly led by Errol Barrow, in an attempt to appease the fears of white Barbadians, moved swiftly to destroy the black nationalists movement by going into parliament and passing the dangerous Public Orde...

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                                                             Caribbean Youth  Region's Future Since we at Mahogany Coconut see the Caribbean as one nation, we are not given to petty insular commentary. We stoutly believe that the pursuit of freedom cannot be attained without mental preparation. Our invalid education system is current evidence, that governmental and developmental bankruptcy, when ignored or left unchecked, produce maladies that are not easily controlled or eradicated. We are often left to quote Bob Marley: “Free you from mental slavery, non but ourselves can free our minds…….” Our reading of current regional trends, informs us that the future of our region, now rests with citizens who are of twenty five years old and you...

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                              World Cup Soccer - The Organized Criminal Religion, That It Is! By Pachamama " Over recent decades the Caribbean has seen its fair share of FIFA maladministration. Our own Jack Warner has been connected to bribery allegations that relate to payments for votes. Some years ago Randy Harris, in Barbados, was censored for daring to approach a national court for redress to an internal football association matter."   As the World Cup of Soccer enters the knock out phase we are closer to a declared winner, on the field. But regardless of the nation state that will hoist the trophy, FIFA will always be the real winner. The Fédération Internationale de Football Association, as founded in 1904, has grown up to be a leading beneficiary of the generalized misguidance of the vast majority of human...

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                                        Bajan Manners At De Doc's Office By Michael Headley On June 02, while sitting in the waiting room  at the Doctor’s office  I had an unforgettable experience.  The room was crowded, but quiet, as some people spoke in hushed tones, on their cell phones, completely ignoring the sign, at the counter, that read ‘Turn off Cell phones’.    If we were all in compliance then we would not be true New Yorkers because some of us tend to conveniently ignore  instructions, especially if we don’t see the necessity for them.    The silence was soon broken by the voice of a lady saying a hearty ‘Good Afternoon’.   The response, in the room, was just as hushed as the phone conversations, and ...

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                        Barbados Education System Infested By Termites By William Skinner Termite Once again the annual ritual surrounding the release of the Common Entrance Examination results, has taken center stage. While the Minister of Education rants and raves about the mathematics results, the Principal of the University of the West Indies seems down spirited about the science results at Cave Hill. Any alert observer will see the connection. If the foundation is bad the building would eventually fall. The Minister of Education refuses to see that if the results are deteriorating under his watch, it may be time for him to move on to another ministry. But we have little regard for holding our leaders accountable. Dragging retired teachers from their gardening and other hobbies to teach math will not work because there is no r...

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                                               World Cup Soccer 2014 By Pachamama Every time world cup soccer (football) comes around a plurality of the peoples on earth recall the glorious Brazilian teams of 1950's, 60's and early 70's. The Brazilian teams of Edson Arantes do Nascimento (Pele) and his band of magicians. Things are unlikely to be any different this year with the tournament being in what some consider the Holy See for soccer lovers with Pele as its eternal Pope. But this Brazilian team of 2014 is unlikely to repeat the dazzling brilliance of their forebears, even if they won the cup. To a large extent it was the Brazilians who led the transformation of soccer from a slow physical game to the faster, more technical, tactical, precise, flowing and the easier to ...

The Caribbean Is One Nation. Mixed WI feelings over Maya Angelou acclaim Thanks to two events happening at the same time, the contribution of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean to US life and culture enjoyed a brief but timely recall. The May 28 death of literary superstar Maya Angelou occasioned a revisit of her Trinidadian family roots and cultural connections. It was recalled that the maternal grandfather of the illustrious poet, author, sage, university professor, activist and orator had come from T&T. Moreover, Ms Angelou’s career significantly included a 1950s stint as a calypso singer, composer, and dancer in New York. She also starred in the movie, Calypso Heat Wave.  Addressing a memorial service last weekend, former US president Bill Clinton celebrated Ms Angelou’s “action-packed life”. Her range of involvements covered an embrace of T&T/Caribbean heritage and culture within the milieu of US life and times. Such an embrace is of course the f...

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                                            Time For Ideas and Solutions Part 1 Farmers Market In Jamaica By Ruel E. Lowe What can we do, to solve the problems, in Jamaica and The Caribbean?  Let us take some time out to do some very deep thinking and soul searching. As we are well aware dealing with constant negativity is a sure way of destroying one’s health! The problems in Jamaica and the Caribbean are well chronicled, crime, opportunistic, avaricious politicians, inefficient, ineffective governance and greatest of all short coming a lack of vision and the list go on and on………  Now for the billion dollar question: What can/will we do about it?  Constant complaining/criticizing/ condemning and pointing out the myriad problems, is not the solution! I refuse t...

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                                              The Black Cats Verses the Black Lackeys By Pachamama We watch a boring cricket test match as the cultural dead-endedness of Caribbean societies is demonstrated through cricket. Cricket as a cultural expression of the British was never going to be susceptible to the radical transformation, in the Caribbean, it faced after the cultural revolution in North American, giving them baseball. For the Blacks with White masks at the WICBC and amongst the elites in the Caribbean are even more protective of this traditional British game than even the very British themselves.   Former players, administrators and newly minted Black lackeys get to trot out their knighthoods when cricket is playing. For them it is in the service of Queen and ...

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                                                                   The Land of Make Belief Alice in Wonderland By   Pachamama Our planet home is no more than one great Disney Land. A Land of Make Belief. A land where there are no hard distinctions between what is unreal and what is real. Between what is false and what is true. What is just and what is unjust. So reality, as judged by human perceptions about the beginning or the end, or anything in between, finds the real truths about our existence forever unbelievable. This absence of truths has led to the lack of freedoms and there can be no means to stymie this rot in this epoch.  The childhood device to understand reality through the creation of make belief is no l...

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                                     Brothers Brief Trip From Womb to Tomb Photo Credit Trinidad Express Once again with great sorrow bordering on a deep anger, we are forced by our dedication to truth, to highlight the slaughter of our youth by those who have little regard for the sanctity of human life. The simple truth is that the recent deadly slaying of two young citizens of Trinidad and Tobago, clearly demonstrates that the Caribbean has entered a zone of numbness and brutality that must be altered before our region begins to resemble some distant battlefield. For if the murders in Trinidad and Tobago are not enough to occupy our minds, we can turn to the horrendous statistics which show that the bodies of our children and young adults, under the age of twenty, are finding themselves on the i...

The Caribbean Is One Nation. Media For Rent, Press Freedom For Sale By Sunity Maharaj  When self-proclaimed independent media houses get to the point of pre-empting their own news and selling their news air-time and audiences to political bidders we know that we have crossed a new line in the corruption of our institutions. Clearly, no cow is too sacred to be sold. It takes deep pockets to buy out a three-hour block of air-time from five television stations and ten radio stations as the People’s Partnership did for its anniversary rally last Saturday. A casual calculation would put the cost of just air-time alone in the vicinity of $2 million with the lion’s share going to top-rated TV6 and CNC3. Clearly, in this guava season of shifting demographics and rival social media, the buy-out offer was too sweet for the mainstream media to pass up, even for the once non-negotiable items of the News time slot. It was only a matter of time that news audiences, acquired ...