Mahogany CoConut Blog

The Caribbean Is One Nation.  by William Skinner Sir Garfield Sobers There is, or at least was, a picture of Sir Garfield Sobers, in the hall of the Bay Primary School, located in Bayville that most of us will recall was once called Bay Land. The striking aspect of the picture is that Sir Garry is standing there with bat in hand it and appears to us that he is batting slightly outside the leg stump. In other words, all of his stumps are exposed. Many young boys have stared at this picture for years trying to figure out how Sir Garry could “move so fast” to avoid his stumps being uprooted. In those days, we argued whether that stance was genuine or if it was done merely for the cameras.  This photo, for me, began a fascination with this great man which has grown throughout the passing years. As a frequent visitor to one of my greatest friends Mike, who lived in Walcott’s Avenue, Bayville, I actually grew up knowing where Sir Garry lived and as time went on, I got to ...

The Caribbean Is One Nation. Submitted by the Mahogany Coconut Group Alton Sterling Philando Castille For those progressive blacks, who were engaged in the civil rights struggle of the 60’s, the recent murders of two more Afro America men: Alton Sterling and Philando Castille, by police in America, must be a very chilling reminder that the race is not o’er and the battle has not been won. It is impossible to believe that those freedom fighters could have imagined that in 2016, their beloved country will still be displaying such barbarism toward the Afro American community. Our Caribbean region should be most vocal, in condemning the acts of violence and we must seek to forge stronger and more progressive ties with our brothers and sisters in the USA. We must never forget that these shootings could have easily been our fate and we have only been spared by lucky circumstance. We came on the same ship but different stops! The Caribbean has always been a part of the strugg...

The Caribbean Is One Nation. Submitted by the Mahogany Coconut Group Patrick Manning The passing of former Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Mr. Patrick Manning, means that the region has  lost one of its most determined and complex leaders. Manning was perhaps the most forward thinking of the crop of leaders, during his time as Prime Minister. He had a very clear vision of regional integration and never faltered in his quest to make some form of regional unity work. Within the personality of what we affectionately call “De Trini”, Manning’s political persona was very deceptive because he was seen as a less charismatic figure than others such as former Prime Minister, Mr. Basdeo Panday.  However as we perused tributes since his passing, we were pleasantly surprised to learn that beneath the political persona, he was as “Trini” as anybody else. This though surprising, is not unique to many in high office, who the general public rarely observe, outside of their p...

The Caribbean Is One Nation. submitted by the Mahogany Coconut Group Austin Clarke Austin “Tom” Clarke the distinguished Barbadian born writer, who   recently died in his adopted home of Canada, has left a body of work that should influence many Caribbean writers for decades to come. Clarke was the hallmark of authenticity and never appeared to be esoteric and untouchable, like so many of his counterparts, whose success seems to always take them on journeys that separate them from their roots. To put it another way, we are saying that some of our best and most internationally acclaimed writers tend to be strangers to the region. Perhaps Clarke’s accessibility could be the result of choosing Canada as his Diasporic domicile while others chose England. His struggles to establish himself as a writer have been well documented and it is indeed a tribute to his tenacity that although success was rather slow in coming, he was successful in sustaining it to the very end. ...