Mahogany CoConut Blog

The Caribbean Is One Nation. TUBAL URIAH “BUZZ” BUTLER (1897-1977) Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler was born in 1897 in Grenada where he received his primary education. During the First World War, he served in the British West Indian Regiment, under Captain Arthur Cipriani. Like most of his fellow soldiers, he idolized Cipriani. He returned to Grenada after the war, but moved to Trinidad in 1921, attracted by the flourishing oil industry with its plentiful jobs and relatively high wages. In 1929, he was injured in an industrial accident that left him permanently lame. Uriah Butler Butler himself, a member of the working class, embraced the labour movement and its cause wholeheartedly, joining Cipriani’s Trinidad Labour Party but leaving it in 1936 because he found it too moderate. In 1935, he led a 60 mile hunger march from the oil belt to Port-of-Spain, to highlight the workers’ demands; this was considered a direct challenge to Cipriani who advocated more constitutional method...

The Caribbean Is One Nation.                                                       Race Relations In Barbados Barbados National Flag I woke up this morning to comments on the Facebook page of the online newspaper Barbados Today, about half of which were not in favour of the winner being a Caucasian woman.  My first reactions to the posts were that I could not believe that in 2016, a vast number of Barbadians of African descent, truly believed that a woman, though born in Barbados and a resident, was unqualified to represent our country at the Miss Universe Pageant, based on the fact that she did not “look like the majority of Bajan women”.  Some persons even alluded to her assumed “privileged” upbringing which was thought to have given her an unfair advantage to become the eventual winner. Having moved from feelings of shock, disbe...

The Caribbean is One Nation Some Caribbean Delicacies Enjoy.......... Pholourie Trinidad and Tobago Empananda Cuba , Dominican Republic Beef Patties Jamaica Fishcakes Barbados Conch Fritters Bahamas

The Caribbean Is One Nation. Felicia Browne Women's Advocate Human Rights and Peace Ambassador for the region, Felicia Browne, has cited the urgent need for new initiatives against gun violence. When women and youth are fatally shot with such brutality, it raises serious concerns about the effectiveness of our crime-related policies. No citizen can feel safe within areas which are ridden with crime and other gang-related activities,” Browne said in a press statement. She described gun violence as a local, regional and international problem and added that such violence and gun-related crimes create serious developmental challenges in high-risk communities, including developed countries. According to Browne, although many Caribbean countries have enacted laws to curb the levels of gun violence, rates of gun-related violence continue to rise. “ The lack of crime prevention programs and interventions have left the most vulnerable -women, children and young men – at hig...

The Caribbean Is One Nation. Barbados Olympic Team This was originally published as a letter to the Editor, Nationnews Paper Friday, Sept16th. 2016

The Caribbean Is One Nation. by William Skinner Errol Barrow The late prime Minister, Mr. Errol Barrow, singlehandedly turned the public against our public Servants by declaring them “an army of occupation”. Barrow was known for literally inflicting fear in those public servants, who refused to bend to his crude form of professional and  political bullying. We are a strange country that expects to plant okra and reap peppers, even if we live outside of the Scotland district! As we developed, the need for a well educated and vibrant public service became vital to our development. Any serious objective analysis of our public service will reveal that it is perhaps, along with the growth of the trade union movement, the pillar on which modern Barbados was built. While some may correctly point to the often ignored reports of the Auditor General, we cannot ignore that the lack of information forwarded to his office and the several negatives that he points out annually, are th...

The Caribbean Is One Nation. By William Skinner Usain Bolt The entire Caribbean Nation is ecstatic about the incredible achievements of Usain Bolt, the Jamaican super star athlete. However, we will be mistaken to believe that the Caribbean cannot produce another Bolt. Let us not forget that Brian Lara came along and broke Sir Garry Sobers’ highest test score record in Test Cricket, a feat that many of us thought was impossible. Annually, Jamaicans from throughout the world, travel home to witness their young athletes perform. It is from that incubator that the genius of Bolt and his compatriots, male and female, are produced. This clearly demonstrates that Jamaica’s athletic program is one of the best in the world. While we hail Bolt and his outstanding Olympic achievements, the wider Caribbean should pause and ask itself some very pertinent questions:  Why can’t we utilize our human resources to its fullest potential? What really stops us from achieving a Caribbean Nati...

The Caribbean Is One Nation. The Mahogany Coconut Group is once again forced to comment on the surge in violence, against Caribbean Nation children. In recent months, our children have met some horrible deaths due to the callousness and carelessness of adults. We would not identify any particular country or print the names of those who have tragically fallen because we consider a death of any child anywhere in the region, to be a loss to all countries. There have been: suicides, shootings, physical and sexual abuse and abandonment. In one case, an alleged suicide has been forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), after the Coroner’s Inquest, determined suicide was not the cause of death. The sloppiness of both the investigating police and the agency responsible for protecting children, in that country, was most apparent. Evidence gathered during the Coroner’s Inquest revealed that the teen and his mother were often at odds. There have been two cases in which very...