commentary

Trinidadian Lawyer Secures Historic Conviction of a former Head of State

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A ‘Trinidadian’ lawyer – Ula Nathai-Lutchman – played a prominent role in the Prosecution team that secured the historic Judgement against former President Charles Taylor. Mr. Taylor, who was indicted while he was still President of Liberia, is the first former Head of State to be convicted by an international criminal tribunal since the Nuremburg … Read more

Riot–redefined

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As many will know The Cap has so far escaped arrest and extradition, for his ‘tamasic’ writings in relation to Rock-crawlers causing riots. Diehard rock-crawlers intolerant of all things critical of Rock-modus-operandi, had asserted that people have a right to protest if they are frustrated. Enter ‘Chaos’ – the ‘new’ redefinition of Riot! Undeterred, the … Read more

Opportunistic citizenship–part 1

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The two words come together on Google but the concept has not been defined as I do here. And – there is as yet no single set of words that will define completely ‘opportunistic citizenship’ [OC].

I’ll give a thumbnail sketch of what OC may involve – but it is not a full concept at this stage. The concept includes and originates with citizenship by naturalisation, but it is not limited to that particular form of citizenship. OC means that naturalised persons reap the benefits of citizenship in an opportunistic fashion, with no genuine desire to give back to the society or State that grants it. I will expand on this in a while. What follows refers in part to rights and privileges, however I focus more on mindsets. I think you probably need to re-read that sentence very carefully.

First I wish to give my experience and concept of what it means to me to be a citizen of a new country i.e. England. I must explain this by reference to a conversation I had with my father a few years ago. This was around the time of the Iraq war. I was asked, whether I loved England so much that I’d be willing to give my life for this nation, and whether if called upon to serve in the army I would do so. My unhesitating response was “Yes!”. This caused some bewilderment; that I would want to die fighting for a “foreign nation”, in a war that was “none of my business”. Well it is my business!! If I swear allegiance to a nation – especially one that I adopt or has adopted me – I think I’m obliged to give my life to defending it’s realm, if that becomes necessary. After all that is what may be required of a citizen in a country of birth – so why should it be any different for me? (I ask rhetorically). However, I don’t imagine

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Situation on a bus. My bad.

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Yesterday I got on to bus in my local town to get to the train station. Nothing spectacular about that you may think – and rightly so. After all people are doing this a zillion times a day – innit? Smile  I do this short journey of about ten minutes, on average once every month or two, especially if I’m heading into London – as I was yesterday. A bus pulls up. I wave my pre-paid ticket which is checked as correct in 0.25 of a second. I ask the driver, “Is this bus going in to the train station?” Well that’s a bad question

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I may soon be arrested!!

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As if to predict what would happen on Fraggle Rock, the Cap had pondered the issue of Riots as recently on 10th March 2012 in: Of Riots in banana republics. Then, lo and behold, riots break out on the Rock on 13th March 2012 as reported in the T&T Guardian and, Newsday. According to Rock-logic, … Read more

Is there a thing called IgQ?

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I think it is stupid to pay for an email address when there are free high quality email services out there e.g. gmail, yahoo, gmx – but as I’ve said before the ‘dummy market’ is still wide open and waiting to be taken advantage of. Okay so you wanna know what’s motivated me to write … Read more

Stupidity of the Rock order!

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Another Rockian’s email account is hacked.. and spewing porn adverts at me. Well I guess it’s not just a Rockian thing. Dohtishness and laziness flourishess outside of the Rock too. Everybody goes “Oooooh.. but I had a really strong password” and in my mind I say “Bollocks!!”. The guidance from Wikipedia is good (and is … Read more

Victim of a lynch mob, or political correctness gone mad?

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Warning! This post is not for headline hungry Rock-huggers. It is a long and in-depth look into a very serious and far reaching issue.

It’s now stale news of course that Nizam Mohammed was  sacked by the President on 2011-04-04 in close approximation to apparently very unsavoury comments  made  at a Joint Select Committee (JSC) meeting on 2011-03-25, tasked with  evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of the Police Service Commission. Those comments were said to be of a racist nature. In addition it was asserted that NM did not have the authority to “fix” any ethnic imbalance in the Duncey Police Service – even though he was head of the Police Service Commission. At the outset I must declare that I hold no political affiliations anywhere. My motive for exploring this matter is largely about how human beings – who are supposed to be intelligent – are ruled by primitive forces that confound the application cognitive abilities.

What did Nizam Mohammed actually say?
He said

“Out of ten Assistant Commissioners of Police, you don’t have a single one of Indian origin. Out of three Deputy Commissioners, none of Indian origin. Well we have one Commissioner of Police. Senior Superintendent, you have 15 all of African origin, none of Indian origin.

Happily when you look at the figures, you see at the Superintendent level, you have 21 of African origin and ten of East Indian origin and since within recent times, we have been emphasising the question of meritocracy as opposed to seniority, and Monday coming, Superintendents

should be writing their exams. The better ones may move to Senior Superintendents and you may have a better mixture, and you cannot approach a matter like this in an inflammatory, passionate, emotional kind of way.

Fifty per cent of this country are people of East Indian origin and you are asking them to support the Police Service…They have to provide the Police Service with information…They have to feel protected by the Police Service and when they see the hierarchy of the Police Service is as imbalanced as is reflected in these figures and the chairman of the commission intends to tackle these things you understand why…you understand why the guns are being aimed at me, but I have a job to do and this is what I am going to do. I intend to address this with the help of the Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago.”

Nizam Mohammed outlined the following facts (which have not been disputed to date)

  • •Ten Assistant Commissioners of Police—No East Indians.
  • •Three Deputy Commissioners of Police—No East Indians.
  • •15 Senior Superintendents—No East Indians.
  • •31 Superintendents—21 Africans and ten East Indians.

 What did the media say?

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