Thru Novel Lenses! New Vision New Perspectives New Ideas New Directions For the New World! Futuring Sustainable Development in the Post Pandemic Planet From Pre School to Policy Making
#Through the Political Glass Ceiling Rrvisited #BarrackObama on #HilaryClinton....'No man or woman not me not Bill (Clinton) more qualified to be President of the USA.... Sorry Bill...Democracy doesn't work if we constantly demonize each other....We the people...hold these truths... ...Democracy is about 'Yes we can' ...not yes he can or yes she can....
#BarrackObama on #HilaryClinton....'No man or woman not me not Bill (Clinton) more qualified to be President of the USA.... Sorry Bill...Democracy doesn't work if we constantly demonize each other....We the people...hold these truths... ...Democracy is about 'Yes we can' ...not yes he can or yes she can....
Michelle Obama fired up the Democratic campaign with a heartfelt emotional and sizzling endorsement of Hilary Clinton...wonder if the US Presidential candidate could match that herself #FLOTUS for #USPresident....powerful endorsement of #HilaryClinton #USElection #GenderBender @flotus @potus @krisramp @lolleaves @glocalpot #Demokrissy #LeavesOfLife
The Caribbean has a new World Heritage Site. The UNESCO World Heritage Committee inscribed the Antigua and Barbuda Nelson's Dockyard on the World Heritage List this week. After more than a decade of preparatory work, Nelson's Dockyard is the third Caribbean World Heritage Site to be admitted in this decade arising from intensive engagement with stakeholders.
Congratulations to Antigua and Barbuda
It is among 21 new sites deliberated on and admitted by the World Heritage Committee meeting in Turkey before the session was adjourned due to the political unrest.
It. follows the admittance of Jamaica's Blue and John Crow Mountain in 2015 and Barbados in 2011.
Congratulations to my friends and colleagues who worked within Antigua and Barbuda and outside in the region and beyond in this new addition to recognition of Caribbean World Heritage.
As you know inscription may be a huge win but a small step to winning the battle in conservation, protection and sustainable use.
Looking forward to seeing Antigua and Barbuda help lift the standards of management, conservation and appreciation of Caribbean Heritage in the region and activate to benefit from its sustainable tourism heritage potential among others.
Recalling here with a with a montage our world heritage and cultural activities during the preparation of the nominations. ...
My colleagues involved in this are all ecstatic. For me it reflects that seemingly intangible actions bring tangible results...the hands-on prep work with communities and stakeholders at all levels through the Caribbean over the last decade - education, outreach, networking, lobbying from villages to the halls of UNESCO...and that all three Small Island Caribbean sites admitted during this decade - the last five years in particular is a direct co-relation to active and sustained actions to build visibility for recognition/ appreciation
of Caribbean Heritage, culture centred sustainable development, conscientious tourism and harnessing
national regional and international energies. Time to Celebrate...
Kudos to an ecosystem
and networks that made this happen against tremendous odds hiccups and
challenges
For an island ... it
takes a world of effort ....
Stay tuned for More about preparing World Heritage Nominations and utilising for maximum benefits .... Want to learn more? email lolleaves@gmail.com
The Caribbean has a new World Heritage Site. The UNESCO World Heritage Committee inscribed the Antigua and Barbuda Nelson's Dockyard on the World Heritage List this week. Congratulations to the Government and people of Antigua and Barbuda who must be justly proud for adding one more dot to the UNESCO map on World Heritage listings for the Caribbean. The work has now begun to maintain its integrity for the international spectrum to which you have now raised the curtains on the docks .
Nelson's Dockyard is among 21 new sites deliberated on and admitted by the World Heritage Committee meeting in Turkey before the session was adjourned due to the political unrest.
After more than a decade of preparatory work, Nelson's Dockyard is the third Caribbean World Heritage Site to be admitted in this decade arising from intensive engagement with stakeholders.
It. follows the admittance of Jamaica's Blue and John Crow Mountain in 2015 and Barbados in 2011.
Congratulations to my friends and colleagues who worked within Antigua and Barbuda and outside in the region and beyond in this new addition to recognition of Caribbean World Heritage. Thanks to colleagues at UNESCO, the World Heritage Centre, the international community and Japan Funds in Trust which made some of this possible.
As you know inscription may be a huge win but a small step to winning the battle in conservation, protection and sustainable use.
Looking forward to seeing Antigua and Barbuda help lift the standards of management, conservation and appreciation of Caribbean Heritage in the region and activate to benefit from its sustainable tourism heritage potential among others.
Recalling here with a with a montage our world heritage and cultural activities during the preparation of the nominations. ... Stay tuned for More about preparing World Heritage Nominations and utilising for maximum benefits .... Want to learn more? email lolleaves@gmail.com
@krisramp, @lolleaves, @KrisRampersadTT, @glocalpot #LeavesOfLife #GlocalKnowledgePot, #Worldwewantpeople
Three-time Prime Minster of Trinidad and Tobago, Mr Patrick Augustus Manning passed away this morning July 2, 2016 at 8.15 am. He was diagnosed on July 1, 2016 with Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a cancer of the blood which affects the bone marrow. He would have been 70 years old next month. Manning served as Prime Minister in 1991 and in 2001, 2002 and 2007 as a member and leader of the People's National Movement political party. His was married to Hazel Manning who served as a former Education Minister in Trinidad and Tobago was the father of two sons. He served under two former Prime Ministers, Dr Eric Williams and Mr George Chambers and as Leader of the Opposition against three Prime Ministers, Mr ANR Robinson, Mr Basdeo Panday and Kamla Persad Bissessar. Persad-Bisessessar displaced him 2010 to become the first Female Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago as documented in Through the Political Glass Ceiling - Race to Prime Ministership by Trinidad and Tobago's First Female. Through the Political Glass Ceiling captures the final nail biting-moments of Mr Patrick Manning's Prime Ministership and the socio, cultural and political milieu in Trinidad and Tobago and internationally that resulted in his defeat at the elections of 2010.
Through the Political Glass Ceiling explores the "Clash of Political Cultures through Cultural Diversity lenses and an analysis of minority politics in relation to geography, gender and rurality, globalisation and the information age. Manning has been one of the longest serving politicians and a parliamentarian since 1971 when he contested the elections to win the San Fernando East seat which he held for ten consecutive elections up to 2015. Patrick Manning was born at the foothills of the Naparima Hill in Trinidad and Tobago's second city, San Fernando in 1946.Educated at Presentation College and the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. He served as a geologist in the oil industry in his early career with Texaco as a geologist andhas served in several reincarnations as Minister responsible forthe energy industries Ministerial portfolio in Trinidad and Tobago as well as Ministerial roles for Works, Transport, Industry and Commerce, Petroleum and Mines, Information, Energy and Natural Resources among them. His political career has not been untouched by controversy. Through the Political Glass Ceiling captures the build-up to the election of Kamla Persad-Bissessar as the first woman Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago with historical and socio-cultural analyses and contexts that examine the role of gender, culture and geography in the politics of this developing country. This book presents the paradox of politics and society in Trinidad and Tobago in the context of the contest for leadership between the country's longest standing political entity, the People's National Movement, and the first female leader of a political party, United National Congress' Kamla Persad-Bissessar. It sets selected speeches of Persad-Bissessar against the backdrop of multiculturalism, gender, and geo-politics with refreshing insights into the interplay between minority and dominant political ideologies as post-Independent T&T struggles for articulation and definition of a truly encompassing national identity. Ranging through the country's experiences with political parties under Dr Eric Williams, through the period of the National Alliance for Reconstruction and ANR Robinson to the period of voting deadlock at the turn of the century involving Basdeo Panday and Patrick Manning, it presents the situations and contexts of Persad-Bissessar's controversial political career. In doing so, it provides roadmaps of Persad-Bissessar's journey to T&T's highest political offices, through to the defining moments of the May 2010 snap electioncalled by Patrick Manning. It is compiled with introduction and contexts by Dr Kris Rampersad, a journalist, researcher, educator, writer and publisher and heritage expert and educator on the diversity of Caribbean society and cultures.
This book documents the factors and forces that led to the whirlwind triumph of Trinidad and Tobago’s First Female Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar at the snap polls of May 2010.
Kamla Persad-Bissessar's Selected Speeches, compiled, with introduction, contexts and analyses by Dr Kris Rampersad, explores the seeming tug-of-war between polarisation in the political arena vis-a-vis other more cohesive cultural forces at play in Trinidad and Tobago society. It also examines the roles of gender and geo-politics among other factors in the contest for leadership between Mrs. Persad-Bissessar as the first female leader of a political party, the United National Congress, in Trinidad and Tobago and the country's longest standing political entity, the People's National Movement. Ranging from the country's experiences with political parties under Dr Eric Williams, through the period of the National Alliance for Reconstruction and ANR Robinson to the period of voting deadlock at the turn of the century involving Basdeo Panday and Patrick Manning, the book provides roadmaps of Persad-Bissessar’s journey to the defining moments of the May 2010 snap election. Dr Rampersad’s introduction, A Clash of Political Cultures - Cultural Diversity & Minority Politics in Trinidad & Tobago, traces the current political environment to the immediate pre- and post independent periods as Trinidad and Tobago struggles for articulation and definition of a truly all-encompassing national identity from its diversity of “mother cultures.”
Selected speeches of Mrs. Persad-Bissessar form the backdrop to these explorations. Speeches presented relate to Mrs. Persad-Bissessar’s “Stepping through the glass ceiling - Decisive moments in her political decision-making”; “ Vision of National & Political Unity”; the gender factor – “to be woman and leader”; “engaging partner watchdogs” and in her various other roles as Leader of the Opposition, Member of Parliament, Attorney General, Minister of Legal Affairs and Minister of Education as well as those presented in other forums as election platforms and interactions with civil society organizations and individuals.
A book highlighting the quest by the country’s first female leader of the United National Congress, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, for prime ministership is to be launched today
A book highlighting the quest by the country’s first female leader of the United National Congress, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, for prime ministership is to be launched today
Written by journalist, researcher and publisher Dr Kris Rampersad, the book entitled Through The Political Glass Ceiling—Race to Prime Ministership by Trinidad and Tobago’s First Female is a compilation of selected speeches of Persad-Bissessar against the backdrop of contending minority-versus-dominant factors of culture, gender and geography, as T&T struggles for articulation and definition of a truly encompassing national identity. The book is expected to be launched at MovieTowne, Port-of-Spain, with the blessing and presence of Persad-Bissessar. Rampersad says the book presents the paradox of politics and society in T&T in the context of the contest for leadership between the country’s longest standing political identity, the PNM, and Persad-Bissessar, who is vying for the office of Prime Minister. The book, consisting introduction, context and analyses ranges through the country’s experiences with political parties under Dr Eric Williams to the period of voting deadlock at the turn of the century, involving Basdeo Panday and Patrick Manning.
Book review: Through the Political Glass Ceiling - from the CARIBBEAN CAMERA
(From Left): Journalist Colin Rickards, Caribbean Camera Editor, Raynier Maharaj, Itah Sadoo of A Different Booklist ,author Dr Kris Rampersad and Consul General of Trinidad and Tobago at dinner with the author courtesy Red Pepper Restaurant, Toronto.
Kris Rampersad was in Toronto recently to launch her book, which is a collection of speeches by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, spanning her two decades in public life.
Journalist Colin Rickards reviewed the book for the CARIBBEAN CAMERA in Toronto.
The review below is reproduced from the weekly publication:
In Through The Political Glass Ceiling former journalist Kris Rampersad has written of and about the Caribbean’s newest Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar of Trinidad and Tobago.
The 444-page book, somewhat quaintly subtitled “Race to Prime Minister by Trinidad and Tobago’s First Female,” takes the form of Selected Speeches by Persad-Bissessar during her political career, and in the run-up to the election which brought her the post of Prime Minister in the People’s Partnership Government.
These are presented with an Introduction and Contexts and Analyses by Rampersad, and virtually track Persad-Bissessar’s long and distinguished political career.
Her final romp -- from Leader of the United National Congress (UNC) in January, to Leader of the Opposition the following month, to Prime Minister on May 24 -- was nothing short of astonishing.
Rampersad’s premise that multiculturalism matters to Trinbagonians, and that too many people were shut out from the governing process, is sound, and explains Persad-Bissessar’s success in bringing four other parties into her United National Congress fold as members of the People’s Partnership -- which the author engagingly described to me as “not a coalition of parties, rather a coalition of interests.”
Among the frailties of coalition governments the world over -- and vividly demonstrated in several of the small Parliaments of the Eastern Caribbean during the past three decades and more -- is that “floor crossing” can be fatal for any administration.
The People’s Partnership secured 29 of the 41 seats in Parliament -- with 59 per cent of the votes -- and Persad-Bissessar is fortunate in that the UNC has the majority of the 29, so “floor crossing,” or resignations, while they would reduce her majority, would not bring down her government.
Speaking at a dinner at the Red Pepper restaurant in Pickering two weeks ago, author and political analyst Rampersad talked of the perceived inadequacy of the Whitehall Model of a two-party, First-Past-The-Post electoral system, which “was
imposed upon us” by the British Government ant the time of Independence.
Trinidad and Tobago celebrated its 48th birthday on August 31, but I still have vivid memories of covering the Independence Conference in London on behalf of The Trinidad Guardian. So I rather felt that “imposed” was an unfair word, as Dr. Eric Williams and his delegation arrived well prepared. They knew what they had come to get -- and they got it.
The Opposition, led by eminent mathematician Dr. Rudranath Capildeo, was not well organized -- even though it included some of his party’s luminaries -- and more or less let Williams and his band of merry men run all over them.
(I never understood how it was seen as remotely sensible or acceptable for Capildeo -- who taught at the University of London -- to also be Leader of the Opposition, seeing that for substantial portions of the year he wasn’t even in Trinidad and Tobago to attend to that business, because he was in London involved in scholastic endeavours.)
It is clear that the British favoured the Whitehall Model, but as they were prepared little more than a year later to propose Proportional Representation for British Guiana (BG), I doubt that there would have been much resistance from the Colonial Office if Capildeo had asked for it at the conference.
There would, however, have been great resistance from Williams, proof of which is found in relatively recently declassified British Cabinet documents, some of which Jamaica-born historian Colin Palmer made public in his exceptional book Eric Williams and the Making of the Modern Caribbean.
When the proposal for BG was first mooted, the British asked Williams for his views on the idea. He responded that he supported it -- but would make no public statement, pro or con, because ethnically Trinidad and Tobago had much the same make-up as BG, and he did not wish to make political difficulties for himself at home.
At least one school of thinking, in the wake of Persad-Bissesswar’s electoral win, is that Proportional Representation might soon be explored for Trinidad and Tobago, and I have no doubt that it will be.
There is no doubt that the Whitehall Model does have frailties, and while the British still have the First-Past-The-Post system, their Parliament has not be a two-party one for quite some time, the current government being a coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Questions about Proportional Representation are bound to arise in Britain, too.
It needs very careful consideration, and much can be learned from a study of the Parliaments around the world which are elected by First-Past-the-Post or Proportional Representation, or partly by both. Israel’s Parliament has been weakened by it, Germany’s generally strengthened.
Rampersad was bold enough to publish her book three weeks before Trinidad and Tobago’s general election, and it will certainly provide political pundits with much fodder, as Persad-Bissessar and her colleagues try to revitalize the nation and live up to their election promises.
Interesting, too, Through The Political Glass Ceiling is slated to be the cornerstone of a whole new publishing venture, as the money Rampersad earns from it will be ploughed back into a company which she will launch to publish non-fiction and fiction.
The idea has apparently been praised by Persad-Bissessar, who has complained publicly that there are far too many books around which provide “negative depictions of our society.” Rampersad’s venture may well be helped by the fact that the new government -- at least from what one can read in their first budget last week -- appears likely to be ready to pay considerably more attention to Arts and Culture than was ever the case with their many predecessors.
Rampersad’s new publishing house does not have a name yet -- though she has one in mind -- but she says she has identified a number of “excellent” manuscripts.
Book written on Kamla’s speech
By LEISELLE MARAJ Monday, May 17 2010
WRITER turn publisher, Dr Kris Rampersad took 21 days to produce
and publish a book of speeches given by political leader of the
United National Congress, Kamla PersadBissessar in her 21 years
as a political figure.
PersadBissessar, who was present for the launch of the publication
yesterday at the Casablanca Banquet Hall, Movietowne, PortofSpain
said if elected, her government would work to develop the publishing
industry which could benefit the economy through diversification,
providing employment opportunities, gender equality and reducing
crime.
“We are the nation and region that gave the world the living literary
Nobel Prize winners Sir Vidia Naipaul and Derek Walcott, we gave the
world Bob Marley, Carnival, Hoosay, Ramleela and soca and the
steelpan and when we should be reaping the developmental and
economical rewards of our intellectual creativity, we are forced to see
them overtaken and stolen by the American and UK giant industries,”
she said.
Rampersad in her address stated all proceeds from the sale of the book will fund local research and
publishing. PersadBissessar acknowledged this, noting it was “the beginning of a valid and commendable
effort to answer a desperate local need for local home grown material, research, books and a publishing line
that will include fiction, poetry, biography, children’s books and social research and data.” She explained this
was essential, particularly to address the need for local material to be used by children in the nation’s schools.
She applauded Rampersad’s effort to produce the 500 page publication, entitled Through the Political Glass
Ceiling, Race to Prime Ministership by Trinidad and Tobago’s First Female, in three weeks’ time, which she
said, represented a reverse in the decline of Trinidad and Tobago’s literature.
The book included an introduction written by Rampersad which PersadBissessar said “brings new life to
debates on the place of race, class, ethnicity, gender, culture, geography or rural/urban factors in our politics
and it certainly shows our politics in a new light.”
Rampersad noted the period leading up to the date of general election shows a side of society which is not
seen at any other time. She added there are plans to reprint this publication and to produce a second edition
which will include speeches that were not published in the first effort.
Book written on Kamla’s Speech http://www.newsday.co.tt/politics/print,0,120960.html;
Commonwealth Praise for book: http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Commonwealth_praise_for_book_on_Kamla_s_speeches-114783264.html
It is available at:
Canada: http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/detail.jsp?Entt=RDM2734803&R=2734803
UK: British Museum
Kris Rampersad is a journalist, researcher and writer who has been exploring the diversity of Caribbean society and cultures for some 20 years. Her first book, Finding a Place (2002), captures from early journalistic writings the impact on literature of the encounters of peoples of the various mass immigration streams of the 19th Century with special reference to the experiences of Indian descendants in Trinidad and Tobago. She has also written and presented research to international forums with a multicultural third-world, rural perspective on the interplay of culture, politics, economics, gender and literature in the Caribbean, using data from home-grown situations vis-Ã -vis imported data and theories to make a case for new approaches that more adequately reflect the realities of Caribbean societies. Her policy critiques and recommendations through oral presentations, print and video documentaries on culture, media, agriculture and information and communication technologies, have been accepted by organisations as the Commonwealth Foundation, World Summit on Information Society, EU-ACP Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation, and UNESCO. She is listed among the International Who’s Who in Cultural Policy, Planning and Research.
She is the author of numerous articles, journals, magazines and newspapers. Her other books include Finding a Place and LiTtscapes: Landscapes of Fiction from Trinidad and Tobago
The Triumph of Gollum in the Land of Shut Up Suicide of the
Fellowship of Partnerships Book 11. A Sequel Futuring the Agenda Forward https://goo.gl/HU3rp3
Celebrating Jamettry The Sacred and the Sacriligious
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