Keep hope alive!
The advice of living legend Terry Waite, the man who had become one of the
world’s most renowned hostages of terrorism, ring through, as I scramble for
matches and candles when the power failed amidst gusts of Bret, indicative of
other power failures and a woeful abdication by institutions charged with
keeping hope alive in a time of disaster.
I was assigned as Terry Waite’s ‘guardian’, a designation
that never fails to amuse me, given, not only his sheer physical size, but at the
thought, too, of how ill-equipped I was in anyway whatsoever if a threat was to
arise in keeping safe one who had survived one of the Western world’s most
publicized hostage-taking incident when he was kept in solitary confinement for
some five years in Beirut, Lebanon.
Waite was the envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury when he
was kidnapped while negotiating the release of hostages - one of whom included
US journalist John McCarthy. His name has surfaced recently again in
discussions of the need for a negotiator with ISIS on the spurt of terrorism
attacks around the world.
While I might have been highly amused by my role and
designation as Terry Waite’s guardian, he showed not the slightest sign of
feeling slighted or being so saddled. In fact, if anything, he seems to have
taken my role quite seriously, surprising me by voluntarily checking in
regularly as arranged, keeping me informed about all his plans and movements,
and consulting with me on his schedule and requests of persons to meet with
him, others for interviews and others who just wanted to see him casually for
tea or a chat. I will learn that, then, six years after his five-year ordeal in
Lebanon, he was drawing on a lesson from having then failed to inform those
around him of a slight deviation in his plans which had landed him in the hostage
grip of the Hezbollah. He was keeping the channels open to keep hope alive.
He might have been placed in my charge, but Waite did not
know he became a much-needed source of strength in the high-tensioned stressful
days of coordinating and managing the communications, outreach and media
relations of the Commonwealth Foundation during the Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meeting in Uganda a decade ago, rather than a burden added on to the
duties that included harnessing, processing, producing and disseminating the
positions of the range of global Commonwealth associations and civil society
organisations, international and local African media, government officials and
guests of the Commonwealth People’s Forum and the aligned Heads of Government
Meeting that would include the His Royal Highness, Prince Charles and
contingent and the hazards of the profession that come with such territory (another
story for another time).
Terry Waite’s very aura - the humility, the expansive humanism, absolute absence of ego, effervescent energy, and the effortless lack of want for attention, remain unmatched in the many, many, many individuals who have crossed my path to date. He has remained a constant source of inspiration in the face of various encounters in situations of various degrees of terror since. Keep hope alive!
Now, viewing a landscape in which hostage-taking and
hostage-making seems something of a norm with the woeful abdication of
responsibility by key gate keepers that leave many vulnerable to usurpation of the
legitimate rights and freedoms, it is on Waite’s experience and knowledge and
the calm and confidence that he exudes in the most testing of times, that I now
turn for inspiration. ‘Keep hope alive. I had to keep hope alive.’
Conjuring up, not the frenzied days in the wake of a high
profile international leaders’ summit in Uganda, nor the ordeal of his
confinement, but his burly booming joviality at being tagged a ‘living legend’
even as he makes light of and looks not in the least scarred by what to all
accounts was some of the most grueling years in captivity and solitary
confinement in an alien land I take breaths deeper than Bret to pen this, anticipating
the potential backlash of those whose ire it arouses, but hoping that instead
if may stir some salient residual still existing albeit dormant elements of social
conscience and the human instinct to keep hope alive.
Yet, surrounded by personal feeds of images of marooned friends
and families, hostages in their homes in large parts of south and central
Trinidad in the aftermath of Bret, it is not really Terry Waite I am seeing,
but the face of another, our Father, pleading with bandits holding him to
ransom at gunpoint one early morning, during his oblations in a church,
threatening abduction while contemplating his price tag – ‘would the Archbishop
pay 50K for you?’ They might have arrived at the value having considered his
considerable social capital, rank, a once-contender for the title of Archbishop
of Port of Spain himself – which he lost to the current office holder, was just
named Bishop to Grenada, and is a popular servant, among those who wear the
scarlet brand as the most degenerate, unconscionable scourge from the ghettos
of our society.
The national situation seems indeed something of a hostage
situation of a country in desperate survival mode. The going ransom rate for a
father of the cloth is 50K - 50 thousand devalued Trinidad and Tobago Dollars.
Yet, this is no ordinary father and perhaps he might have been somewhat
better-smelling than the citizen left writhing in pain in his soiled and fouled
pants to grasp his last breaths on the grounds of a public health facility
where a life may be worth somewhere between zero and the ground on which he
laid.
For about the same price as a priest’s life, one can roam
the Caribbean for, at most, four days. One can get a luxury vacation for eight
persons in grand style in Tobago at public expense for a similar number of
days, but about twice the price of a priest’s ransom.
For about the same price as the cited ransom demand for said
Father of the cloth, one can buy out the newspaper front and back pages and scoop
up all the distasteful news of crime, corruption, and chaos of the day and
cement the fate of a country that has had its conscience cast in concrete from
the first oil boom – what power advertising possesses on the social conscience!
It cemented the deal - three for the price of two like some of the offerings on
Fathers’ Day sales with which we were being bombarded, bought out the front and
back pages of all three dailies to purchase the headlined news of the day. The
most powerful on bent knees to the commercial weight of the almighty dollar,
not unlike a priest, praying in his church in the early morning to be interrupted
by gun pointing bandits, not unlike Terry Waite and companions at the mercy of
the Hezbollah.
Held hostages by power mongers, citizens left bewildered at the blacked
out television sets that have become the conduit and connection in times of
crises between those in the crisis situation and support and rescue services.
The most powerful elements of the media ransoming fathers and mothers to save a
few power pennies in desperate times. A society in survival mode. How far are
we from the kind of unconscionable survivalism of ISIS or the Hezbollah?
While most of the most powerful media entities tuck themselves
into their beds and bury their heads between soft sheets, Bret howls at our
portals, unleashing a deluge of chaos: false reports, fake news, politicking with
people’s health and well-being; a few dedicated media workers desperate for a
channel for their news, turning to their personal social media handles in
chest-thumping heroism, if one is willing to overlook the pathos therein (see
ten ways the media failed in Bret this page).
The powers failed as the power failed. A country switches to
survivor mode. Dollars and cents replace the sense of social empathy and we
blame bad Bret, who in fact exhibited more empathy and restraint on his power than
those who claim to be in charge and among the most powerful.
If conventional media is trying to find its reason to be, it
has instead been killing its goose that lays its golden egg. It certainly lost
a golden opportunity to reassert its relevance to its community in the coverage
of Bret and its aftermath.
The lights go out on social conscience.
The lights go out on media conscience.
Bret and his followers garners strength to a society choking
on its waste and wastefulness.
Power Media Blackouts
Even before the most powerful switched off the anticipated
live transmission, we were already setting the stage of blackout news.
Coverall advertising wrap-around front and back pages of
newspapers have been gaining currency in recent times. Desperate times call for
desperate measures, they say. The advertisers who have always hovered at the
media’s door, trying at every turn to convince media managers to sellout their
front covers to an advertiser, justify it in light of the declining sales of
printed newspapers. Now with declining newspaper sales, they swoop down. The
irrationality of the rationale would haunt if it wasn’t so farcical – so what
are the advertisers paying for if no one is going to read the newspapers – the
passing glimpse of its headline from a maxi taxi? People go to newspapers for
news. That’s why advertisers sell ads, because of the news value that
newspapers advertise. Would people buy wine in a beer bottle? Why then assume
that people would buy news wrapped in ads?
I tried to raise it in a social media post but was stopped
in my tracks by an advertiser justifying that media needs advertising to
survive. It’s an old argument, we pay you, we own you – as old as the oldest
profession in the world, and has the same effect of stripping and undermining
the dignity of the profession, which the advertising world, with colour-tinted
glasses of dollars and cents could not understand how its acts of holding the
news and newsmakers hostage to its front page coverups and declarations of
who’s in charge undermine and strip those who labour through its ideals of self worth. While I
took in the debate in silence, painfully replaying numerous similar debates over countless
media boardroom tables, other media colleagues tried to patiently explain,
eventually giving up in desperation – ‘they wouldn’t understand.’
Keep hope alive! I
hear Terry Waite again.
So here I am again trying, to explain, to illustrate, to
stir any dormant, latent iota of social conscience, and awaken some miniscule
bit of awareness of how and why we are a society in survivor mode, grasping at
straws in a deluge of concretised and hardened indifference and how key social pillars are failing.
The situation brings to mind the words of journalist US John
McCarthy, who was one of the journalists who was held hostage in Beirut which
had prompted Terry Waite’s intervention and subsequent abduction in 1987. On
his release along with Waite, in 1991, McCarthy had said, "There are vast
areas of Iraq and Syria for people to live side by side, there is no lack of
space, even Israel and Palestine there is enough room for everyone. You hope
that one day they will all learn to rub along and learn to trust each other, but
you have always got these groups that want to be dominant and that are so
steadfast in their views.” One hers echoes of that here too.
Steadfast and concrete views that have held the development
of journalism hostage, gain strength, like Bret and his followers, bearing
down, to its now point of crisis. Our discussion on the social media posting may
seem far removed from the situation in Iraq, or Syria, or Palestine or Lebanon
any of the great and heated questions of international import that are occupying
the global psyche on extremism or terrorism, or is it that far removed? Are we
at terror’s door, hostages in our homes, hostages not just to crime, corruption
but also the cementing of the social unconscionable with concretised
commercialised conscience.
Like the Trinidad public, piloting cheap jokes in the wake
of Bret’s bearing down, to deflect consideration of what fate my come and how woefully unprepared
response agencies were – including the blacked out electronic media, one can take refuge in its parody – for it is about as parodic a
situation as Waite likes to make of his albeit excruciating ordeal as a prisoner
of terrorism, captured in his biographical Taken
on Trust, and parodied in his comedic retake The Voyage of the Golden Handshake, his comic novel set on a cruise
ship that also draws on his some 20 years of experiences as a speaker on a
cruise ship before becoming envoy to the Archbishop, and the Hezbollah’s famed
hostage.
Global - Local in the Global
Even as we pour concrete over journalistic integrity, the
British public was embroiled in a debate over the pervasive newspaper coverpage
coverup ads that saw the front and back pages of some of its local newspaper
editions pasted with political ads urging support for the incumbent government
on the day Britain went to vote over Brexit. But not a Bret from us.
Without even consideration of the results which saw the
subject of the Brexit ads losing rather than gaining significant ground that
might be testimony to the illusions of glory with which the pollsters can fill
the hungry ego, or the overrating of the power of advertising to swing votes;
it is the defacto ransoming of media independence and holding free speech
hostage that strikes the discerning.
The advertisers’ proclamation of victory over news
legitimizes with dollars and cents rationale, the era of fake news. The
unsuspecting public is held to ransom to digest paid advertising as legitimate
news, while the real news of the day is relegated to secondary status inside
the covers. Journalism’s death knell.
Frozen
I experience something of what the protesting British public
might have felt last week, a rare moment of venturing out of convalescing.
Reaching for the daily newspapers at a newspaper stand, I freeze. Literally. I
am wondering why there is only one newspaper in three piles and thought that one
of the dailies must be having a bad sales day and all their papers were still
on the stands. Then as my eyes scan the
piles, it slowly dawns that all three dailies are bearing the same cover. Only
their mastheads at the top proclaim and claim it as their product; the cover is
advertisement of a product.
What I describe next is no exaggeration. Confusion and fear
grip me with the intensity I have experienced only twice before – during some
excruciating experiences during the 2015 attacks in Paris, and at the onset of
the 1990 coup-attempt, switching the local channels to see on each the same
broadcast of the insurrectionists flanked by gun-toting youths declaring that
they had seized the Parliament, the Police Headquarters and the news channels.
Looking at the offerings on the newsstands, it seems a black
out of news of the day, associated with militarism. The nature of the product
being advertised is of little import, though it provides an apt metaphor for
the cementing of the casket of journalism as we know it. Today cement, tomorrow
the political ad, the next the legitimate paid advertising of some
insurrectionist or militarist group, why not? The legitimizing of fake news. The age of alternative facts.
Yet there was not a squeak nor squawk from the local public.
Perhaps indeed no one buys printed newspapers anymore and had not seen it –
which might be true, but which also makes moot the advertisers’ effort at
trying to grab headlines if nobody’s looking.
Not unlike Bret, it swooped down on the news and scooped all
else that may have considered itself of national and international import of
the day, cementing a deal that sounds something like some of the offerings on
Fathers’ Day sales with which we are being bombarded this current season -
three for the price of two, or buy two get one free or one for all and all for
one.
I am frozen for a few seconds, fixated at the three front
pages facing me on the news stand, stunned and confused as each bear the same
image and text, with only their respective Mastheads signifying that they are
indeed three distinct products.
I had not felt that way since experiences in Paris during
the attacks of November 2015, and before that, some 27 years earlier during an
attempted coup in Trinidad, then staring at the television with insurrectionist
shadowed by gun toting youths at their backs – like a hostage.
I am surprised at the impact on me. I have been out of the
formal newsroom for almost fifteen years. The last years as an editor
negotiating space, negotiating the public right to information, negotiating
resources that would allow for operations in producing the new - like a hostage negotiator.
Understanding dawn why Terry Waite comes to mind. Much of that time was spent
in what seemed to be senseless squabbling over what approach would provide the
most gains to the company – to those who believe profits were the bottom line;
against us who saw the social value as an equal part of the balancing scales even
in recognizing that advertising was part of its support system. The wrap
around, then usually reserved for
unusual, startling and considerable high impact stories of the day – like the
impact of a Bret, for instance, is now given to the highest bidder. A society in
survival mode.
I am not averse to appreciation of the need that it takes
money and advertising to run a media organization, but we continue to pay the social
price for misfocussed, misdirected decision and unbalanced focus on profit
making, because there is also a social profit and loss balance sheet; and the now diminishing value of vast investments on concrete buildings plant and machinery in the new and borderless
and building less world of new media is the price being paid for such bad Brets
of decision-making, yet the ultimate price will be paid by the hundreds of workers
who are marked for retrenchment as media continue to cut corners, and indeed,
if one is reading the climate right, the reality that at least one of the three dailies may be shutting its doors
soon, just as one electronic media is wounding up, because of the media’s
inability to understand how it can reinvent itself and find creative ways
required to survive challenging times.
I shudder to think of where the news of the abduction of
Father Harvey, or Bret’s deluge would have appeared if an advertiser or two had
decided to buy up the front pages, or all the pages of the news of that day –
the irrationality provides easy fodder for parody.
Waite’s wait
In Kampala, Uganda, between tasks, Waite recounted his wait for news
as the outside world was waiting on news of Waite in captivity (see video this
page) when he was sent to negotiate the release of McCarthy and others
kidnapped by the Huzbollah in incidents surrounding what became known in US
politics as Irangate - the Iran-Contra Scandal and the US clandestine sale of
weapons to Iran despite the international weapons embargo as part of a deal to
get hostages freed. The scandal would plague the US President Ronald Reagan’s
regime and haunt his political legacy as the 40th President of the US to this
day. It broke just as Waite went to Lebanon to begin negotiation and Waite paid the price of
the political machinations, when his name surfaced in testimonies of Oliver North
at the height of Irangate investigations as the person best suited to send in
to negotiate the freedom of US hostages that aroused the hostage keepers
suspicion of him, Waite. North, the former deputy-director of the US National Security
Council, was implicated in the Iran-Contra affair and forced to resign. What a
tangled web! Waite was abducted on suspicion that he might have been a US spy.
Waite now uses his experience and his story to inspire
people in oppressive circumstances. In Kampala, he was part of our campaign by
the Commonwealth Foundation and its associated organisations to free Zimbabwe. I
will return to that in a follow up posting.
Power Failure Media Blackout
None of this is not to discount the efforts of those who did go the
extra mile to keep the public informed or to keep the emergency response services
going, but to call to account the power failure of those who consider
themselves the most powerful.
Others have voiced that there is something exceedingly
disconcerting that has left an unfathomable unease about the decision by most
of those billed as the major media houses to not provide what has become the
accustomed and anticipated live companionship during and in the aftermath of a
natural disaster on the night of and thereafter Bret puffed through.
Even before or the power failure that took electricity out
that took away access to some channels of information, most of the major
electronic media seems to have already imposed a blackout, treating the
oncoming threat as any other day, with little if any deviation in normal
programming following the nightly prime time news hour. As communities, community
based organisations, friends and neighbours banded together to lend assistance
to those in distress in their neighbourhood, in the deluge left by wafts of
Tropical Storm Bret, the baffled public was for the most parts left in the
dark, with those so equipped, scourging social media channels for news and
updates, some of which were fake, false, recycled images from previous
occasions, all feeding an atmosphere of unease when there was need for those
who see themselves as the most powerful to take charge and provide leadership.
It was a golden opportunity for conventional media to prove
that it is still relevant despite the challenges it is facing, and it fell flat
on its face, a powerful failure, if any, to keep hope alive.
Without the formal channel to do so, some committed workers
tried and continued to provide what coverage they can through their social
media handles, going beyond the call of duty with no thought to overtime and
the bottomline. In my understanding of the media industry, one is hardly
compensated for those or any additional hours one gives to covering a natural
disaster or otherwise. Similar commitment was demonstrated by other committed workers of
institutions and agencies even in the absence of concerted coordination, did
what their experience and conscience inspired them to, against the odds,
putting others before family and self, not with thoughts of overtime and
denting the bottom line.
Though it may be flaying in pathetic power puffs from dying power
institutions, empathy is still very much alive in some hearts. Yet, even in the
heroic chest thumping of those who have so sacrificed, one cannot but be
conscious of the pathos in the demonstrable institutional failure when so much
more could have been achieved with concerted action. One shudders to think what
would have ensued if Bret, or another, were to wrought visit with more damaging
consequences.
Media, going once, twice, here just take it ...
Media, going once, twice, here just take it ...
A few other pieces of international news inspired these
musings on how those are the flip side to the same coin, snapshots that pain a
poignant picture of our times though they may be described in reports on news
of the day as ‘unrelated incidents’.
A media is selling itself for $175.00. No, it is not a spelling
error missing some zeroes. That’s the price of the proprietor is asking for his
newspaper in a US town which population is more than the Caribbean. After no offers to buy, he is running an essay
competition in which the registration fee is $175. The winner of the competition
will take the newspaper, lock stock and barrel as its prize. In another US
city, a proprietor is selling his newspaper as his wife wants a flushing toilet in the
space being occupied by the entity. Sign of the Times. Desperate Economic
Times.
Value, valuable, invaluable and valueless
Actuarians have devised formulas for calculating the value
of a life and property, which may be one and the same thing. In their
calculations, the value of a life may be somewhat higher than the going market
or the life of a father for ransom or lower than the proscribed rate of
property tax - property here being a number of variable tangible and intangible
assets, including variables as life, various limbs and organs, as well as human
intelligence all of which we now know could be placed on the open market for
sale.
Then too, life is of negligible importance as it is counted
among property and capital assets.
That kind of intelligence is said to drive what has earned
the title of the knowledge economy which when valued vis-Ã -vis other economies
and the assumed dollar value of their returns to the national economy, can come
up exceedingly short, not unlike the dollar value of a priest. Vis-Ã -vis the
commanding heights of the economies of the codependent twin industries of
crime-security, corruption-concrete, cement, gas, oil and the like, knowledge
and intelligence may be considered dispensable capital, not unlike a priest’s
life.
Knowledge Economy or Economy of Knowledge
Knowledge Economy or Economy of Knowledge
One industry within the knowledge economy, is the media.
Knowledge was once thought to be its prime commodity, its stock in trade, and
its asset value. As news became a commodity to be bought and sold and traded on
the stock exchange, value came to be ascribed to the land and building and
machinery that produced the news. Given that they are on the payroll, they are
the property of the commercial establishment producing the news, the
journalists and humans required to operate the machinery also were ascribed
value akin to other property assets, albeit of considerable lesser value than
the going market value of assets of concrete highrises, plant and
machinery/press, and the like.
Those have been themselves further diminishing in value with
increased automation of the industry and the growing popularity in a green
economy of reusing, reproduction, replication and recycling of ye olde news, to
the point in which the profession believed to be as old as the oldest
profession in the world, and equally commodified, now seems to be grasping its
last dying breaths at ground zero of social capital assets.
One can safely predict that within the next year or two, at
least one of the three dailies would have closed its doors or been absorbed
into another entity.
As with any industry, there are base formulas used by the
industry to value, justify and ascertain its command over the news product. In
ancient, traditional societies of yore, the news product was the information,
education, knowledge, it generated and circulated to both represent and
influence thoughts and actions of the day.
The value of news has evolved, over the years, as has the
value of life or the value of a priest from being invaluable, to valueless
where it is now closer to zero-value, if only because the supply in the
outpourings on social media is far exceeding demand, and of course, because power of media is now in the hands of the masses with new finger tip technologies. As a result the plant and
machinery that received its value from the producers of the news – the
journalists – have also been diminishing in value. News used to be considered
invaluable, is now valueless. (I had to explain the differences of value,
valueless an invaluable to my eight year old nephew recently who cheekily returned them
in a sentence on my worth to him – guess what he said!)
I have always been fascinated by the advertising industry.
Its incredible breath of creativity and imagination. It can have a talking cow
sell milk, a gecko take upper hand over insurance agents; a dog convince one of the ideal size and weight,
defines beauty, status, power, convinces us that orange is black and our self-worth
is in a bottle of liquor or perfume; that smoking can kill but it is an incredible sex magnet and still the
most euphoric feeling in the world, and then throws up its hands in frustration
that it can’t change human behavior and the nature or direction of a society.
Powerful Failings of Empathy
A Cambridge University study featured by the BBC this week,
found what it believes to be concrete evidence that power does go to one’s head;
that those in positions of power often become more self-absorbed and lose the
empathy and connection with those considered subordinates. This, according to
the study, is manifested physiologically and pathologically, in signs of brain
damage and symptoms akin to trauma.
Then there is the considerable national uproar even before
it is aired over possible exposure of the crime culture of Trinidad in Bourdain’s
until then much anticipated feature on Trinidad and Tobago which disclosed some
even more pernicious underbelly and social currents and the international media’s
own prostitution of the truth to twists of alternative news and realities which
surfaced in its airing – not on the blanked out cable network, but the broad
fluid streams of social media.
And further, a portrayal by an international cartoonist in
circulation, captures the parody and the pathos. It depicts pallbearers, heads all
glued to cellphones, bearing stacks of newspapers to final resting place – a
macabre specter of the state of the newspaper industry, and the media itself,
not only nationally, globally. It is an ominous reality for many colleagues in
the industry, as are the huffs and puffs from the power centres – the follow-on
from Bret’s power failure in CyberBrets.
“It is not only what
we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.”
Why Moliere’s words float up in conjunction with Waite’s
keep hope alive, in these mutterings on the prostitution of the second oldest
profession in the world will be explained in the second part of this …. To be continued
with CyberBrets…
Eid Mubarak to my friends and relatives and the multicultural faiths, the faithful and hopeful peoples everywhere....
Why Media Matters in Disaster Risk Management
It offers a lifeline to citizens in
distress.
It reduces the sense of isolation of those
cut off by floods,
It connects citizens to emergency
responders
It inspires/motivates emergency operators
to do heroism.
It improves emergency response to distress
calls.
It lifts the pitch of national discourse
promoting empathy.
It neutralises cheap politicking &
divisive racial & ethnic slurring emerging in calls for and efforts at
disaster relief.
It gives rural communities & those
affected a sense of being connected to power centres, and not marginalized.
It restores sense of purpose to
media/workers otherwise demotivated, under-remunerated, uncompensated
It provides public service information
needed in such times of such heightened distress
It establishes itself as a power among the
most powerful
It is the media’s core function, to keep
hope alive!
Dr
Kris Rampersad, Sustainable Development MultiMedia, MultiCultural Educator
@krisramp
Linkedin/Instagram/GPlus KrisRampersad Blog: Demokrissy email: lolleaves@gmail.com
Related
Links:
my-date-with-narendra-modi-dat-merkel
affair
Things-that-make-me-go-steups-stars
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/2016/12/things-that-make-me-go-steups-stars.html
The Walcott Files
LiTTscapes for Littribute to the Antilles
A LiTTribute at UNESCO
Inscription by UNESCO of Poems
Small only in Size UNESCO Executive Board told
World in a Fishbowl
Death of Knowledge & social Conscience
A Musical Heritage walk UNESCO Creative Cities
LiTTscapes for Littribute to the Antilles
A LiTTribute at UNESCO
Inscription by UNESCO of Poems
Small only in Size UNESCO Executive Board told
World in a Fishbowl
Death of Knowledge & social Conscience
A Musical Heritage walk UNESCO Creative Cities
Murder She Wrote:
Death Written in Stone in Dana Seetahal Assassination
Creating Centres of Peace in Trinidad and Tobago
The Price of Independence:#DanaSeetahalAssassination
Conceive. Achieve. Believe
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Oct 25, 2013 Some 50 percent did not vote. The local government elections results lends further proof of the discussion began in Clash of Political Cultures: Cultural Diversity and Minority Politics in Trinidad and Tobago in Through The ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Sounds of a party - a political party
Oct 14, 2013 They are announcing some political meeting or the other; and begging for my vote, and meh road still aint fix though I hear all parts getting box drains and thing, so I vex. So peeps, you know I am a sceptic so help me decide. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian
Jun 15, 2010 T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian · T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 8:20 AM · Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Related:
Demokrissy: To vote, just how we party … Towards culturally ...
Apr 30, 2010 'How we vote is not how we party.' At 'all inclusive' fetes and other forums, we nod in inebriated wisdom to calypsonian David Rudder's elucidation of the paradoxical political vs. social realities of Trinidad and Tobago. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: DEADLOCK: Sign of things to come
Oct 29, 2013 An indication that unless we devise innovative ways to address representation of our diversity, we will find ourselves in various forms of deadlock at the polls that throw us into a spiral of political tug of war albeit with not just ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: The human face of constitutional reform
Oct 16, 2013 Sheilah was clearly and sharply articulating the deficiencies in governmesaw her: a tinymite elderly woman, gracefully wrinkled, deeply over with concerns about political and institutional stagnation but brimming over with ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Trini politics is d best
Oct 21, 2013 Ain't Trini politics d BEST! Nobody fighting because they lose. All parties claiming victory, all voting citizens won! That's what make we Carnival d best street party in the world. Everyone are winners because we all like ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age - Demokrissy
Jan 09, 2012 New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. Posted by Kris Rampersad ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: T&T politics: A new direction? - Caribbean360 Oct 01, 2010 http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Oct 20, 2013 Choosing the Emperor's New Troops. The dilemma of choice. Voting is supposed to be an exercise in thoughtful, studied choice. Local government is the foundation for good governance so even if one wants to reform the ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Demokrissy - Blogger
Apr 07, 2013 Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. So we've had the rounds of consultations on Constitutional Reform? Are we any wiser? Do we have a sense of direction that will drive ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2
Apr 30, 2013 Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2....http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
See Also:
Demokrissy: Winds of Political Change - Dawn of T&T's Arab Spring
Jul 30, 2013 Wherever these breezes have passed, they have left in their wake wide ranging social and political changes: one the one hand toppling long time leaders with rising decibels from previously suppressed peoples demanding a ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Reform, Conform, Perform or None of the Above cross ...
Oct 25, 2013 Some 50 percent did not vote. The local government elections results lends further proof of the discussion began in Clash of Political Cultures: Cultural Diversity and Minority Politics in Trinidad and Tobago in Through The ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Sounds of a party - a political party
Oct 14, 2013 They are announcing some political meeting or the other; and begging for my vote, and meh road still aint fix though I hear all parts getting box drains and thing, so I vex. So peeps, you know I am a sceptic so help me decide. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian
Jun 15, 2010 T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian · T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 8:20 AM · Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Related:
Demokrissy: To vote, just how we party … Towards culturally ...
Apr 30, 2010 'How we vote is not how we party.' At 'all inclusive' fetes and other forums, we nod in inebriated wisdom to calypsonian David Rudder's elucidation of the paradoxical political vs. social realities of Trinidad and Tobago. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: DEADLOCK: Sign of things to come
Oct 29, 2013 An indication that unless we devise innovative ways to address representation of our diversity, we will find ourselves in various forms of deadlock at the polls that throw us into a spiral of political tug of war albeit with not just ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: The human face of constitutional reform
Oct 16, 2013 Sheilah was clearly and sharply articulating the deficiencies in governmesaw her: a tinymite elderly woman, gracefully wrinkled, deeply over with concerns about political and institutional stagnation but brimming over with ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Trini politics is d best
Oct 21, 2013 Ain't Trini politics d BEST! Nobody fighting because they lose. All parties claiming victory, all voting citizens won! That's what make we Carnival d best street party in the world. Everyone are winners because we all like ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age - Demokrissy
Jan 09, 2012 New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. Posted by Kris Rampersad ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: T&T politics: A new direction? - Caribbean360 Oct 01, 2010 http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Others: Demokrissy: Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 ...
Apr 07, 2013
Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. So we've had the rounds of consultations on Constitutional Reform? Are we any wiser? Do we have a sense of direction that will drive ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2
Apr 30, 2013
Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2.
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Wave a flag for a party rag...Choosing the Emperor's New ...
Oct 20, 2013
Choosing the Emperor's New Troops. The dilemma of choice. Voting is supposed to be an ... Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 10:36 AM ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Carnivalising the Constitution People Power ...
Feb 26, 2014
This Demokrissy series, The Emperor's New Tools, continues and builds on the analysis of evolution in our governance, begun in the introduction to my book, Through the Political Glass Ceiling (2010): The Clash of Political ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Envisioning outside-the-island-box ... - Demokrissy - Blogger
Feb 10, 2014
This Demokrissy series, The Emperor's New Tools, continues and builds on the analysis of evolution in our governance, begun in the introduction to my book, Through the Political Glass Ceiling (2010): The Clash of Political ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Futuring the Post-2015 UNESCO Agenda
Apr 22, 2014
It is placing increasing pressure for erasure of barriers of geography, age, ethnicity, gender, cultures and other sectoral interests, and in utilising the tools placed at our disposal to access our accumulate knowledge and technologies towards eroding these superficial barriers. In this context, we believe that the work of UNESCO remains significant and relevant and that UNESCO is indeed the institution best positioned to consolidate the ..... The Emperor's New Tools ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Cutting edge journalism
Jun 15, 2010
The Emperor's New Tools. Loading... AddThis. Bookmark and Share. Loading... Follow by Email. About Me. My Photo · Kris Rampersad. Media, Cultural and Literary Consultant, Facilitator, Educator and Practitioner. View my ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Creating Centres of Peace in Trinidad and Tobago
The Price of Independence:#DanaSeetahalAssassination
Conceive. Achieve. Believe
Demokrissy: Wave a flag for a party rag...Choosing the Emperor's ...
Oct 20, 2013 Choosing the Emperor's New Troops. The dilemma of choice. Voting is supposed to be an exercise in thoughtful, studied choice. Local government is the foundation for good governance so even if one wants to reform the ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Demokrissy - Blogger
Apr 07, 2013 Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. So we've had the rounds of consultations on Constitutional Reform? Are we any wiser? Do we have a sense of direction that will drive ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2
Apr 30, 2013 Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2....http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
See Also:
Demokrissy: Winds of Political Change - Dawn of T&T's Arab Spring
Jul 30, 2013 Wherever these breezes have passed, they have left in their wake wide ranging social and political changes: one the one hand toppling long time leaders with rising decibels from previously suppressed peoples demanding a ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Reform, Conform, Perform or None of the Above cross ...
Oct 25, 2013 Some 50 percent did not vote. The local government elections results lends further proof of the discussion began in Clash of Political Cultures: Cultural Diversity and Minority Politics in Trinidad and Tobago in Through The ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Sounds of a party - a political party
Oct 14, 2013 They are announcing some political meeting or the other; and begging for my vote, and meh road still aint fix though I hear all parts getting box drains and thing, so I vex. So peeps, you know I am a sceptic so help me decide. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian
Jun 15, 2010 T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian · T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 8:20 AM · Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Related:
Demokrissy: To vote, just how we party … Towards culturally ...
Apr 30, 2010 'How we vote is not how we party.' At 'all inclusive' fetes and other forums, we nod in inebriated wisdom to calypsonian David Rudder's elucidation of the paradoxical political vs. social realities of Trinidad and Tobago. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: DEADLOCK: Sign of things to come
Oct 29, 2013 An indication that unless we devise innovative ways to address representation of our diversity, we will find ourselves in various forms of deadlock at the polls that throw us into a spiral of political tug of war albeit with not just ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: The human face of constitutional reform
Oct 16, 2013 Sheilah was clearly and sharply articulating the deficiencies in governmesaw her: a tinymite elderly woman, gracefully wrinkled, deeply over with concerns about political and institutional stagnation but brimming over with ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Trini politics is d best
Oct 21, 2013 Ain't Trini politics d BEST! Nobody fighting because they lose. All parties claiming victory, all voting citizens won! That's what make we Carnival d best street party in the world. Everyone are winners because we all like ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age - Demokrissy
Jan 09, 2012 New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. Posted by Kris Rampersad ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: T&T politics: A new direction? - Caribbean360 Oct 01, 2010 http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Oct 20, 2013 Choosing the Emperor's New Troops. The dilemma of choice. Voting is supposed to be an exercise in thoughtful, studied choice. Local government is the foundation for good governance so even if one wants to reform the ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Demokrissy - Blogger
Apr 07, 2013 Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. So we've had the rounds of consultations on Constitutional Reform? Are we any wiser? Do we have a sense of direction that will drive ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2
Apr 30, 2013 Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2....http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
See Also:
Demokrissy: Winds of Political Change - Dawn of T&T's Arab Spring
Jul 30, 2013 Wherever these breezes have passed, they have left in their wake wide ranging social and political changes: one the one hand toppling long time leaders with rising decibels from previously suppressed peoples demanding a ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Reform, Conform, Perform or None of the Above cross ...
Oct 25, 2013 Some 50 percent did not vote. The local government elections results lends further proof of the discussion began in Clash of Political Cultures: Cultural Diversity and Minority Politics in Trinidad and Tobago in Through The ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Sounds of a party - a political party
Oct 14, 2013 They are announcing some political meeting or the other; and begging for my vote, and meh road still aint fix though I hear all parts getting box drains and thing, so I vex. So peeps, you know I am a sceptic so help me decide. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian
Jun 15, 2010 T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian · T&T Constitution the culprit | The Trinidad Guardian. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 8:20 AM · Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to Facebook ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Related:
Demokrissy: To vote, just how we party … Towards culturally ...
Apr 30, 2010 'How we vote is not how we party.' At 'all inclusive' fetes and other forums, we nod in inebriated wisdom to calypsonian David Rudder's elucidation of the paradoxical political vs. social realities of Trinidad and Tobago. http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: DEADLOCK: Sign of things to come
Oct 29, 2013 An indication that unless we devise innovative ways to address representation of our diversity, we will find ourselves in various forms of deadlock at the polls that throw us into a spiral of political tug of war albeit with not just ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: The human face of constitutional reform
Oct 16, 2013 Sheilah was clearly and sharply articulating the deficiencies in governmesaw her: a tinymite elderly woman, gracefully wrinkled, deeply over with concerns about political and institutional stagnation but brimming over with ... http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Trini politics is d best
Oct 21, 2013 Ain't Trini politics d BEST! Nobody fighting because they lose. All parties claiming victory, all voting citizens won! That's what make we Carnival d best street party in the world. Everyone are winners because we all like ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age - Demokrissy
Jan 09, 2012 New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. New Media, New Civil Society, and Politics in a New Age | The Communication Initiative Network. Posted by Kris Rampersad ...http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: T&T politics: A new direction? - Caribbean360 Oct 01, 2010 http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Others: Demokrissy: Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 ...
Apr 07, 2013
Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. So we've had the rounds of consultations on Constitutional Reform? Are we any wiser? Do we have a sense of direction that will drive ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2
Apr 30, 2013
Valuing Carnival The Emperor's New Tools#2.
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Wave a flag for a party rag...Choosing the Emperor's New ...
Oct 20, 2013
Choosing the Emperor's New Troops. The dilemma of choice. Voting is supposed to be an ... Old Casked Rum: The Emperor's New Tools#1 - Towards Constitutional Reform in T&T. Posted by Kris Rampersad at 10:36 AM ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Carnivalising the Constitution People Power ...
Feb 26, 2014
This Demokrissy series, The Emperor's New Tools, continues and builds on the analysis of evolution in our governance, begun in the introduction to my book, Through the Political Glass Ceiling (2010): The Clash of Political ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Envisioning outside-the-island-box ... - Demokrissy - Blogger
Feb 10, 2014
This Demokrissy series, The Emperor's New Tools, continues and builds on the analysis of evolution in our governance, begun in the introduction to my book, Through the Political Glass Ceiling (2010): The Clash of Political ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Futuring the Post-2015 UNESCO Agenda
Apr 22, 2014
It is placing increasing pressure for erasure of barriers of geography, age, ethnicity, gender, cultures and other sectoral interests, and in utilising the tools placed at our disposal to access our accumulate knowledge and technologies towards eroding these superficial barriers. In this context, we believe that the work of UNESCO remains significant and relevant and that UNESCO is indeed the institution best positioned to consolidate the ..... The Emperor's New Tools ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
Demokrissy: Cutting edge journalism
Jun 15, 2010
The Emperor's New Tools. Loading... AddThis. Bookmark and Share. Loading... Follow by Email. About Me. My Photo · Kris Rampersad. Media, Cultural and Literary Consultant, Facilitator, Educator and Practitioner. View my ...
http://kris-rampersad.blogspot.com/
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