Cherisse Moe

Pro­fes­sor Sel­wyn Cud­joe, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al As­so­ci­a­tion for the Em­pow­er­ment of African Peo­ple (NAEAP), is pre­dict­ing "tur­bu­lent times" for Africans in Trinidad and To­ba­go. Cud­joe said if cur­rent trends con­tin­ued, the en­tire black pop­u­la­tion would de­gen­er­ate in­to low­er depths of pover­ty and de­spair. Cud­joe was speak­ing at the 10th An­nu­al Eman­ci­pa­tion Din­ner and Awards Cer­e­mo­ny at Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Ma­coya, last Sat­ur­day. This year's theme was ti­tled: "A So­ci­ety in Tran­si­tion: A Com­mu­ni­ty at the Cross­roads."?To help ad­dress the prob­lem, Cud­joe ap­pealed to the Gov­ern­ment to call a meet­ing of the "rel­e­vant Africans groups" to put to­geth­er a ten-year plan.

The plan, he said, would al­low Africans "to act in ways that are con­ducive to their own self-in­ter­est and the well-be­ing of the na­tion.?"Un­less we do this, the mad­den­ing killing will con­tin­ue; the ris­ing crime will con­tin­ue; and those who can will con­tin­ue to re­pro­duce them­selves with­out any se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion of what it means for the over­all progress of the race and of the na­tion," Cud­joe said. "Whether we like it or not, there will be tur­bu­lent times ahead for Africans in this coun­try...We are in a cri­sis." While call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to play a more proac­tive role in the ad­vance­ment of black peo­ple in T&T, he said the for­mer Patrick Man­ning-led ad­min­is­tra­tion should al­so shoul­der some of the blame, as it failed to im­prove the qual­i­ty of life of the lo­cal black com­mu­ni­ty.

"We, in NAEAP, stand ready to as­sist the Gov­ern­ment in any en­deav­our it wish­es to un­der­take to trans­form the con­di­tions of black peo­ple in this land," Cud­joe said. "The pre­dom­i­nant­ly black gov­ern­ment did not see it fit to en­dorse the idea of mak­ing a sus­tained ef­fort to deal with the prob­lems that af­fect black chil­dren and black youth." He said he was con­cerned that the African would be­come "ir­rel­e­vant" in T&T, as many black men liv­ing in the "ghet­to" did not ex­pect to live un­til 30. He added that 40 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion is East In­di­ans, where­as 37.5 per cent are Africans.?"This di­vide is like­ly to grow as time goes on...We might see the same pat­tern that has emerged in Guyana, in which the dom­i­nant group will hold pow­er in per­pe­tu­ity," Cud­joe said.