The Liming House

Thank you for visiting The Liming House. If you like what you read, please consider subscribing to our RSS feed. You can also receive our posts by email. Enjoy the lime.

There are many, many things about Trinbagonian media in general, and our newspapers in particular, that make me want to pull my hair out.

I am continually bemused by our haphazard approach to errors and corrections, for instance.

But it is our apparent lack of reporters who actually understand business, finance, law and (the non bacchanalist aspects of) politics that is most worrying.

These are complex, multi-layered, specialist subjects, and to successfully cover them requires, in no particular order:

- Knowledge of/training in the subject areas, either academic or professional
- A commitment to keeping abreast of changes and developments in the field
- A significant amount of research and reporting, often on a daily basis
- A solid and informed network of sources and contacts

And even more so than in other areas of journalism, those charged with covering these beats must be able to explain often complicated concepts in a manner that can be grasped by non-specialists.

From my obsessive perusal of the major dailies, I’d say all of the above are lacking - or at least not evident.

There are exceptions: Camini Marajh of the Trinidad Express is an excellent business reporter.

Ms Marajh broke the story of RBC’s $2bn offer for RBTT, scooping the international news media who took days to catch up

Her coverage of the deal should be framed and used as a model by editors and reporters in other newsrooms:

In what is likely to be the biggest takeover deal in the Caribbean in recent times, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is getting ready to buy out local banking giant, RBTT, in an acquisition priced at well over US$2 billion.

Sources report that an acquisition agreement is close to sign off by the Peter July-led Board of RBTT Directors.

Perfect. She leads on the significance and size of the deal, and immediately backs it up with reference to her sources.

She continues:

The RBC offer is said to contain a mix of cash and stock in a buyout that sources say has already secured the approval of key shareholders, among them the National Insurance Board (NIB) which has a 22 per cent interest, Guardian Holdings Ltd, a 14 per cent stakeholder and business tycoons Arthur Lok Jack, Richard Azar and Imtiaz Ahamad, who are listed among the largest individual stakeholders.

A crucial bit of information, although she could have explained why this important: if RBTT’s major shareholders were opposed to the deal, it would be unlikely to succeed.

And while the Peter July board has refused to say anything more than the bank is having “strategic discussions with other parties”, the Sunday Express understands that RBC, the latest in a series of Canadian suitors to knock on RBTT’s door, is the favoured partner for a takeover deal.

Both have financial incentives to see the deal through, according to financial sources. RBC, Canada’s largest bank is flush with acquisition dollars, assets of Can$563 billion and a market capitalisation of Can$69 billion.

Wonderful. Wonderful. And it gets better:

It is also trailing behind rivals Bank of Nova Scotia and First Caribbean International Bank (FCIB),a subsidiary of Canadian bank, CIBC in its Caribbean operations.

RBTT, Trinidad’s largest bank with assets of US$7 billion, has stumbled in recent years on issues related to management, flat earnings and growth limitation.

The RBC offer, comprising 60 per cent cash and 40 per cent RBC stock, if approved by shareholders, would give RBTT stockholders a much-needed boost with an option of cash and RBC shares - Can$55.26 at the close of trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Friday.

These paragraphs establish why the deal would be beneficial to both parties, are neatly hedged (”if approved by shareholders”) and give relevant financial details.

Still to be worked out, however, is the price of RBC shares which are to be listed on the local Stock Exchange under the depository receipt system used on the Nasdaq and other major Exchanges where a specified number of shares of foreign companies are issued and traded.

Sources say the listing of a big international bank like RBC on the TT Stock Exchange would be a major coup for this country and could well catapult Trinidad centre stage and a step closer to the Prime Minister’s dream of making this country the financial capital of the Caribbean.

When I got to this point in the story, I was tempted to applaud. Ms Marajh clearly had spectacular sources on this one, because details like that are gold dust. She explained, clearly and concisely, the concept of depositary receipts and gave still more context on why the deal would be important for T&T.

Financial analysts say if 20 per cent of the cash or $TT1.6 billion from the RBTT sale goes back into the local market, it could help the recovery process of the stock market which has been in the doldrums in recent time.

Speculation of a takeover has seen RBTT stock climb from the start of September by $3 closing at the end of trade on Friday at $34.01.

GHL, a substantial shareholder in RBTT, has also benefitted from the market speculation, closing at $25 on Friday after starting September at $20.02.

This story had everything - the interested players, the context of the negotiations, and crucially for an acquisition story, all the important numbers given in context.

But this story was exceptional. Too often, our media fail to get the basics, the fundamentals right.

More on that soon.

Related posts

• Says who? (or, why bylines matter)
• This is not the time to not know what you’re talking about
• The T&T Guardian needs more than a cosmetic change

When I grow up, I want to write like Michael Harris.

I discovered him quite by accident - trawling the (badly implemented but kudos for even having one) RSS feed of the Trinidad Express, lured by the headline “Party politics and the voice of the people.”

The man is a true-true political commentator, and an aphorist after mine own Oscar Wilde-loving heart:

In short, neither good governance nor good government is possible in the absence of politics and there is no politics without the voice of the people. (From Party politics and the voice of the people)

In all the essential areas of life each year seems to be a replicate of the previous year. It is as though we are locked in a time warp of helplessness in which all our yesterdays become our tomorrows. (From Solving the political paradox)

Since it is not necessary to engage in real politics outside the party there is no politics within the parties. People do not join those parties because they are inspired by a vision which they are committed to work towards. People join those parties in the hope of securing placement by means fair or corrupt. (From New politics and old paradigms)

(Here’s a Google search which indexes all his articles at the Trinidad Express)

These are the works of a political animal, in the true and Aristotelian sense of the term.The first episode - Solving the political paradox, cited above - of Mr Harris’s 2008 commentary for the newspaper ended thus:

In the midst of all of this neither government nor people have much time to devote to the fundamental questions of what kind of society we wish to live in and what system of governance shall we build?

Those questions are fundamental to political discourse, and to politics itself, but I have never heard them answered - or even addressed - by a modern Trinbagonian politician. (I welcome examples to the contrary.)

It was only because I’ve been reading these columns that I was not wholly disheartened by the subject of the latest post over at The Manicou Report - a Facebook group with the subtle title of Fuck the PNM.

Mani’s take on this 365-strong anti-PNM army - and there are similar Facebook groups dedicated to every major political party in Trinidad - is that it reinforces political tribalism.

Says he:

If the makers of the group are trying to propagate the same type of tribalism by setting people even firmer in their ways than they are now, then they are on the right track. But if they want to get people to think for themselves and change voting patterns, then an “F*** the PNM” group on Facebook couldn’t possible be the way to do it. You can’t woo people over to your side by insulting them - a point lost on some politicians.

I would take his analysis a step further. The “party politics” in T&T is what gives rise to such self-defeating factionalism. This group is just a Web2.0 representation of the discussions taking place in rum shops, on street corners and in expensive coffee shops on university campuses.It is time for some new conversations, for discourse that dares to be more than a rehash of the same old same old.

Michael Harris has kicked things off in fine fashion. Who’s next?

Related posts

• Young and black in Babylondon: part one
• Thoughts on the “Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People”
• The Power of the Pen

I have the right

• not to justify my existence in this world
• not to keep the races separate within me
• not to be responsible for people’s discomfort with my physical ambiguity
• not to justify my ethnic legitimacy
• to identify myself differently than strangers expect me to identify
• to identity myself differently than how my parents identity me
• to identify myself differently than my brothers and sisters
• to identify myself differently in different situations
• to create a vocabulary to communicate about being multiracial
• to change my identity over my lifetime–and more than once
• to have loyalties and identify with more than one group of people
• to freely chooose whom I befriend and love

By Maria P. P. Root (via Light-skinn-ed Girl)

This is a thought-provoking piece of work, with which I can at least partially identify. So much of the discussion about “mixed-race issues” is limited to the experience of bi-racial (white/black) people living in the US of A; the “Bill of Rights” is broader in scope.

Some of its declarations I have always taken for granted - never have I had to justify my existence, for instance. And the phrase “physically ambiguous” is downright amusing.

But it made me realise that I don’t know how my parents self-identify, and nor do I know how they would describe my siblings and I.

And I have had to justify my ethnic legitimacy, on more than one occasion and to the gamut of family, friends and the parents of former paramours.

It’s a strange thing to be a victim of generic racism. It sounds absurd, but I have always wanted to ask, when faced with such discrimination, which part of me most offends.

In other words, is it because I is black? Or is it because I am not Indian/Chinese/White enough?

(Or, more recently, is it because I’m a twenty-something overachieving chick with dreadlocks and a predilection for wearing Converse to work? Hmm.)

I have never felt (insert ethnic grouping here) enough.

Still, I have had more experience of Trinidad’s version of black and Indian culture than I have had exposure to my Chinese and White heritage. But I am comfortable with none of these. In situations that are purely one or the other, I have always felt ill at ease.

When I donned a shalwar to attend a Divali celebration at my highschool, eyebrows were raised.

When, in my younger days, I was briefly part of the tennis-playing set, I didn’t quite fit in with rivals at tournaments in Port of Spain and environs, and that wasn’t just because they were way better than I. We didn’t speak the same language - and if you’ve ever hung out with the Westmoorings crew, you’ll know what I mean.

Total lack of Chinese-related anecdotes is sufficiently telling, methinks.

I have no real, first-hand experience of what it is like to be white/Indian/Chinese in Trinidad.

Nor do I know what blackness means, as much as I use it as political shorthand for my identification with issues of racism, discrimination and other minority concerns.

Does that make my claim to these multiple strands of history less valid? Am I less authentic because I exercise my right to tick “Other”?

Nothing like an identity crisis on a Friday afternoon.

Related posts

• Feel it in the One Drop
• Guns and Gramaxone
• Young and black in Babylondon: part one

(subtitled: small axes and big trees, little giants and big dreams)

I want Barack Obama to become the next President of the United States the way I wanted the Soca Warriors to advance to the second round of the last World Cup.

Which is to say, I live in hope but dare not believe, because to believe is to set oneself up for overwhelming disappointment - or the shock of a lifetime.

Related posts

• Audaciously Hoping
• On badjohns, Brent Sancho and things in between
• Young and black in Babylondon: part one

The World Social Forum is coming, and already I’ve had to politely decline Facebook invitations to participate and/or care in some way.

There. I’ve said it. I don’t care about the World Social Forum, which purports to be:

an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and inter-linking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neo- liberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a society centred on the human person” [Porto Alegre Charter]

Shivonne Du Barry offers a more more concise take on the WSF over at her Ramblings and Reason blog:

… more than anything, it enables discussion of critical social issues that impact us, especially given our place in the global economic structure.

Fair enough. Except that in my experience of this and similar fora, there is very little reflective thinking or democratic debate; nor is there the free exchange of anything except leftist propaganda.

Back in 2004, I worked as a volunteer translator/logistics guru/general lackey at the European Social Forum in London. I’d been talked into by a couple of socially-minded friends of mine, and in any event, it was a very LSE thing to do (a bit of self-important saving the world action coupled with a good line or three on the all-important CV, etc).

I started out with the very best of intentions. By the third day, I was sick to death of people trying to persuade me of the evils of globalisation-as-imperialism.

These non-conformist-conformists - overwhelmingly white, European, “dreadlocked”, hemp-clothed and DC-shod - all evangelizing about evils of capitalism (and selling £20 t-shirts), environmentalism (while covering the streets of Bloomsbury and the halls of Alexandra Palace with forests of paper and pamphlets) and Saving Africa (because I’m so into Bob Marley, and he was African, you know?)

If this is an exaggeration, it is only a mild one. I went to the ESF hoping for some of that much-vaunted conversation, for discourse, for an actual exchange of ideas. What I got was reactionary rhetoric and sometimes disturbingly extremist left-wing propaganda.

As for freedom of expression? Not quite. Subhi al Mashadani, leader of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, was shouted off the stage by hecklers who accused him of “collaborating” with the US.

Security had to usher him away while we hapless volunteers attempted to get people out of the room.

And the people shouting him down? Europeans who have never themselves lived under occupation, and many of whom are career activists who never miss a WSF because they don’t actually need to work. What need have they of a trade union?

And all this talk of changing the world? It’s just talk. Because all the petitions, all the Facebook groups and all the clever t-shirts in the world will not make a jot of difference. Fora like these are sops to the liberal conscience. Why wait for the WSF, or ESF, or ASF?

Change something right now - walk instead of drive, buy vegetables from your local farmer/parlour/vendor, support your local artisans, stay home and help your children with their homework instead of lining the pockets of fete promoters…

I digress. But the point is that change involves doing, and doing involves a lot more than screaming “collaborator” at someone with whom you disagree.

Yes, another world is possible, and another T&T is possible. But we have to come better than this.

Related posts

• On being the change I wish to see (and freaking out about it)
• For shame
• On knee-high boots on a tropical island, and other absurdities

When I first left home, six years ago, I was resolved not to come back.

Why should I? Trinidad, I declared, held nothing but bacchanal and botheration.

I felt stifled there, and bored. I didn’t fit in. I needed to leave.

So I left, and like so many other West Indians abroad, discovered that I didn’t quite fit in anywhere else either.

But at least here - France, the UK, the US - I was challenged and stimulated and free.

And now I’m going back.

Because I’ve spent the past half a decade evangelizing about the need for Caribbean nationals to return to our home countries and give back to the islands that so desperately need our talent, intelligence and experience.

Because I don’t want to be one of those outraged expats who opines on everything and changes nothing.

Because I’m tired of the cold.

Because my love is there.

But I’m terrified.

Because my work, which I utterly adore, is here. Because here I have achieved, and scaled heights otherwise impossible to conceive.

Because my life, for the past six years, has been here.

And because I’m not sure I can change anything, really. And I’ll probably feel stifled there, and bored.

Because, as Miss Melanie Johncilla wrote in a letter to the editor (via Jumbie’s Watch), of “the complacency of a society, the sheer acceptance that comes along with ‘the Trini way.’”

We sit as a people and just accept. We accept poor customer service because “that’s what you go get in this country.” We accept spates of violence, we accept fear, we accept pedantic “medical researchers” who prolong petty spats for the sheer sake of it.

We accept domestic violence, we accept sexism, we accept old white man a the father, we accept our position as developing and we accept inferiority.

We are a nation of lazy acceptors. If the waitress is talking on her cellphone while serving me, “that’s just how things are in this country; we not in America, you know.”

But kick up a fuss and try to educate and move this beloved Trinidad forward—I dare you. Because all you get in response is: “Oh gosh, relax nah lady. We in Trinidad. Calm yuhself. That’s how things does be.”

And yes, those are some of the factors that pushed me to leave. Those “narrow minds” that continue to insist that we “are not old enough, not old-school enough, and not ‘Trini’ enough.”

Isn’t that an irony? They feel they cannot affect change as they would want to because “it’s Trinidad, nepotism rules, is who you know and what hue you have.”

And that attitude is pervasive, and pernicious. The TrinBago Blog also reproduced this letter, which prompted “ponnoxx” to retort:

Trinidad and Tobago’s laid back mentality is that which makes us unique. However, I must admit that there are departments which need to be tightened such as healthcare but our society is what others aspire to reach. Trinbago’s society heads towards happiness and not towrds efficiency like the US. It is not necessarily a bad thing. The reason why we are experiencing so much crime is (assumingly) as a direct result of deportation. Criminals who are seasoned in a more rigid efficient society. They literally brought back more efficient criminals into our society. Brain Drain for us and they have a Criminal drain straight in our frontyard. I Love my country just how is.

Sigh.

It’s the same for Jamaicans abroad, according to a young lady who wrote to the Jamaica Gleaner (via Francis Wade’s blog):

During my studies overseas, I also encouraged my fellow Jamaicans, who were in various graduate fields all over the United States, to return home after completing their studies, as their skills would be very beneficial to Jamaica’s development.

This was done in an effort to help secure Jamaica’s future, as I am very passionate about my country and its success, and I am hoping to become intimately involved in the future of Jamaica.

They, however, expressed that they had no desire to return home with the escalation of crime and violence and economic turmoil. They also strongly believe that with their educational background, Jamaica would not be able to offer them suitable jobs and compensation.

So, when are we going to do something about this increasing epidemic of our educated Jamaican people who have no desire to return home because of this lack of jobs and compensation? When are statements such as, “You are overqualified for the position”, going to be obsolete? Are we forever to remain in the shadows of developed countries and continuously lose our educated and skilled people to them?

I have very high hopes and dreams for Jamaica, but how can I be of assistance if I am not given the opportunity to do so? How can I effectively convince my fellow educated and qualified Jamaicans to return home and help to develop our home if I cannot even get job interviews?

Yes. Yes. Exactly.

But I’m going back, and taking it one baby step at a time.

We’ll see how it goes.

Related posts

• For shame
• Social Fora Fatigue
• On knee-high boots on a tropical island, and other absurdities

(to the tune of Better Than Ezra’s Desperately Wanting)

Barack Obama’s victory in the Iowa caucuses - the first major nomination contest for would-be US presidents - inspired a frenzy of comment in the international media and blogosphere (Caribbean bloggers included).

It should also inspire Trinbagonians - to demand more of our own politicians, and of ourselves.

Senator Obama’s campaign - the slogan of which is “hope, action, change” - is breaking all the rules. In Iowa, he won more support from women than did his chief rival, Hillary Clinton. He galavanised record numbers of young people and previous non-voters to seriously engage with politics. And of course, he proved a black man could win the hearts, minds and votes of white, Midwestern Americans.

The Obama campaign is based on a triple platform of change, unity and (the audacity of) hope - and I love it.

I love it because what he’s doing in America allows me to believe that the same can be achieved in Trinidad and Tobago - “a new type of politics”:

“Something different. A politics focused not on what divides us but on our common values and our common ideals, [focused] not so much on ideology, but practicality.”

A new type of politics, with a new kind of political discourse:

“I am convinced that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. For it’s precisely the pursuit of ideological purity, the rigid orthodoxy and the sheer predictability of our current political debate, that keeps us from finding new ways to meet the challenges we face as a country.”

One which ceases to cynically exploit - and create - division:

We think of faith as a source of comfort and understanding but find our expression of faith sowing division; we believe ourselves to be a tolerant people even as racial, religious, and cultural tensions roil the landscape. And instead of resolving these tensions or mediating these conflicts, our politics fans them, exploits them, and drives us further apart.

Still…

Maybe there’s no escaping our great political divide, an endless clash of armies, and any attempts to alter the rules of engagement are futile. Or maybe the trivialization of politics has reached a point of no return, so that most people see it as just one more diversion, a sport, with politicians our paunch-bellied gladiators and those who bother to pay attention just fans on the sidelines: We paint our faces red or blue and cheer our side and boo their side, and if it takes a late hit or cheap shot to beat the other team, so be it, for winning is all that matters.

But I don’t think so.

This man believes. He believes in the potential for change, and he is the change he wishes to see.

I cannot say this of Messrs. Manning and Panday, nor of any of their minions, not when their campaigns are less about actual policies and more about who had the better Jamaican artiste at their last fete.

Nor can I say this about my country, since we are so caught up with our expensive cars and designer clothing (Miu Miu rather than Meiling) that we are happy to overlook our failing infrastructure and rising inflation .

But Senator Obama gives me hope. He gives me the courage to question the state of things and to challenge the status quo.

To look at what passes for politics in Trinidad and Tobago and say - I don’t think so.

Related posts

• The magic and danger of the man who would be POTUS
• Stiff Upper Lip
• Young and black in Babylondon: part one

It started with a phone call.

“Yuh hear about the terrorists? Some Trinidadians and a Guyanese wanted to blow up JFK.”

Related posts

• On being the change I wish to see (and freaking out about it)
• Thoughts on .tt
• Social Fora Fatigue

It wasn’t until I left Trinidad for much colder climes I discovered I was black.

All my life I had been a so-called “red girl” - a racial hybrid with Indian, Caucasian, African and Chinese anscestors.

Mixed, middle-class, prestigiously schooled and commensurately sheltered, I railed against the hyphenated identities adopted by Indo- or Afro- Trinbagonian peers.

“I’m a Trini,” I would insist when faced, as I so often was, with those who demanded to know how I defined myself.

But what did that mean? It was a question with which I struggled. I lacked a defined cultural context.

Related posts

• Thoughts on the “Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People”
• Guns and Gramaxone
• Young and black in Babylondon: part three

To smelt or not to smelt, that is the question.

As a nation, we have been fortunate to have such a vast array of resources at our fingertips, under our lands and seas. Oil is king, but an old king and Natural Gas his relatively reserved queen. Oil is an old king who knows that these are his last days on the throne but pretends like he is not concerned. But we can all see his wrinkles, and we all talk about him behind his back, now that he is old and weak. Ethanol, Hydrogen, and Hybrids are younger, spicier, more attractive. This old king cannot run our nation for much longer and his queen becomes more and more withdrawn, so what then is the solution?

Related posts

• Young and black in Babylondon: part one
• Thoughts on the “Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People”
• The Power of the Pen