TIMES.KY

Cayman Islands, Caribbeanand International News
Saturday, Jun 03, 2023

King Charles’s ascension ignites debate over royals across Commonwealth

King Charles’s ascension ignites debate over royals across Commonwealth

Head of state role in doubt in realms from Jamaica to New Zealand after death of Queen Elizabeth II

King Charles’s ascension to the throne has reignited a debate over whether the royal family deserves a global role in the 21st century, no more so than in the 14 Commonwealth realms where the British monarch remains the head of state.

A legacy of empire and slavery that was entwined with British royalty for centuries has raised tough questions about the place of a foreign king, and republican movements from the Pacific to North America to the Caribbean will be assessing whether they should seize the moment.

Recent developments, notably Barbados becoming a republic in 2021 and removing Queen Elizabeth as its head of state, have also led to a crescendo that could now reach a climax.

While there are strong republican voices in Australia, New Zealand and Canada, Jamaica appears to be most likely to face the issue immediately, not least because appointing the new king might require a constitutional referendum.

On Friday, the main story on the front page of one of Jamaica’s leading newspapers, the Gleaner, said the Queen’s death would “make Jamaica’s break with monarchy easier”.

Elizabeth II had a “personal kind of lingering among some sections of the population”, the paper quoted cultural expert Jahlani Niaah, senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies, as saying. But he added: “There is another section that is clear that we have come too far with those millstones around our necks, and the fact that she has passed will mean there is less affection for the symbolism that she represents as a powerful woman in the world.”

In 2020, Mikael Phillips, an opposition member of Jamaica’s parliament, filed a motion backing the removal of the monarch and on Thursday said he hoped the prime minister “would move faster when there is a new monarch in place”.

Queen Elizabeth II in Jamaica on her Jubilee tour in 2002.


Jamaica’s government last year announced plans to ask London for compensation for an estimated 600,000 Africans who were shipped to the island to the financial benefit of British slaveholders. And a poll this summer found that more than half of Jamaicans said they wanted the Queen to be removed as head of state.

The royal family has sought to address Britain’s bloody imperial past for decades. As prince, Charles attended the Barbados ceremony last year and gave a conciliatory speech referring to the “appalling atrocity of slavery” that “forever stains British history”.

Note: British Antarctic Territory not shown


More than 10 million Africans were forced into the Atlantic slave trade by European nations, and those who survived the trip were shackled in the Caribbean and the Americas.

Belize has already announced a constitutional review, and political leadership in some overseas British territories such as the British Virgin Islands was also heading in a similar direction.

The wider Commonwealth of Nations, a group of 56 countries including 2.5 billion people, will also face a reckoning. The organisation has attempted to democratise, for example, by declaring that its head is not a hereditary role. However, Charles was still chosen to lead by leaders of the bloc in 2018, which has made some countries uncomfortable.

In Australia, Canada and New Zealand, the transition has brought grief but also raised resentment around the damaging effects of Britain’s colonisation on Indigenous peoples.

In Canberra parliament has been suspended for 15 days, while the Sydney Opera House was illuminated in the Queen’s honour. Still, within hours of her death being announced the long-running republican debate was revived.

A Green party senator, Mehreen Faruqi, said: “I cannot mourn the leader of a racist empire built on stolen lives, land and wealth of colonised peoples.”

This June, Australia’s new government headed by the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, appointed Matt Thistlethwaite as the country’s first minister tasked with overseeing a transition to a republic.

In New Zealand, the republican prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, remembered Queen Elizabeth II as “extraordinary”, saying she came “to define notions of service, charity and consistency”. And Marama Davidson, the co-leader of New Zealand’s Green party, said the relationship between the British crown and New Zealand was “a question for another day”.

A 96-gun salute for Queen Elizabeth at Parliament House forecourt in Canberra, Australia.


Regardless, a fresh break from British royalty seemed an inevitable question. Sir Don McKinnon, a former deputy prime minister of Aotearoa and former secretary-general of the Commonwealth, told Radio New Zealand that the possibility of New Zealand becoming a republic would “build up quite a head of steam now”.

In Fiji, which was a British colony from 1874 until 1970, the Queen was being mourned but British imperialism had complicated their feelings, said Inise Kuruwale, a librarian. “I believe most people feel sad today, but not all, because a lot of people are still a bit angry about the fact of colonialism.”

In Vanuatu, which was run as a joint colonial post by the French and British after the second world war until gaining independence 42 years ago, residents of the capital of Port Vila expressed sadness for her passing, but said the relevance of the monarchy has dimmed over the years.

“She was a very good role model. She came to Vanuatu, but it was before I was born,” said Lopez Adams, who owns a cafe in Port Vila. “We are sad for her family, but for us, we have been forgotten. Colonisers came and they took. We are independent now and we have seen nothing from them.”

AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

TIMES.KY
Close
0:00
0:00
Nvidia Joins Tech Giants as First Chipmaker to Reach $1 Trillion Valuation
Drone Attack on Moscow's Wealthiest Neighborhoods Suspected to be Launched by Ukraine
Elon Musk Meets Chinese Finance Minister in Beijing
AI ‘extinction’ should be same priority as nuclear war – experts
Prominent Hacker Forum RaidForums Suffers Substantial Data Breach
Nvidia CEO Huang says firms, individuals without AI expertise will be left behind
WPP Revolutionizes Advertising with NVIDIA's AI Powerhouse
Two US Employees Fired For Chasing Robbers Out Of Store As They Broke ''Company Policy''
If you donated to BLM, you got played
Pfizer, the EU, and disappearing ink - Smoke, Mirrors, and the Billion-Dose Pfizer Vaccine Deal: EU's 'Open Secret
Actor Tom Hanks told Harvard University graduates to be superheroes in their defense of truth and American ideals, and to resist those who twist the truth for their own gain
The Sussexes' Royal Rebound: Could Harry and Meghan Markle Return to the UK?
A provocative study suggests: Left-Wing Extremism and its Unsettling Connection to Psychopathy and Narcissism
France Arrests 10 on Suspicion of Failing to Respond in Time to Migrant Drowning
Neuralink Receives FDA Approval for First-in-Human Clinical Study
Is Saudi Arabia the holiest place in the world? Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions from "The Mount Sinai Stand" Discovered in Saudi Arabia
Ukrainian Intelligence Official Admits to Assassination Attempts on Putin
Bernard Arnault Loses $11.2 Billion in One Day as Investors Fear Slowdown in US Growth Will Reduce Demand for Luxury Products
Russian’s Wagner Group leader: “I am not a chef, I am a butcher. Russia is in danger of a revolution like in 1917.”
TikTok Sues Montana Over Law Banning the App
Ron DeSantis Jumps Into 2024 Presidential Race, Setting Up Showdown With Trump
Last Walmart in North Portland Closing Down
Florida's DeSantis seeks to disqualify judge in Disney case
Talks between US House Republicans and President Biden's Democratic administration on raising the federal government's $31.4tn debt ceiling have paused
Biden Administration Eyeing High-Profile Visits to China: The Biden Administration is heating things up by looking into setting up a series of top-level visits to Beijing by top officials in the coming months
New evidence in special counsel probe may undercut Trump’s claim documents he took were automatically declassified
A French court of appeals confirmed former President Nicolas Sarkozy's three-year jail term for corruption and influence peddling
Debt Ceiling Crises Have Unleashed Political Chaos
Weibao Wang, a former software engineer at Apple, was charged with stealing trade secrets related to autonomous systems, including self-driving cars
Mobile phone giant Vodafone to cut 11,000 jobs globally over three years as new boss says its performance not good enough
Elon Musk compares George Soros to Magneto, the supervillain from the Marvel Comics series.
Warren Buffett Sells TSMC Shares Over Concerns About Taiwan's Stability
New Study Finds That Secondary Bacterial Pneumonia Is a Major Cause of Death in COVID-19 Patients Who Require Ventilator Assistance
The Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines calls the British monarchy "an absurdity" he wants to remove in his lifetime
King Charles III being crowned.
'Godfather Of AI' Geoffrey Hinton Quits Google To Warn Of The Tech's Dangers
A Real woman
Vermont Man Charged with Stalking After Secretly Tracking Woman with Apple AirTag
Elon Musk Statements About Tesla Autopilot Could Be 'Deepfakes,' Lawyers Claim. Judge Evette Pennypacker Does Not Understand How Far and Advanced This Technology Became
Ukraine More Prepared for Counterattack as Reinforcements Arrive
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni Discuss Migration, Defence, and Ukraine
AT&T's Successful Test of Satellite-Based Phone Call Raises Possibility of Widespread Coverage
CNN: "Joe Biden is asking for four more years — when 74% of Americans think the country is heading the wrong way“
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan Cuts Short Live TV Interview Due to Health Issue
US Congresswoman threaten Twitter Files journalist with arrest
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh slams New York Times' pro-government stance and treatment of sources
Enough is enough: it's time to end the war in Ukraine. While Russia may be to blame for starting it, Russia is not the one refusing to stop it
Fox News Settles their case with Dominion Voting Systems for a staggering $787.5 MILLION
AG decries scapegoating and rushed lawmaking by government
The land of the free violence
×