Speculation Grows That Jamaica Will Ditch British Monarchy
Anti-monarchy protests have been held in Jamaica. Photo Credit: The Advocates Network
Jamaica is set to “begin the process of removing the Queen as their head of state” as soon as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge leave the island, reports say.
The Duke and Duchess are currently on a tour of the Caribbean as part of the Jubilee celebrations of the Queen’s 70 years on the throne, with Jamaica the most recent stop on their itinerary.
However, the mood is not entirely celebratory, with protests highlighting the British monarchy’s role in colonialism & slavery taking place outside the British High Commission in Kingston.
The tour has been stricken by controversy, with the royals forced to cancel a visit to a village in Belize after residents protested against it.
Seen as part of a charm-offensive to persuade Caribbean nations not to follow the example of Barbados, which declared itself a republic last year, the tour has been backfiring on the royal family.
'They don't want William and Kate here.'
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) March 22, 2022
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be travelling to Jamaica today.@Noel_Phillips explains how Jamaica 'will begin the process of removing the Queen as Head of State' once the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge leave. pic.twitter.com/jp4GYwlKAi
Noel Phillips, Good Morning Britain’s North America correspondent, said that Jamaicans ‘don’t want them (the Cambridge’s) there’ before citing a source from within the Jamaican government that said the process to remove the Queen as the nation’s head of state would begin as soon as William and Kate leave for the Bahamas on Thursday.
This comes days after Olivia “Babsy” Grange, the minister for Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, told members of Jamaica’s National Council on Reparation that they must “seize the moment of the global movement and momentum in favour of the alignment of our local and global human experiences with the human right we have to equality and equity.
“We need a roadmap for legal and diplomatic actions will bring us monetary reparation.
“We need the roadmap that will extinguish a debt we have never owed.”
An open letter by the Advocates Network has criticised the Queen for having “done nothing to redress and atone for the suffering of our ancestors that took place during her reign and/or during the entire period of British trafficking of Africans, enslavement, indentureship and colonization.”
As Jamaica celebrates 60 years of independence, the group has produced a list of “60 reasons for apologies and reparations from Britain and its royal family”, pointedly critical of the “refusal to engage in a conversation about repertory justice for slavery and colonialism.”
In a video by the Advocates Network, a woman can be heard reading out a list of laws that were imposed on slaves as one of the 60 reasons.
“For imposing slave laws that a) provided financial and other rewards to enslaved Africans during wars of protests; thereby fostering divisiveness between our people that still exists today; b) supress all forms of gathering, especially at night; c) prohibited any enslaved African from keeping any horse, mule or mare, and if caught stealing, put to death, thereby stifling opportunities of the enslaved Africans to own or control property for the development of their business; and d) limited the Sunday market till 11am, thereby limiting the opportunity of enslaved Africans to earn income.”
They also accuse ‘official representatives’ and former Prime Minister David Cameron of telling Jamaicans to “forget about slavery and the past…without apology or reparations.”
The Advocates Network are a group of Jamaican activists who seek an apology and reparations from the UK and its royal family. Photo Credit: The Advocates Network
Dr Emily Zobel Marshall, reader in Post-Colonial Literature at Leeds Beckett University told the Guardian “We’ve had centuries of enslavement, followed by colonialism in the Caribbean.
“The damage that has been done economically and historically by Britain is vast, and the legacies of that are ongoing. To still have the Queen as the head of state, in this day and age, is baffling to me.
“I think that having the Queen as head of state in the Caribbean is locked into that way of thinking, that sense of superiority, that nostalgia for the past when Britain ruled the waves. Instead of sending the beautiful couple out there to woo the royal family back into favour, they should be talking about what’s best for the Caribbean nations.”