A few days ago, I listened to a local attorney, a professed human rights advocate, preemptively castigate Saint Lucians who might wish to protest a visit by members of the British royal family. She deemed the notion unbecoming, and likened it to “protesting against ourselves” since our governor general is a representative of our head of state. That was the first I heard of the visit. Typically, royal tours are preceded by local press releases, public comments by elated grinning government officials, and other fawning publicity. This time, the silence was deafening.
I considered it odd that an ostensible protector of the human rights was attempting to dissuade Saint Lucians from exercising one of our fundamental rights: the freedom to dissent. How could anyone, let alone someone who looks like the lawyer in question, effectively defend colonialism and slavery?
Lest some may have forgotten: Slavery is an indelible, grotesque stain on the annals of humanity; a multi-generational rape of race which, though long abolished, is yet to be redressed. Imagine being kidnapped and ripped from everything and everyone you know and love, held captive in incomprehensibly inhumane conditions, repeatedly violated in the most horrid ways. Now, imagine this process being repeated with your children . . . your children’s children and so on. That’s a euphemistic description of slavery, the driving force behind colonialism. Some try to draw distinctions in intent and effect between slavery and colonialism, even going so far as to suggest that the latter “had a conscience.” Such subterfuge is a distinction without a difference and a wicked and cruel fraud.
Throughout history, slavery was primarily a means of acquiring free labor. That was the case with the African slaves who were brought to the European colonies in the Caribbean, including St. Lucia, between the 16th and early 19th centuries. They were used to grow cash crops, such as sugarcane, to fatten the coffers of Britain and, by extension, the royals. So, slavery and colonization were inextricably linked. The growth of the British Empire was fueled by colonialism, and the British monarchy was instrumental in the establishment, expansion, and maintenance of the slave trade.
Many may ask: What does 21st century British royalty have to do with the atrocities committed by their predecessors centuries ago? The simple answer is they continue to benefit significantly from the advantages born out of slavery and colonialism, while the descendants of slaves suffer still from its effects. Whenever the subject is broached, we are directed to “move on.”
Saint Lucians may no longer be a colony, but the legacy of slavery and colonialism persist. Prejudice fueled inequality of treatment and opportunities and the soft bigotry of low expectations and innuendo (such as verbalized curiosity about the appearance of the unborn child of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle) are perpetuated indirectly by the very idea of what these people represent and directly by their actions and inactions.
If I come off as annoyed, rest assured there is good reason! I still have bouts of PTSD stemming from memories of being forced to wait in the blazing sun during my childhood, along with my classmates, to greet visiting members of the royal family. Overheated children fainted and were carried away by their teachers, while many of us who managed to remain upright were severely sunburned, all in the interest of putting on a good show for the leaders of “the Mother Country.” Hundreds of black boys and girls from various schools lined the freshly paved streets as our self-invited but welcomed guests walked by or were driven, flanked by proud sycophants bearing umbrellas against our natural atmosphere.
Prior to the last visit of a member of the British royal family, the roads of the scheduled touring route were specially paved and the edges of the sidewalks painted. Meanwhile, regular taxpaying citizens coped as best we could with potholed roads, in many cases no roads at all.
The most recent visit of British royalty to our shores reportedly commenced on schedule last Friday 22nd April. An entry on the official website of the Government of Saint Lucia read as follows: “Their Royal Highnesses, The Earl and Countess of Wessex arrived in Saint Lucia on Friday, 22 April . . . were welcomed on arrival by our country’s deputy prime minister Dr. Ernest Hilaire, and Ambassador to CARICOM and OECS H.E. Elma Gene Isaac . . . greeted with renditions by the Royal Saint Lucia Police Band and Royal Salute by the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force with inspection of the Guard . . . later made their way to the capital Castries, where courtesy calls were made on the Acting Governor General, H.E. Errol Charles at Government House, Morne Fortune and the Prime Minister, Hon. Philip J. Pierre at his official residence at Vigie.”
I vomited in my mouth while reading it. The entire affair was being treated as a dirty little secret. Let’s face it, the government’s website is where information is placed to hide it in plain sight.
Somewhere there is a signed document that says we are an independent nation. I’ve seen images of country’s leader at the time of Independence, John Compton, waving that document as if it were a winning lottery ticket. Why don’t we walk the walk of an independent country? We claim to have had a Constitution of our own from 1979. And yet we continue to adhere to archaic British customs such as the use of a gold-plated mace in our House of Assembly. Our towns, villages, streets and monuments continue to honor the memory of those who in the worst ways oppressed our ancestors. Our governor general still represents the Queen of England. Where is our sense of national pride? Where is our sense of self-pride?
The exorcism of these ghosts of slavery and colonialism is overdue. It is time we claimed our unadulterated knowledge of self. It is time for Saint Lucia to become a republic. Our elected leaders will not do so on their own volition, for despite that our tenuous link to British royalty yields no tangible benefits to the people of Saint Lucia, and the ever increasing repugnance at continued prostration to former colonial masters, they seem reluctant to relinquish the guilty pleasure of serving them at every opportunity—at great cost to our people, monetarily and psychically.
Barbados took the right step when on 30th November 2021 it transitioned from a parliamentary constitutional monarchy under Queen Elizabeth II as the hereditary head of state to a parliamentary republic. Suleiman Bulbulia, a member of the now dissolved republican committee in Barbados and a current columnist for Barbados Today, put it perfectly when he said: “The English turned Barbados into a slave society. Now, after 396 years, we’re free.”
Grenada had it right when the island’s reparations committee made an official apology and reparations from the royal family for slavery prerequisites to a royal visit. The Grenada leg of the charm offensive tour was finally cancelled, albeit for several publicized reasons not necessarily related to the reparations committee.
This is something all Saint Lucians should be passionate about, irrespective of political hue, because it is not about red and yellow. It is about pride in country and self. Did any of our leaders broach the subject of reparations with the visiting royals? Did they demand an official apology? Are they considering becoming a republic? When will our elected leaders stop dancing like trained monkeys for these people? When will Saint Lucia and Saint Lucians be free?
