GUYANA wasn’t included on the current Royal Charm Offensive for the Queen’s 2022 Platinum Jubilee, but I was at State House when she visited from February 19-22, 1994, nursing an arm in Plaster of Paris.
Today, Guyanese and Caribbean people everywhere are also discussing how Royal Visits should be seen and treated in the 21st Century.

That’s indeed the big question at Buckingham Palace following the failed 2022 Royal Caribbean Charm Offensive to observe and celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee after 70 years on the throne at Buckingham Palace.

Britons were just this week speculating whether 2021-2022 would be another 1992, which she described as an Annus Horribilis (Latin for ‘A horrible year.’)
As she approached her 40th year on the throne that year, The Queen saw the breakdown of three of her children’s marriages (including that of Prince Charles and Princess Diana), the royal family was smattered in the tabloids – and a ferocious fire hit Windsor Castle on November 20.

Thirty years later, as she approached her 70th year as Queen of the British Commonwealth, Queen Elizabeth in 2021 lost Prince Phillip (her husband of 70 years); her grandson Harry deserted Buckingham Palace (after being fingered for smattering royal Blue Blood in unwelcome ways); she withdraw all royal titles from her second son Andrew (Duke of York) for bringing the royal household into scandalous disrepute; and she’d belatedly learn that while she mourned her husband, the Prime Minister and others were hosting Wine-and-Cheese parties at Downing Street.

And then, this Caribbean Charm Offensive that turned offensive.
It’s all rooted in Prince Charles’ visit to Barbados’s Republic celebrations last November, when he expressed Royal Sorrow for Slavery, in words and ways never before uttered publicly by a ‘royal’ since Slavery’s supposed abolition in 1834.

The general response was understandably rather dismissive, most Caribbean advocates for Reparations for Slavery correctly asking ‘Where’s the action to match the words’ or simply describing it as ‘Royal Hypocrisy!’
After all, Slavery created the wealth that built the Empire that made his mother the richest woman in Britain; and it was the Royal Household that established the Royal Africa Company that started the tri-continental Atlantic Slave Trade in African between Africa and Britain’s West Indies.

But all that disappeared as soon as Prince Charles boarded his royal flight back to Buckingham Palace.
Charles’ son William came to the Caribbean three months later, also saying the royals are ‘Sorry for Slavery’ — and again the related utterances were dismissed as empty words from a mouth too-low in the royal pecking order to be taken seriously.

But even though slightly hearing-impaired, what I heard was the Queen, speaking through her son and grandson representing her in Barbados and Jamaica, saying she’s sorry.
I think the Commonwealth Caribbean’s quick response should be to directly engage Her Majesty, to ascertain how she plans to transfer those expressions of sorrow into the actual Reparations for Slavery and Native Genocide that 14 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nations, 13 of which are former British colonies, have been quietly calling on Britain since 2013, but with no response.

The Queen allowed her son (the next King) and her grandson (also possible later King) to come to the Commonwealth Caribbean and say, on her behalf, that the Palace is (now) sorry for Slavery.
As Queen of all Royal and Commonwealth Realms, she made Charles’ wife a queen before he becomes king; and she paid her other son Andrew’s out-of-court settlement for an alleged ‘royal sexcapade’ with a girl that he’d earlier denied.

But while the monarch considers when best to abdicate and handover to King Charles, she should be urged to instruct “My Government” in Westminster to honour Britain’s historical debts to the people in those of her Caribbean realms whose very existence was shaped by Slavery and who shed the blood, sweat and tears that created the wealth created by the resulting Industrial Revolution or construction of the British Empire.

QE2 (Queen Elizabeth II) is 96 and doing things no monarch before her has: from washing dishes and launching her own dishwashing brand online, to hosting meetings online while under COVID stress — and returning to The Internet of Royal Things as quickly as possible thereafter, despite being anchored by her frailty.

The Queen waited five months to make her first public appearance: at the special Westminster Cathedral service earlier this week, one year after her husband Prince Philip died at 99 after 70 years always at her side.
In her current mode and mood of appearing to want to depart the throne with a clean royal slate, Her Majesty needs to be encouraged to decree that her Heirs and Successors — and their Kith and Kin — henceforth pay the huge and long-outstanding Royal tithes and offerings due by way of reparations to the descendants of the enslaved people of African descent in the former British West Indies, where CARICOM has done what no other British Commonwealth grouping has: Get together and demand Reparations Now!

Britain’s formed West Indies should not let the opportunity die and should quickly engage the Queen and thank her for saying she’s sorry and advising her the best way to apologise is to take the next logical step and decree “my sincere wish” that Britain’s Reparations Debt be paid “Right now!”

Instead of waiting to ask King Charles to back his words in Barbados with action by Buckingham Palace, CARICOM should engage both mother and son — and right now, while they’re discussing the transition from Her Majesty to His Majesty.

But even now, one can see no more Royal Visits to the Caribbean before Britain delivers on Reparations for its role in Slavery and Native Genocide in Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean.
Am I just dreaming? Maybe — and if so, please ‘Do Not Disturb!’