Transforming Royal Sorrow and Regrets to Apology and Atonement for Slavery and Native Genocide

THE Caribbean and the world will remember this weekend for several reasons: the 21st anniversary of September 11, 2001; the first weekend since Britain got a new prime minister – and since Queen Elizabeth II was last seen alive before dying at home in Scotland last Thursday after 70 years on the throne, aged 96.

Much happened before and since the Queen and Sovereign Monarch of the Commonwealth died, leaving 54 member-states in mourning, millions in sympathy and regret – and millions too, critical of the monarchy she led and calling for it to be buried with her.

The world continued to turn this week – the war in Ukraine; the US-China standoff over Taiwan; floods in Pakistan and Afghanistan; rivers and pipes drying up in Europe and China; floods drowning towns; fires burning forests; heatwaves baking and burning people and crops – but all the news on the major global networks since Thursday has been about the end of the Second Elizabethan Era and the start of King Charles III’s reign.
It wasn’t clear that the queen was starting to end her reign when she stopped travelling abroad in 2015 and started preparing Prince Charles for the role by having him represent her overseas. She reduced public duties at home too and quietly tended to royal social fires, while grappling with new world changes – such as setting-up online accounts and attending zoom meetings officially.

And then came COVID – her husband died in the middle of a national lockdown at 99 last year – and she too was later hit by the corona virus, her mobility dealt a deadly blow from which she never fully recovered.
In the 19 months after losing Prince Philip and forced to sit alone at his private family funeral, it was steadily downhill for the queen’s official duties, the future king also representing her at the official opening of the current UK parliament and the Commonwealth Summit in Rwanda in June.

Her last major popular public function was the week-long Jubilee party celebrating her 70th year on the throne, after which mobility issues kept her from the public eye and she moved to Balmoral Castle, under doctors’ orders and supervision, while the Prince performed the Queen’s functions.

The British monarchy and the UK government have always been exceptional: both ruled most of the world at the height of the glory of the British Empire; the Royal Family started the TransAtlantic Slave Trade; the British government legalised and perfected the economics of Chattel Slavery; Elizabeth II was the longest-serving monarch on earth — and Britain is the only country on earth without a written Constitution.
The Queen was (and Charles will soon be coronated as) monarch of all she surveyed across her 15 realms and territories across the globe, including Australia and New Zealand, Canada and the 51 other mostly former British colonies in the African, Caribbean and Pacific regions.

As Queen and constitutional Monarch of The Commonwealth, she was also the official constitutional royal ruler of the many republics within that didn’t change her as Head-of-State – and most independent Caribbean former British colonies still have her face adorning their currencies — now to be replaced by Charles’s.

Most police forces in independent Caribbean nations are still described as ‘Royal’; most CARICOM member-states still have the British Privy Council as their final Court of Appeal – and all remaining nation states with constitutions handed down by London at independence cannot amend them without an almost impossible two-thirds majority in a referendum for that purpose, in mainly two-party states where support is usually split down the national middle, voter turnout is usually low and results closer to 50-50.

It’s taken Charles 70 years to finally land the job for which he was born after his mum took the throne when he was only three and the world can only speculate as to whether he’ll be able to avoid public controversy as she did.
Some are already speculating about the future of the monarchy and the Commonwealth with King Charles at the helm and whether his traditional identification with climate and environmental causes will influence the UK’s future positions on climate change.

But Caribbean Community (CARICOM) nations have one as-great and similarly-urgent matter to raise with the new king that shouldn’t even have to wait for his coronation several months away: the need for the new king to walk the talk on his and his son William’s public expressions of royal sorrow and regret for slavery in the past year — by Prince Charles at the republic celebrations in Barbados on November 30, 2021, by Prince William during his Royal Visit to Jamaica in April 2022 and by Prince Charles at the Commonwealth Summit in Rwanda last June – all in the Queen’s name.

King Charles III should be approached ASAP by CARICOM – preferably after his mother’s burial and before he takes the crown and sits on the throne — on the urgent need for transferring the royal expressions of sorrow and regret for slavery into a royal apology and atonement by reparations, as being sought by 14 CARICOM and Commonwealth member-states since 2013, without even the courtesy of a formal response (after nearly nine years) from London, or the European Union (EU) headquarters in Brussels.

Africa and India have also since joined behind the Caribbean’s calls for reparations.
CARICOM leaders will be invited to Her Majesty’s funeral and those who go will surely meet the new King of the Commonwealth Caribbean — in which case, in this age when words don’t have to be spoken or written, Charles III can be silently made aware that CARICOM will soon be knocking on Buckingham Palace’s gates and doors to urge him (and his heir and successor William) to walk the talk and show the sorrow over slavery by offering that long-sought royal apology earlier than later in his reign as king of the kingdom.