After Prince William and his wife Kate toured the Caribbean last March, it’s the Earl and Countess of Wessex’s turn to embark on a week-long trip to the region to mark the jubilee. Platinum Queen Elizabeth II. But the planned route had to be changed at the last minute. Edward, the youngest son of Elizabeth II and the late Prince Philip, and his wife, Sophie, had planned to stop on the island of Grenada, but the visit was postponed the day before they left on Friday 22 April, after talks between the government of the island and the representative of the queen on the spot.
Postponement of the trip
According to a Buckingham Palace source, Dame Cécile La Grenade, Governor General and Queen’s representative in the country, advised the trip to be postponed without giving further details. The couple were scheduled to stop in three Caribbean nations: Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Antigua and Barbuda.
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This change of program is reminiscent of the difficulties which marred the previous tour of William and Kate heckled by the emancipation movements of the Crown. Last March, part of their trip was canceled following opposition from local populations, including a visit to the production of cocoa beans in the Maya mountains. Critics had been leveled at the “colonial” nature of certain displacements. And Prince William had to express “ his deep sorrow » for the period of slavery which « should never have happened” et “forever taints our history “, during a speech in front of the local authorities.
The Queen still Head of State
Grenada (some 112,500 subjects) has been independent from the United Kingdom since 1974. The opposition National Democratic Party (liberal) had previously indicated that it would submit the question of the sovereignty of the Queen, still officially leader of the country, to a referendum. ‘State.
After Elizabeth II’s accession to the throne in 1952, many independence movements swept through the former British colonies, which severed ties with the Crown often based on bloody conquest and the slave trade. This emancipation movement recently affected the island of Barbados where the queen was dethroned by the Republic. This Caribbean micro-state, independent since 1966, elected its very first president in mid-October 2021 after announcing 13 months earlier that it would become a republic. Before her, Fiji (1987), Mauritius (1992), became republics. Caribbean nations like Dominica, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago preceded them in the 1970s. And Jamaica may be next in line.
The English-speaking West Indies feel increasingly distant from British influence, and because of their geographical proximity look more towards the United States than towards England. This movement is certainly not unrelated either to that of “Black lives Matter” for the affirmation of blacks in the United States and the “cancel culture” which calls into question all traces of slavery and hints of colonization. .
Some Commonwealth countries are still loyal to the Crown and the Queen officially remains the head of state of 16 countries, including Australia and Canada, but which too could soon be tempted to follow in the footsteps of the Caribbean islands.