By Bert Wilkinson
As the most English or British
of Caribbean Community
countries becomes a republic
in less than five weeks, the
legislative groundwork is easily
being rolled through the
Barbados parliament and very
soon, titles like Her Majesty’s
Prison Service and the Royal
Barbados Police Force will be
tossed after nearly 400 years.
Earlier this week, parliament
amended local laws to change
the names of several national
honor awards from British
names and symbols to national
ones with distinctly Barbadian
insignias.
Barbados’ Attorney General,
Dale Marshall piloted the legal
amendments through a parliament
dominated by lawmakers
from the governing Barbados
Labor Party (BLP) with consummate
ease as excitement
builds for the Nov. 30 switch
from a country’s whose head
of state is a white, aging great
grandmother from England to
a local ceremonial president
who is Black like most Barbadians.
The title of governor general
who represents Queen
Elizabeth of Britain, will be
replaced by a ceremonial or
titular president. Constitutional
and administrative systems
have already been put in place
for outgoing Governor General
Dame Sandra Prunella Mason
to become the country’s first
president, serving alongside
another woman at the helm
of government and state-Prime
Minister Mia Mottley. This is
the first time in Barbadian history
that two women hold the
two most important constitutional
Caribbean L 12 ife, OCT. 29-NOV. 4, 2021
titles and this feat is also
among the first in the bloc of
15 nations. The change to a
republic has been deliberately
organized to coincide with Barbados’
55th year of independence.
The BLP holds nearly all
30 seats in the lower house.
The nation of just over
300,000 people and the most
easterly in the Caribbean island
chain, currently operates with
names like her majesty’s prison
service. State prosecutors and
practicing attorneys have for
decades appeared before magistrates
and judges representing
the crown, meaning her majesty’s
crown system. Marshal
says these will now serve the
state of Barbados as those vestiges
of colonialism are being
removed to reflect Barbadian
identity and localness.
Touching on national merit
awards given out annually, the
AG told the house that the
gold and silver crowns of merit
will now become the golden
and silver tridents of excellence
respectively. And locals who
were knighted by the Queen
will still be allowed to keep
their titles even though it is
unclear whether this system
will continue going forward.
Marshall made it clear as such
to people in a country with
among the highest number of
knighthoods per capita outside
the United Kingdom.
“Now there are those who
might feel that by going republic
Barbados Attorney General Dale Marshall. Photo by George
Alleyne
we should throw out those
things. But I think that that
would be the wrong thing to
do to try to diminish the value
of that individual and the value
of the honor to that individual
at the time when it was given,”
Marshall said.
Barbados inches closer to
becoming a republic