The Tribune

By MALCOLM STRACHAN

IN this column in December, we asked the question of whether we were ready or not to become a republic.

The question was in the air as Barbados stopped pledging allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II and became a republic themselves. There was a huge celebration in Barbados. Our own Prime Minister, Philip “Brave” Davis, was in attendance. Rihanna was honoured as a national hero. Our Foreign Minister, Fred Mitchell, lamented how he had been unable to convince successive generations to his view that we should become a republic. A few days later, press secretary Clint Watson, flatly stated that the whole matter was not on the agenda of the Davis administration anyway. And that was that.

Our desire to break up with the sovereignty might not be tested any time soon – but our affection for the members of the monarchy will be in the spotlight in the coming days.

On Thursday, Prince William and his wife, Catherine, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, will arrive in The Bahamas for a three-day visit. It is the first time there has been a royal visit since 2012, when Prince Harry was welcomed. Prince Harry particularly seemed to enjoy a youth event complete with sports and dance, held at the Thomas A Robinson National Stadium. Most notably, the crowd there seemed to enjoy his presence too. There seemed a genuine warmth from both sides during the visit.

We will await to see how William and Kate are welcomed – as part of their tour of the region that also sees them visit Belize and Jamaica.

In truth, there seems no reason to believe there will be any lack of warmth in the welcome. There seems little pressure for a change to our current system and little sign of anyone complaining whenever the Queen bestows a medal or a knighthood on a Bahamian. We have our own national honours now, but they still seem to play second fiddle to the British honours.

Indeed, it seems less like there is no desire for the debate so much as that we have not really even committed to making any kind of decision.

When Barbados became a republic, its first president, Sandra Mason, said: “We must seek to redefine our definition of self, of state, and the Barbados brand, in a more complex, fractured and turbulent world. Our country and people must dream big dreams and fight to realise them.”

Who are we, and what do we want our nation to mean in this world? Those are lofty questions that we are not even beginning to be engaged with.

Let us take a case in point from Friday’s Tribune.

In October of last year, a man took a sledge hammer to the statue of Columbus outside Government House.

In Friday’s Tribune, press secretary Clint Watson told us that the government has still not decided what to do with the shattered statue.

Five months and we can’t even make our mind up.

There are plenty of good reasons for getting rid of the statue permanently, given the slaughter of natives ordered by Columbus, who ordered dismembered bodies to be paraded through the streets. On the other hand, there are those who credit his explorations for opening up our understanding of the world and there are those who would keep his statue for historic reasons. But us? It’s not that we’re having the debate, we can’t even make our mind up to start the debate.

How hard would it be to ask the question, maybe even have a public poll and abide by the results. Not for us. Columbus sits under his shroud, a broken symbol that no one seems to have any interest in fixing. It’s hard not to see that as an analogy for our country. The things in our country that are broken, there seems to be little interest in fixing.

We have just had the mid-year budget and the discussion around it has been full of finger-pointing and blame rather than fixing and elevating our ambitions.

So the royal visit will come and go and there will be smiles and dancing and everything will go on the same.

This seems far from a moment of possible change, it seems indeed that this is a moment when we’re not even ready to talk about change – and even if we were, there is a lot more we should be changing right here at home before we set our sights on such things as the potential of a republic.

As Barbados’ President Mason said, we must seek to redefine our definition of self. That is as true for ourselves as it is for Barbados.

If there is a glimmer of light, it is that already this government has shown it can be pushed by public pressure into changing its agenda.

In November, Prime Minister Davis, when asked whether marital rape would be on his administration’s agenda, he shrugged it off saying he had too many other things to be thinking about.

Now, after significant pushback to that response, the government has apparently prepared a whole suite of legislation to deal with issues such as gender violence, marital rape and gender inequality.

If enough of us demand it, the government will act. So it’s up to us. The same as it always was.