The Tribune

THE impending visit of King Charles as king of The Bahamas and head of state is anachronistic. Celebrating the British monarch as our sovereign is archaic, a relic of the past for a sovereign country still glorying in colonial fawning and servility.

The King’s three-nation regional tour includes the Republic of Guyana, which has its own head of state, and Antigua and Barbuda, which is hosting the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

After the April 30, re-election of Prime Minister, Gaston Browne, the twin-island nation dropped its oath of allegiance to the British monarch.

The Telegraph reported: “Newly elected officials in the twin-Caribbean nation now pledge their allegiance directly to the state of Antigua and Barbuda, its laws, and its constitution rather than to Charles III and his heirs.”

Mr Browne has signalled his intention for his country to become a republic, which he stated is a “natural progression.” Antigua and Barbuda became independent in 1981, eight years after The Bahamas.

Last year, Grenada also officially dropped the oath of allegiance to the British monarch, with the changes coming into effect on their Emancipation Day, “the anniversary of the day that slavery was abolished in the British Empire.”

Alas, here in The Bahamas, we still excitedly and gloriously proclaim allegiance to the King. 

Given the paralyzed and decrepit state of The Bahamas, a country stuck in yesteryear, with much that is creakingly outmoded, the King’s visit is a moment to reflect on our outsized failure to continue to modernize and realize certain benchmarks that should be in evidence in a 21st century state.

When the King visited The Bahamas in 1973, representing Queen Elizabeth II at our independence celebrations, he was in his mid-20s. In his upcoming visit in October, 53 years after independence, he’s three years shy of his 80th birthday.

Charles will meet a country that has made progress in a number of areas, including in economic and social development and in sustaining an impressive national park system, and other areas.

In 1973, he met a people in a celebratory, hopeful mood. Today, he will visit a country in a state of collapse on many fronts. The mood of most Bahamians is neither hopeful nor celebratory.

Many citizens are depressed, exhausted by massive corruption, widespread dysfunction and incompetence in government, ever growing and gnawing inequality, contempt for accountability in the use of public funds, collapse of basic public services, filthy public spaces, and other flashing signs of dereliction and decline.

King Charles will arrive at the worldclass Lynden Pindling International Airport. He will have to endure shaking hands with a gussimae cabinet, the size of which per capita is egregiously large compared to the UK and other countries.

Thankfully, he will be driven on modern main thoroughfares. God help the King if he has to experience the fuller state of the roads on New Providence. (The Government will undoubtedly quickly pave any roads in areas Charles will visit.)

The King will miss a novel feature of our broke down roads that a friend recently described: speed bumps that now have potholes in them, a master metaphor for the country’s collapsing infrastructure.

The Bahamas is caught in a classic developmental trap: Off the chain levels of public corruption, incompetence, and indifference that has drained billions of dollars into the coffers of entitled greedy oligarchs and enabling politicians, while Bahamians struggle with poor government services and outrageous costs for food, electricity, and other basic needs.

The Government will be holding its breath that the lights will stay on during Charles’s visit in late October, so that neither the King nor the international press will have to endure the horrible blackouts paralyzing businesses and aggravating the approximately 300,000 residents of New Providence.

A story the international press may ask is why a Bahamas that boasts of millions of tourists as a prime Caribbean destination cannot keep the lights on in thousands of homes, in downtown Nassau, at the Supreme Court, at LPIA, at the state broadcaster, and at the main public hospital?

The Princess Margaret Hospital bears the name of Queen Elizabeth’s sister, the King’s late aunt. The facility has saved many lives and seen better days. Today, it too is in a state of collapse. The photo of a rat in a hospital room captures much that is scandalously broken in the public health system and its facilities. There’s an awful, but telling, joke making the rounds: A group of rats took a vote not to go to PMH because it was too neglected and unkempt for them.

The Bahamas that Queen Elizabeth and other members of the royal family visited over the decades did not have a number of the modern buildings now on New Providence. The most modern structures now, however, are two tourist resorts, and not impressive state facilities.

Though there is more modern infrastructure, Nassau and New Providence are filthier and less clean than when previous royals visited in the last century.

Unlike past royal visits to healthcare facilities, the Government will have to ensure that Charles stays far away from the hospital named after Princess Margaret. The list of public facilities the King should not visit will be quite long, including the sports center named after his mother.

Prince Charles laid the cornerstone for the new Central Bank in 1973. His mother performed the official opening ceremony for the Bank in 1975. Half a century later and we have failed to build a new modern Central Bank.

There were exciting plans for an attractive new facility with a unique Bahamian design. For still inexplicable reasons the Philip Davis Administration cancelled a beautiful structure that would have helped enliven downtown.

King Charles will also not be able to visit a National Museum of The Bahamas, a National Centre for the Performing Arts, or a new parliament building befitting a modern Bahamas which brags of our nearly 300 years of parliamentary democracy!

He will not be able to visit the Fish Fry or a range of poorly-kept heritage sites. Much work will have to be done to make Fort Charlotte presentable. Even the privately-run Ardastra Gardens will be a no-go.

He can visit the National Art Gallery of The Bahamas, and will be impressed by the artistic accomplishments of the country in the visual arts.

The main structures of the buildings in Parliament Square were erected in the early 1800s. The Supreme Court was added in around 1921 and the Queen Victoria statue was placed in the early 1900s.

The Bahamas should preserve our historical past and buildings, contextualizing the history for new generations.

But at long last, where is the national pride, desire, and will to create modern state structures such as a new parliament? Why has it taken 50-plus years for a modern Supreme Court? Where are the life-sized statues and monuments to Bahamian heroes and milestones?

Even as “God Save the King,” the UK’s national anthem, is played for Charles, it will be a jarring juxtaposition listening to the lyrics cum strains of the Bahamian national anthem suggesting what we have failed to achieve as a people over the last half century.

We are not moving to a rising sun. Many of the banners of nationhood are not bright. They are soiled and not waving high. And when the world and Bahamians mark the manner of our bearing, we are found desperately wanting.

Still, we must continue to pledge to excel through love and unity because genuine patriotism requires resilience and hope as we seek to fortify and reinvigorate ourselves to march on in Bahamaland.