Jubilee Post News & Views
Jubilee News Desk
Barbados has become the world’s newest republic. Nearly 400 years after the country became a British colony, Barbados is a republic now.
The Caribbean island nation removed Queen Elizabeth II as the head of the state in a ceremony attended by Prince Charles and Dame Sandra Prunella Mason took over as the President of the country.
Barbados stopped pledging allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II as it shed another vestige of its colonial past and became a republic for the first time in history.
Fireworks peppered the sky at midnight as Barbados officially became a republic, with screens set up across the island so people could watch the event that featured an orchestra with more than 100 steel pan players and numerous singers, poets and dancers.
The function also had Rihanna the celebrity who had tweeted about farmers’ agitation in India. Rehana grew up in Barbados. Barbados crowned the multiple Grammy winning singer and businesswoman Rihanna Robyn Fenty with the honour of National Hero of Barbados at an investiture ceremony.
Rihanna was already conferred the title of an official ambassador for culture, youth, tourism, and education in 2018. She is Barbados’ most famous citizen.
In the speech, Prime Minister Mia Mottley said, “the imagination of the world through the pursuit of excellence with her creativity, her discipline, and above all else, her extraordinary commitment to the land of her birth”.
People watched the ceremony across online platforms and also on big screens installed at many places. They wanted to be a part of the history in making.
Mason was selected to become the first president of Barbados a month before only. Mason, 72, has been the governor-general since 2018. After studying at Queen’s College, Mason completed her judicial education in London followed by a judicial fellowship in Canada.At a joint meeting of both the Houses of Parliament of Barbados, Speaker of the House of Assembly Arthur Holder had announced the selection of Mason as the President of the country. Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley termed Mason’s induction a seminal moment in the country.
Mason started her career as a teacher and went on to work in the banking sector until 1978. She then began to work as Magistrate of the Juvenile and Family Court in Barbados.
Mason served as Chair and Vice-Chair at the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child from 1991 to 1999. She held the position of the Registrar of the Supreme Court until 2005. In 2008, she became the first female to be sworn in as the Court of Appeal Judge of the Supreme Court of Barbados.
Mason, in 2014, became the first Barbadian to be a member of the Commonwealth Secretariat Arbitral Tribunal (CSAT) and in 2017 she also became the first female president of the Tribunal.
Barbados, which is said to have been made a ‘slave society’ by the British, first became an English colony when a ship arrived at the Caribbean in 1625. On November 30, 1966, Barbados gained its independence. Barbados, however, will continue to be one of the 54 Commonwealth nations.
With the new development, the terms “royal” and “crown” would be dropped from all official references in Barbados. Thus Royal Barbados Police Force will become Barbados Police Force and crown lands would become state lands.
The country would continue to celebrate Independence Day on November 30. Not just in remembrance of removing Queen Elizabeth II as the head but also in the memory of the country’s first president Errol Walton Barrow.
Last month, announcing Mason as the new head of the state, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley had said that the time had come for the country to claim its full destiny. In September 2020, PM Mia Mottley announced in their Throne Speech that Barbados would become a republic by November 2021.
Barbados became independent from the United Kingdom in November 1966, more than three centuries after English settlers arrived and turned the island into a wealthy sugar colony based on the work of hundreds of thousands of African slaves.
Mottley had also said, “Barbados shall move forward on the first of December as the newest republic in the global community of nations.” She further added that the real work would begin the day after Barbados had become a full Republic.
