Barbados Splits from the Queen, Trading One Empire for Another
The new republic should be wary of swapping the purely symbolic figurehead of the Queen for a deeper servitude to China.
A national hero.
Photographer: Randy Brooks/AFP
On Tuesday the Royal Standard flag representing the Queen was lowered for the last time in almost 400 years over Barbados, the Caribbean island that is now a republic with a president as head of state. At the handover ceremony declaring Barbados’s constitutional independence, Prince Charles gave a contrite speech and Rihanna was formally declared a national hero.
That does not sound especially dramatic. After all, her Majesty’s government has granted independence to countries representing a quarter of the world’s land mass since 1945. The British have learned to be graceful in their retreat from empire.