Barbados became an independent country 55 years ago in 1966 but Queen Elizabeth remained the official head of state until now. Many other former British colonies including Canada, Australia and Jamaica still have a similar arrangement with the British monarch. Barbados’ Prime Minister Mia Mottley had pushed to cut ties to the Queen saying it was time for Barbados to break from its colonial past. The move comes as calls grow for the United Kingdom to pay slavery reparations to Barbados. Ahead of the ceremony, Barbados held a National Service of Thanksgiving, where Barbados Senator and Reverend John Rogers spoke.
it was a very historic and moving occasion. In fact for me it started on Saturday, well before Monday night, when we officially opened our Revolutionary Square. It was a whole weekend of really celebrating the best of our heritage and our historical tradition. Of course, Monday night was when we installed the new president of Barbados. It was the night on which we bid farewell to British colonial rule. That was symbolized in a very concrete way when the colors, the flags of the military units, the Defense Force and the Coast Guard and the Governor-General’s colors, they were marched off of the parade ground in view of Prince Charles and to the playing of Auld Lang Syne, that old things were passing away and a new order was being installed.
So, very moving, very historic. I would say 55 years overdue. It really should have happened on the 30th of November, 1966, when Barbados became an independent country. But back then, for whatever reasons, and there are many reasons we can speculate about, we made two compromises on our constitutional sovereignty and independence. We corrected one compromise in 2005 when
— source democracynow.org | Dec 01, 2021