By Orville Williams
Amid an outpouring of love and respect for Queen Elizabeth II on her passing, Works Minister Lennox Weston trod a slightly different path with a thought-provoking speech during a special parliamentary tribute session to Her Majesty yesterday.
Several sitting MPs, including Gaston Browne, Jamale Pringle, EP Chet Greene and Molwyn Joseph – who all spoke before Weston – remembered the queen as a dignified, graceful and strong leader in their presentations.
They all offered messages of condolences to the royal family, including new King Charles III, and talked-up Queen Elizabeth’s commitment to “her people” over the period of her reign.
When the Works Minister stepped up to make his presentation, however, he bore the sentiment of hundreds, if not thousands of Pan-Africanists who continue to abhor the atrocities committed by the monarchy and its agents, including during the more than 70-year reign of the Queen.
“It is common when people die that there’re different reactions to the death – those who are in the will might be happy, those who are not in the will might not be so happy, and those who didn’t pay respect to their parents and they’ve lost opportunity might be extremely sad.
“All the speakers before me and most of the speakers throughout the world would have spoken to the common sense of loss and the recognition of the quality the Queen displayed through her long reign.
“But it would be remiss of me and this government not to recognise that there are others whose memory of the Queen has left them in deep anguish,” he commenced.
Those words would likely have been met with great applause by members of the Rastafari community if they were present at the tribute session, but instead the mood inside the parliamentary building was rather sombre – Weston’s words appeared to serve as a dagger of cold, hard reality, piercing the veil of political correctness that covered the room.
He went on to echo views similar to Professor Sir Hilary Beckles in his book, “How Britain Underdeveloped the Caribbean: A Reparation Response to Europe’s Legacy of Plunder and Poverty,” with regard to the future of Caribbean people – particularly those of African descent – considering the colonial history that was dictated by the monarchy and its questionable endeavours.
“There is an important part of our population, here in Antigua and Barbuda, the Caribbean and throughout the black diaspora, who see her passing as a time of reflection on our underdevelopment, on the history of slavery [and] on colonialism.
“In my mind, we have seen some anger and some passion being exhibited by those who choose to suffer in this way, which we need to deal with if we’re going to benefit from the lessons we would have learned from her reign, and the different phases we’ve passed through in terms of our own development,” Weston said.
These comments come during a relatively tense time for the remaining countries in the Commonwealth – including Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Grenada and Jamaica – as the Queen’s death almost compels many of them to contemplate breaking away from the monarchy and stepping into the future as truly independent nations.
Prime Minister Gaston Browne has made possibly the greatest declaration of those remaining Commonwealth countries on the matter, pledging to hold a referendum within the next couple of years – if his administration remains in power after the next general election – on ditching the monarch as Head of State and becoming a republic.
Addressing the topic, Weston said during his speech that such a move should be viewed as a natural progression of sorts.
“The Prime Minister will represent us in England [at the Queen’s funeral] and the world will mourn her passing on Monday. A new era is here [and] we have the next Constitutional step to take, which should be done with dignity, class, and in calmness as just a simple progression,” he said.
The Works Minister noted, however, that cutting off the monarchy should not be the end of relations between the two countries, with the importance of international cooperation still very much in the mind.
“We recognise that, in today’s world, associations of nations are critical in navigating the complexities which will befall us, from natural disasters to health scares.
“We cannot live in an isolated world or live a life predicated on historical hate and anger, and missing opportunities for new, collective arrangements and thinking.”
In his closing remarks, Weston reiterated his acknowledgement of the genuine pain being felt by thousands and maybe millions around the world by the Queen’s passing, while sending a message of resilience to those who may not necessarily be feeling the same.
“May her soul rest in peace, and may those who mourn differently find the strength to take positive action to empower ourselves, our nation and our people,” he ended.
The funeral service for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will be held on Monday at Westminster Abbey. The Queen will later be laid to rest at her Windsor Castle home.