For many it would probably have been one great yawn but this morning would also have found many Guyanese and West Indians, probably older rather than younger, glued to their television screens, watching the nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton. It is passing strange to think that in this post-colonial age many of our citizens would still be entranced by the pomp and circumstance of a royal wedding in the erstwhile “mother country”, but such is the grip the British royal family continues to exercise on people the world over.
Admittedly, the British do pomp and pageantry very well, but it is not all about the visual splendour and sense of theatre of the event. The marriage of the third in line to the British throne to a beautiful and charming commoner – albeit one from a relatively privileged and wealthy middle class background – is the stuff of fairy tale romance. Indeed, it is a very twenty-first century fairy tale made all the more poignant by the turbulent life and tragic death in 1997 of Prince William’s iconic mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, one of the most recognisable figures of the late twentieth century and, arguably, the person most responsible for putting the British royal family squarely in the public eye.
This perhaps goes some way towards explaining the fascination of those held in thrall by the build-up to and the spectacle of today’s royal wedding. But how do we account for the continued captivation of many by royalty, particularly of the British variety? Without getting into deep, pseudo-intellectual theories combining elements of history, psychology and sociology, let us consider a few pointers.
Guyana, as we all know, gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1966 and became a republic in 1970, when we cut all ties to the British Crown apart from remaining within the Commonwealth, which accepts Queen Elizabeth II as its titular head. While the majority of Commonwealth countries are republics, 16 independent nations, nine of them in the Caribbean, recognize the Queen as head of state. And even though republican sentiment is growing in countries as different as Australia and Jamaica, there are still strong feelings of respect and affection for the Queen. Indeed, in many former colonies, especially in the Caribbean, a certain ambivalence remains vis-à-vis the rule of Britannia.
In Guyana, in 1970, we dispensed with the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the UK and established our own Supreme Court and Court of Appeal. In the interest of regional integration, we eventually signed on to the Caribbean Court of Justice as our final appellate court. In the Commonwealth Caribbean, only Barbados and Belize have joined Guyana in recognizing the appellate jurisdiction of the CCJ. Surprisingly, the other two republics in CARICOM, Dominica and Trinidad and Tobago, linger in their embrace of the Privy Council, apparently unaware of the irony of their claims to full sovereignty.
In 1970, Guyanese also supposedly renounced all British titles and honours, yet there were those who clung to their knighthoods, as if there could be no higher accolade. This sense of pride – misplaced in the eyes of some – is however a minor matter when compared to the absurdity of Antigua and Barbuda, where they are so fond of the title, “Sir”, that the government instituted its own orders of knighthood in 1998, presumably to bypass the nuisance of going through the protocols and checks of the British honours system. This lack of imagination in aping the former colonial masters and their orders of chivalry dating to medieval times moved the late, great, Trinidadian journalist, George John, to mockery, as he dubbed those newly honoured, the “Knights of the Square Table”.
Perhaps, one day, we in the Caribbean will feel confident enough not to seek external validation, least of all from the UK, which can hardly be described as the “mother country” by most of us and which increasingly appears discomfited when faced with reminders of its imperial past and the irritating demands of its former colonies.
In the meantime though, let us put aside thoughts of a colonial hangover and not begrudge the vicarious pleasures of those enjoying the royal wedding. For this is the age of celebrity and the rich, good looking, glamorous young couple tick all the right boxes, with the added cachet of royalty. And, after all, the British royal family is, for better or worse, a long-running, real-life soap opera, if not the ultimate TV reality show.
