Lalrp.org:
The demise of Queen Elizabeth II resurfaced debates right here and throughout the Caribbean over whether or not to separate from the monarchy, as Barbados did in 2021. On this area, the monarchy is a reminder to a lot of colonial occupation, slavery and exploitation.
Because the Belizean authorities assesses whether or not to carry a referendum on parting with the crown, individuals are reexamining their relationship with its legacy and their new king.
Ludwig Palacio, 59, needs an apology from King Charles. He believes the British crown resides off the wealth gathered by way of slavery.
Belize’s slave inhabitants reached some 2,300 within the 18th century as a British colony. They lugged heavy timber for the colony’s chief export, mahogany. Calls for reparations and an apology from the monarchy have grown in Belize and its neighbor.
Within the coastal fishing city of Punta Gorda, Palacio works as an veterinarian, artist and author. Museums throughout Europe, he says, are suffering from stolen treasures from former colonies.
“In the event you steal one thing, the least you are able to do is give it again,” he mentioned.
Cynthia Pitts, 73, nonetheless remembers being a younger lady when Princess Margaret visited Belize. She and different classmates needed to collect in a area to type the phrase “welcome” for the princess to see as her aircraft flew over.
When the lawyer visited Parliament in 1989 on a fellowship, she noticed all of the mahogany across the constructing. It made her emotional to think about the Belizean slaves which will have carried it.
Pitts has no sturdy emotions about Charles as head of the commonwealth. She is aware of he has no energy over her nation. “No matter we’re experiencing now, it’s within the arms of our personal folks,” she mentioned.
Donisio Shol, a mapping coordinator, is Q’eachi’, descended from the Maya folks of Belize and Guatemala. The 32-year-old lives within the small city of Indian Creek together with his spouse and daughter. Final yr, Prince William and Catherine have been forced to cancel a visit to the village after Shol and others organized a protest in opposition to the royals, whom he refers to as “colonial masters.”
Addressing King Charles, Shol mentioned: “In the event you’re severe about an apology, come and do it. And be sure you look the folks within the eye which have been harm.”
Roque Marin, 82, is a land surveyor who lives in Belize Metropolis. He was 12 years previous when King George VI died and Queen Elizabeth II took his place. He has a smooth spot for the queen.
“I don’t like when folks degrade her,” he mentioned, “despite the fact that she could deserve the degrading.”
Marin additionally likes Elizabeth’s grandson William, who made headlines dancing with a local people in Hopkins, a city on the japanese coast, throughout his journey final yr.
“That brotha can wind,” Marin mentioned.
Abbie Godoy, 24, was a 2020 Commonwealth Caribbean Rhodes Scholar; she studied social anthropology at Oxford, the place she got here to understand that few Britons have been even conscious of Belize or its connection to the crown.
“It was simply the belief that I actually am an outsider,” she mentioned. She got here house “far more Caribbean,” and dedicated to advocating for a departure from the monarchy. “To free your self from that final tie, to me, is tremendous essential for future generations,” Godoy mentioned.
