#BTSpeakingOut – Head of State debate confusion

The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.

by Dr Peter Laurie

I have never seen such a confused public discussion of the appointment of a Barbadian as our head of state by such distinguished persons.

There are two separate issues here: the appointment of a Barbadian head of state, and the proposed crafting of a Barbadian constitution next year.

Neither has anything to do with a monarchy or a republic.

As I have written on more than one occasion, Barbados is not now and never has been a monarchy except in the fevered dreams of a few. We have no hereditary royal family.

Barbados is a parliamentary republic as is the UK. A republic is simply a state governed by the elected representatives of the people. The old conflict between monarchies and republics was settled in the 18th century (remember the French Revolution of 1789?)  and has no relevance to government
today anywhere.

Every country in the world except a handful of former British colonies chooses as its head of state one of its own nationals.

In the case of Barbados, what happened in 1966 was that the Colonial Office negotiated with Barbados that the executive power to govern should reside with the Barbadian prime minister, the cabinet and the parliament, while the non-executive or ceremonial head of state position should remain with the British head of state, who happened to be Queen Elizabeth II.

This was a semi-colonial relationship, the practical consequence of which was that Barbados would have to accept in perpetuity as its head of state whoever was the head of state of the former colonial power, regardless of whether Barbadians might look with rank disfavour on that person.

We could do nothing about it.

We have wisely now decided to make a minor amendment to our Constitution so that we appoint our own head of state, to whom we give the title of president.

A quite separate issue is the crafting of a Barbadian constitution that will not be the product of negotiation between Barbados and the Colonial Office, but will be the result of discussion exclusively among Barbadians: a constitution that will reflect who we are and who we aspire to be.

For some reason that makes no sense, some commentators have complained that we should not have appointed a Barbadian as head of state except and until we embarked on crafting a new Barbadian constitution.

But the two things are quite separate. 99 per cent of Bajans want to cast off the last colonial tie and have a Bajan as our head of state. But there is no consensus at this stage on what provisions should go into our new constitution. In the year to come, there is scope for a wide and vigorous debate in which every Bajan should be involved.

It is a pity that the appointment of our first Bajan head of state was tainted by a pathetic, puerile piece of parliamentary pompasetting.