Boris Johnson has claimed that the Queen’s platinum jubilee will see people celebrating “unabashed” across the Commonwealth.
But, speaking on the eve of Britain’s four-day commemoration of the anniversary, critics said celebrations in many places were expected to be muted or nonexistent.
The jubilee is expected to be particularly ignored in the Caribbean, where an ill-judged tour by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge of Belize, Jamaica and the Bahamas in March was met with protests, calls for slavery reparations and for the Queen to be removed as head of state.
Rosalea Hamilton, a campaigner for the Advocates Network who organised slavery reparations protests in Jamaica, said she has not seen any focus or attention on the jubilee, which she said is “not resonating” in Jamaica. The founding director of Jamaica’s Institute of Law and Economics at the University of Technology said the country is “not in a jubilant mood”.
She said there’s “nothing to celebrate” and that for 70 years the country has been “dealing with the legacies of our colonial history” that still continue today.
“I’ve not heard of any celebrations being done and if it’s being done it’s a few people. It’s not resonating. It’s not in the air, it’s not in the atmosphere,” she said.
Calling for the Queen to use the jubilee as an opportunity to apologise for Britain’s role in the slave trade and redefine the role of the monarchy, she said: “The best gift she could give Jamaica and really provide a rationale for celebration is an apology.”
The heightened publicity around the monarchy as a result of the jubilee has only acted as “a reminder of the absence of an apology”, she said.
Tyrone Reid, associate editor of Jamaican newspaper the Gleaner, said : “The calls are increasing for the Queen to be removed and calling for reparations.” The sentiment had not changed, he said, but people felt more empowered to speak out than they had in the past.
He called for the UK to sit down with Jamaica and have a conversation about reparations. “It’s not a mere matter of sentiment,” he said.
Peter Espeut, a deacon and a columnist the paper, who was born the same year as the Queen’s coronation, said longevity was nothing to celebrate and he had not heard of any parties, dinners or celebrations, saying it was not something people were “going to throw a party over” – especially in Jamaica.
Researchers for the Visible Crown Project in the UK and the Caribbean have struggled to find evidence of many celebrations in the Caribbean.
Prof Philip Murphy, director of history and policy at the Institute of Historical Research, said while there would be some celebrations across the Commonwealth, they would be “pretty low key” and that much of the Caribbean is moving towards republicanism.
He said the combination of the Black Lives Matter movement after the police murder of George Floyd in the US, the recent “ill-fated” royal visits of the Cambridges and Prince Edward and Sophie, calls for reparations and the fallout after the departure of the UK by Duke and Duchess of Sussex had all contributed to a lack of interest in celebrating the Queen.
“The big event to mark the jubilee in the Caribbean were these two ill-timed and rather ill-fated visits, first by the Cambridges then by the Wessexes.”
More than 600 jubilee lunches are planned in more than 80 countries across the Commonwealth, where beacons will also be lit, and the rest of the world.
But Dr Velma McClymont, a writer, scholar and activist who was born in Jamaica and was five when the country gained independence, said once the celebrations were over, the same questions – over the transatlantic slave trade, an apology for slavery and reparations – would remain.
“Going forward she [the Queen] does understand that countries like Jamaica want to move away.”
The mood is also shifting in other Commonwealth countries.
Just this week, Australia’s new prime minister, Anthony Albanese, a longtime republican, created an “assistant minister for the republic” – prompting enthusiasm among those who want the Queen removed as head of state.
Gareth Parker, host of the 6PR Breakfast radio programme in Perth, said that while there was interest, it was “nowhere near the fervour in Britain”.
Mostly, he said, it would be a “media event”.
“There is a bit of a generational split, the royals are generally more beloved by older Australians, who grew up in an era before the republican debates of the 1990s and many of whom have their own childhood memories of royal visits,” he added.
“Perhaps the institution is not so relevant for younger Australians, especially those who grew up or whose parents grew up in non-Commonwealth countries.”
