The just concluded visit to Barbados of Queen Elizabeth II’s youngest son, Prince Edward, provides us with an invaluable opportunity to raise the following fundamental question: does Barbados really have a Head of State?
Every nation needs to have a Head of Government and a Head of State! We know that Barbados has a Head of Government in the person of Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, but do we have a Head of State?
It is critical that a nation possess a Head of State, because a Head of Government simply cannot perform the crucial nation-building functions that a Head of State is supposed to perform.
The office of Prime Minister or Head of Government is an extremely important office, since the holder of that office performs the functions of chief national policy formulator, chief administrator and chief protector of the safety and security of the nation.
But the fundamental deficiency of that office is that it is built on a foundation of divisive, competitive partisan politics.
As a result, the Prime Minister tends to have the support and adulation of the segment of the population that supports his governing political party, and the antipathy and disapproval of those citizens who support the Opposition party.
And so, it becomes critical to have another high civil office that will provide the nation with a living symbol of national unity that transcends partisan politics. It is important to possess another high civil office that permits the holder thereof to function as the symbolic incarnation of the nation.
This, then, is the critical importance of the office of Head of State. The person who holds that office should be someone who is truly representative of what is best and most noble about the national population, and who is capable of serving as a symbol of national unity and inspiration.
Can Queen Elizabeth II – an English woman who lives thousands of miles away from Barbados – perform this critical function for our nation? Is she representative of our best and most noble Barbadian characteristics? Does she touch our Barbadian souls and inspire and motivate us? Do we see her as a symbol of our unity as a people?
The answer to all of these questions is a resounding no! She does not, and she cannot – no matter how many native Governors General are appointed to be her representative in Barbados, nor how many times she sends her son to visit Barbados.
And so, if there is no one who is effectively performing the crucial functions that are required and expected of a Head of State, can we truly say that Barbados has a Head of State?
But Barbados does need a genuine Head of State. Oh, what a great benefit it would be to our nation if, in these trying times, we had in place a native son or daughter whom we all admired and respected and we all played a role in selecting and elevating to the high office of Head of State.
It is time for us to stop making mock sport at ourselves. It is time for us to discard old obsolete social arrangements that are holding us back and are doing damage to our children’s psyches.
It is time for a native Barbadian Head of State who is selected on the basis of a system that provides for input from all of the citizens of Barbados and is insulated from partisan politics.