Dear Editor,

Let us walk away with Meghan from the Queen of England. What more do we want as proof that we do not deserve the noose of the Queen of England around the necks of Jamaican people?

Meghan almost lost her sanity within a few months inside the racist environment of Britain’s highest institution — the monarchy.

We have endured centuries of marginalisation, alienation, and mental torture at the hands of the British.

Our soldiers in the Caribbean helped Britain to push back Adolf Hitler’s ambitions to enslave Britons almost a century ago. Decades later, the grandchildren of these soldiers are turned away from visiting or remaining in England, classified as unlawful immigrants.

The countries of Europe went to war against the regime of Hitler, whose philosophy held one race superior and the other inferior. We need to wage war against our own mistreatment. We cannot lie down and die, even though they placed that very image on the chest medal of The Queen’s representative here. Our poet laureate, Claude McKay, exhorted:

“If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,

While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,

Making their mock at our accursèd lot.”

We must call upon the entire Commonwealth to take a stand and — like Meghan and Harry have done — walk away from this British institution. This so-called “family of nations” should not be led by a country whose head and leading institutions fail to respect black people. Britain has lost the moral authority to lead. We can no longer continue to have the Queen of England as our head of State. We can no longer have her as head of the judiciary, executive, and legislature. We must stop enacting our laws in accordance with Section 61 of the constitution “…by The Queen’s most excellent majesty…” Tomorrow morning we must cease opening the courts of justice shouting, “God save The Queen”.

Let us walk away with Meghan and free our children from inheriting a system of governance which is deeply opposed to self-respect, self-love, and self-determination. As I call for our walk away from the monarchy it is worthwhile to reflect again on Claude McKay and his poem Enslaved, written a century ago as he lamented:

“Oh, when I think of my longsuffering race, for weary centuries despised, oppressed, enslaved and lynched, denied a human place in the great life line of the Christian West… And, in the black land disinherited, robbed in the ancient country of its birth, my heart grows sick with hate, becomes as lead…”

Bert Samuels

Attorney-at-law

bert.samuels@gmail.com