The jubilee party poopers

‘‘As long as Elizabeth is on the throne, everything will be fine, but once she dies . . . that’s where the antipathy will increase.’’ Peter Espeut Jamaican academic and writer

Every morning, Robert Finch wakes up thinking about a lapel pin: a small silver badge bearing the emblem of the Canadian platinum jubilee.

As head of the Monarchist League of Canada, he has been charged by the government with distributing this pin to anyone who wants one, and it turns out that many Canadians do. ‘‘We have been absolutely taken aback and overwhelmed with requests for these things,’’ he said. ‘‘We have handed out tens of thousands of them.

‘‘Every day, you open your email and a whole slew of requests come in. I wake up and I go to bed thinking of pins.’’

Canadians are ready to party: to plant trees, to drink tea, to hold parades and tattoos. ‘‘The Queen is absolutely admired here. Even republicans would probably say they like [her],’’ Finch said.

‘‘We have just emerged from two years of dismal and depressing lockdowns, and now we face a world of economic and geopolitical challenges. If there is a way to celebrate, let’s do it.’’

This enthusiasm sets Canada apart among the Commonwealth realms of the Americas. Nearly everywhere else, feelings for the Crown are lukewarm, if they exist at all.

‘‘For Victoria’s golden jubilee, and for her 60th, there was a lot of fanfare,’’ said Peter Espeut, dean of studies at a seminary college in Kingston and a longtime columnist for the Jamaican newspaper The Gleaner. This time, however, ‘‘there’s nothing’’ in the way of events.

There was ‘‘a vague sentiment now towards republicanism’’ in Jamaica, only checked by a dearth of trust in the government, Espeut said.

‘‘As long as Elizabeth is on the throne, everything will be fine, but once she dies, if Charles ascends the throne, that’s where the antipathy will increase, because Charles is quite a character.’’

Philip Murphy, director of history and policy at the Institute of Historical Research in London, said attitudes to the monarchy in

the Caribbean had changed considerably since the Queen’s diamond jubilee in 2012.

‘‘As late as 2018, the joke was that the Caribbean leaders came up with a lot of talk about moving to a republic but never do anything about it,’’ he said. ‘‘But since Barbados became a republic, it has given a huge momentum to the republican movement across the region.’’

The result is that there is much less enthusiasm across the realms to celebrate the jubilee.

Natasha Lightfoot is a historian at Columbia University with family ties to Antigua. She said the growing campaign for reparations for slavery had ‘‘created a groundswell’’ that may have bolstered a tendency to associate the British royal family ‘‘with illgotten wealth’’, at a time when the economy of the region has suffered badly from years of catastrophic storms and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Diana, Princess of Wales, a regular visitor to Antigua, ‘‘was the royal who got the most love’’, Lightfoot said. There is even a

beach named after her. ‘‘Now the monarchy looks out of touch.’’

Dorbrene O’Marde, an Antiguan playwright who chairs Antigua and Barbuda’s reparations commission, regards the monarchy as ‘‘an archaic institution that offers us nothing but a continued triumph of colonialism’’.

‘‘I do not glean any enthusiasm for the celebrations,’’ he said.

Henry Charles Usher, a minister in Belize’s government whose portfolio includes constitutional and political reform, said that although there was still ‘‘an affection for the royal family’’, the government would not be holding any events to mark the jubilee.

Usher is overseeing a commission that will ask Belizeans how they feel ‘‘about becoming a republic, about removing the sovereign as head of state’’.

‘‘Some difficult choices have to be made,’’ he said.

I n some nations, there is more indifference than hostility. ‘‘We are more concerned with local and regional politics, and

probably even more with US politics, because that’s where we get our television from,’’ said Nigel Mathlin, founder of the news website NOW Grenada.

On St Kitts and Nevis, Cameron Gill, a senior lecturer at Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College, said most people there were focused on the upcoming elections, but even without that, ‘‘with the current discussion of reparations, I don’t think the government would really want to be putting on jubilee activities’’.

He said Prince Harry was probably the most popular member of the royal family there. ‘‘A few years ago, he visited St Kitts and Nevis. I was teaching in a secondary school, and the students were extremely excited.’’

Harry was ‘‘married to a mixed-race woman . . . he speaks very openly about his mental health issues, he’s someone who has served in a dangerous military campaign’’, Gill said. He felt that ‘‘the separation between him and the royal family may be a missed opportunity’’.

In New Zealand and Australia, there is little evidence of enthusiasm for the jubilee. In both countries, republican movement leaders believe that when Charles accedes to the throne, it will set off a wave of support to end constitutional ties with Britain.

‘‘There is no doubt we will get a surge of momentum from the moment Prince Charles takes the throne,’’ said Peter FitzSimons, the former rugby international who is head of the Australian Republic Movement. ‘‘Every time that Prince Charles pops up in her place, it is an indication that her reign is getting into deeper and deeper twilight.’’

In Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, two of the other Pacific nations where the Queen is head of state, support for – or at least acceptance of – the monarchy remains high. However, in the tiny state of Tuvalu, the government has begun a review of its constitution, including whether the Queen should remain as sovereign.

Michael Kabuni, a political science lecturer attached to the University of Papua New Guinea, said his nation avoided the negative effects of British colonialism and instead held Australia more responsible for past injustices suffered under colonial administration.

‘‘When you look at Papua New Guinea’s history, there’s nothing to cause hate for the Queen of England,’’ he said. ‘‘So whenever there’s a [royal] visiting Papua New Guinea, they put up a show.

‘‘That does not mean that there is popular support for the monarchy. It just means that people generally don’t mind or don’t care.’’