Time - USA (2022-04-11)

13

Courting victory

North Carolina’s Armando Bacot goes up for a dunk during the Elite Eight round of March
Madness in Philadelphia on March 27. UNC’s victory knocked fan-favorite underdog St. Peter’s
out of the NCAA tournament, but not before St. Peter’s made history by being the irst ever
No. 15 seed to advance that far. “I got a bunch of guys that just play basketball and have fun,”
St. Peter’s coach Shaheen Holloway said in an interview. “That’s all we do.”

THE BULLETIN

Caribbean tour raises questions on monarchy’s role

PROTESTS DISRUPTED A TOUR OF FORMER
British colonies in the Caribbean by the
Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince
William and Kate Middleton. The tour
began March 19 amid growing calls to cut
formal ties with the Queen and a reckoning
with the region’s colonial past that includes
calls for slavery reparations. Queen Eliza-
beth II is the monarch of 14 countries out-
side the U.K., including Canada, Australia,
and Papua New Guinea, that are known as
the Commonwealth realms.

TIMING Oicially, the trip was meant
to commemorate Queen Elizabeth II’s
Platinum Jubilee, celebrating 70 years on
the throne. But many observers say the
trip was to persuade Belize, Jamaica, and
the Bahamas to keep the Queen as head
of state. On the second stop of their trip,
Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness
told the royals, “We intend to attain in
short order... our true ambitions as an
independent, developed, prosperous
country.”

TREND In November, Barbados became the

irst country to remove the Queen as head

of state since Mauritius in 1992. Dame San-

dra Mason, the island’s Governor- General

since 2018, was named as President- elect

of the nation. “The time has come to fully

leave our colonial past behind,” she said.

Debates about abolishing the monarchy

have rumbled on for decades in other Com-

monwealth realms.

LEGACY Although the Queen’s role in Com-

monwealth realms is largely symbolic, at-

titudes toward the royal family are varied

and complex. Some believe that keeping

the Queen as head of state undermines in-

dependence, and only serves to perpetu-

ate colonial subservience. “Imagine being

given independence, and then to be told as

an adult nation that the Queen still had a

stake in Jamaica and that the island is not

really free, it is still an infant colony,” ex-

plains Jamaican-born British writer and

academic Velma McClymont.

—ELOISE BARRY

NEWS TICKER

suspended

operations on

March 28.

issued 20 fines

to individuals for

breaking restrictions

reportedly suffered

symptoms consistent

with poisoning