Today Charles, who, after the longest while – a most LONGEST while!! – was declared “King of England” when his mother Elizabeth II passed last year, will now have his official “coronation”. That’s a custom that goes back to medieval times – as we all saw on Game of Thrones – where all Lords of the great houses of the land swore fealty to the monarch. In other words, they won’t try of lop off his head because they think they could do a better job!! All of which will be blessed by the head of the Church, who supposedly speaks for the hoi polloi, whose souls he protected!!
Nowadays, because of the cost, Charles’s coronation will hit British taxpayers for a cool US$125 million!! – most other European monarchies have nixed coronations!! Interestingly, while there are some who balk at that cost, most Brits think it’s OK!! Even as doctors and a host of public workers have been striking for pay raises!! To each his own, your Eyewitness guesses!! Now, your Eyewitness doesn’t know exactly how many Lords and Royalty will be swearing loyalty to Charles III after he moves from the Coronation Chair to the Royal Throne – but swear they will!! Including by his son William, but not his son Harry, who’s fallen out of favour. Your Eyewitness doesn’t care how often the Royal PR shills deny it, he’s convinced that the latter circumstance has to do with Harry’s wife being “mixed” with “African Blood”.
And on that (sour) note, Charles III just announced he’s ordered a study to report on exactly how his forbears were connected with slavery!! Is there even the need for such a study – when the facts have been out in the open for four hundred years?? The irony is that it wasn’t ANY old “forbears” who were connected, but the two with the same name as he – Charles I and Charles II!! The first issued a Royal Charter to some businessmen – for a hefty fee, of course – to trade with Africa in general. To place this in context, it was in 1625 that Barbados was claimed and settled by the Brits!! In 1663, Charles II sold the rights to another group of gentlemen (yes…gentlemen, we’re told!) to trade in enslaved Africans. And it was this company that bought and shipped the most slaves across the Atlantic – ever!! What’s to study??
So, will Charles III accept that he owes all that he has to the blood, sweat and tears of slaves his forbears shipped across the Middle Passage – and sold at massive profit to the Plantocracy?? Are reparations in the offing??
Your Eyewitness certainly hopes so, because we know that very little of those profits were invested to develop our country!!
…rule for oil
As the finger of time moves on, your Eyewitness dourly concedes that all we can be certain of is change. The Europeans came looking for spices, and soon dragged all but the Indigenous Peoples and dumped our forebears into our dear mudland. The sugar they extracted from their sweat sweetened their “cupca” – the tea from China, for which Indians had to grow poppy to produce opium for exchange – and was the reason they ruled us for centuries. But the days of sugar are now gone, and oil has now become the reason for their interest.
How long will they rule us for that?? And don’t tell this Eyewitness they ain’t ruling us!! Trust him…the forms of the rule may be different, but chains in different guises are still chains!! Some say that even though Eric Williams claimed that “oil don’t spoil!”, our oil will become useless when replaced by renewables in thirty years.
But don’t worry…something else they want up north will be uncovered!!
…politics
The PPP have signalled they’ll be introducing a bill for campaign finance legislation. There’s been – with good reasons – accusations that businessmen exert undue influence over our politics through the money they give the politicians. And this will change??
