By: Yves R. Ephraim

It is November 1, 1981. A seventeen-year-old, young man stood in awe in Antigua Recreation Grounds in the midst of pomp and ceremony, proudly anticipating the dawning of a new era where his country, as he was told, would be set free from the colonial chords that held all of us down from progressing.

I saw the Union Jack lowered to “God Save the Queen” followed by the raising of the sun filled flag of Antigua and Barbuda accompanied by a superb rendition of my national anthem which was performed by the UK’s military band, in the most melodious tone that I had ever heard at that time. A hush came over the grounds that made you know that something significant was happening.

It was almost hypnotic.

It felt like the whole population was stuffed into the Antigua Recreation Grounds, there to witness this life-changing event.

Princess Margaret, in a ceremonial gesture, handed the reins of power to VC Bird Sr. to the spontaneous eruption of cheers from the overcrowded stands.

We celebrated nationhood with a salvo of fireworks which culminated in a special and final fireworks display honouring VC Bird as “the father of the nation”.

We left the grounds with optimism and a sense that great things were in our future.

Fast forward to October 30th, 2026. A United Kingdom Royal Airforce plane lands and taxis on the tarmac at VC Bird International Airport and stops.

The pilot opens his window at the front of the plane and immediately erects two small flags, one of Antigua and Barbuda and the other, the Royal Insignia.

We see the King make his solitary descent from the plane in a manner that suggests that he has no equal in this realm.

At the bottom of the stairs, he is greeted by dignitaries and escorted down the red carpet to a raised stage, where he receives a royal salute and inspects the guards.

It suddenly dawns on me that the King of the United Kingdom was not merely a head of state that we were entertaining but rather he is the king of Antigua and Barbuda, for real!

No other head of state was so excitedly anticipated and hyped.

All of the pageantry, the curtsy, the deference, bordering worship.

Even those who would publicly comment about reparations, obediently took up their positions, with wide smiles on their faces and greeted their king.

This whole spectre said to me that that seventeen-year-old in 1981 was duped, just as our government was duped in the Antigua Airways scandal.

That seventeen old was told that political independence would rid us from the stranglehold of colonialism and put the power in the hands of the people. Yet, now older and wiser, the evidences suggest that nothing significantly changed.

It was smoke and mirrors!

Can you fathom, that in our forty-five-year journey, it was only this year that elected officials stopped pledging allegiance to the King and his heirs and successors?

Is it a co-incidence that our national lands are still referred to as Crown lands?

Is it not even ironic that the claims of “Crown” lands was the premise by which this treasonous government wrestled the Barbudans communal lands from them?

In forty-five years, no administration made it a priority to dismantle the laws and regulations that maintained the rigid control of the colonial masters. The outcome of these rules was designed to produce reverent obedience and mindless, robotic servitude.

The rules were geared to benefit the needs of the motherland at the expense of the colony. Those rules never changed.

For the United Kingdom to have, at one time, ruled over one fourth of the land of the world, it had to develop effective systems and rules. And that it did with deadly precision to build a vast and powerful kingdom.

Every law and regulation was precisely crafted to support the “Rule, Britania” mission.

These rules were concerned with social, political and economic rule and dominance of the UK. And that makes sense for the UK’s national interests.

But what about Antigua and Barbuda’s own interests?

You wonder why Singapore in twenty-five years of independence, with far less natural resources than Antigua and Barbuda could build a powerhouse while Antigua and Barbuda is still running around with a tin cup begging for coins from our colonial masters after forty-five years.

Part of the answer is that Singapore instituted constitutional reform, that was focused on their country’s own need for national success rather than maintaining the old colonial governance systems, like we have done.

In my opinion, having reviewed the Antigua and Barbuda constitution myself, every freedom it appears to grant, it somehow introduced a loophole for the state to restrict that freedom.

Unlike the US constitution which gives its citizens all freedoms by default which cannot be abridged by the state, the Antigua and Barbuda constitution gives the state ultimate power. It has been my sixty-plus-years’ experience living here that our government takes pride in violating individual freedoms with impunity, as is evident with the series of forced private property acquisitions which have become the norm.

What is now apparent after having gained “independence” is that the colonial masters had created a new state governed by an elite class that look like us, but who rule over us instead of the direct rule from the UK. This new elite class was installed as a proxy for the colonial masters at independence.

This elite group enjoys all of the pomp and pageantry that the colonial masters left behind. They show no intention of removing these useless displays of power. They love the adulation and constant validation of their personal power and prefer using that power to “creatively enrich” themselves and their cronies.

This is why even after forty-five years of so-called independence, most Antiguans and Barbudans feel no empowerment in the things that matter. And our government still favours handing over our national resources to outsiders, particularly those from former colonial powers.

The effort of our government in its attempt to host the King, says a lot about how it views its own people.

Potholes that citizens were begging for years to be repaired were done in a flash for the King’s arrival. Some of these potholes were simple fixes that did not take a day to fix, yet many of these obvious potholes remained unattended for months and years. No concern for the damage or inconveniences that they caused to the citizens.

Miraculously, on the wave of a wand, all those in the path of the King were quickly rectified before the King’s arrival.

I have never seen our government more focused in forty-five years.

Suppose that our government would consider its citizens as royalty or even important, do you think that many important things like running water issues could be rectified within a year?

If the Antigua and Barbuda government continues to disregard its citizens as is the case, then it appears to me that Antiguans and Barbudans should reach out to the Royal Household and schedule monthly visit of the King as a means to get our infrastructure maintained and developed.

With each visit of the King, he would be asked to travel to various areas in Antigua and Barbuda. For example, we would have him travel to Fort James, Villa Area, Gambles, Point, Dickenson Bay Street.

If we do this for 12 months covering various areas, Antigua and Barbuda will have the most modern roads, sidewalks in this hemisphere. Further we would have the most focused and energized public workers. Productivity would go through the roof.

I digressed.

Back to the issue of dismantling the constitution, laws and regulations.

Laws like “making noise”, was clearly enacted to quash any stout protest by citizens towards the existing power structure. We saw how that nuisance law was conveniently deployed to shutdown Washington Bramble. Take note and remember the old saying (I am paraphrasing): the stick that hit the wild goat hit the tame.

It appears to me that when we got independence, it was not the citizens being freed from the colonial masters, as most of us thought but rather it was the insertion of a ruling elite that looked like us, but who were beholden to the colonial masters.

Independence made this elite group a proxy for the colonial masters. It gave this elite group the freedom to loot, fleece and clobber the citizens as a way of preventing the people from ever building a nation that could rival these former colonial powers.

The granting of “independence” was a brilliant ruse!

Independence removed the UK’s financial responsibility for Antigua and Barbuda but kept its control.

We saw this same technique used when the enslaved were officially emancipated in 1834 but were forced into a four-year apprenticeship, where they still had to do the work as if they were enslaved. The difference was that now the former enslaved were given a subsistence wage and were now responsible for their own upkeep. The slave owner maintained the same control but now there was no responsibility to house and feed the enslaved.

Antigua and Barbuda skipped the apprenticeship, because there were more freemen than available plantation work. This had the same effect as the apprenticeship so there was no need to officially go that route.

The insertion of this elite ruling group, removed the evidence of direct rule of our colonial masters. So, we cannot consciously blame the colonial masters for our condition.

This elite group was no more than puppets of the colonial masters, simply put there to do the colonial masters bidding, similar in function to black slave drivers during the era of slavery.

The fact that this elite group had no qualms to swear to the King and his heirs for so many years is evidence enough.

Would any freedom-minded leader be comfortable with swearing allegiance to the King and his heirs of the UK, from whom his country was supposed to have severed all ties?

We are clearly independent but not sovereign.

This explains why our government does not feel it has a right to defend us from the OECD sanctions with its one-sided rules about money laundering; funding terrorism; tax evasion. Our government’s default position is to acquiesce. Such cowards!

I am willing to concede the corruption charges of some officials but which OECD country is not full of corrupt officials themselves, yet, I have opened up a bank account in those countries within minutes but cannot do so in Antigua and Barbuda under a month.

So what is the purpose of our government when after forty-five years, if it cannot solve the water problems; maintain decent roads; protect our property rights; and protect us from the double standards of “international standards” that unfairly constrain us from rivalling the former colonial masters?

Prior to 1 November 1981, we were told that we could not progress because of colonialism but are we any better on 1st November 2026?

This article was originally published by Antigua News Room. Read the original article here: OPINION: Independence from What or from Whom?.