WHEN SANDRA gave her annual "throne speech" to open Barbados's Parliament on September 15th, she proposed the abolition of her own job. As the country's governor-general she represents Queen Elizabeth II, its head of state. From November next year, in time for the 55th anniversary of independence from Britain, Barbados will be a republic, Dame Sandra declared. "The time has come to fully leave our colonial past behind," she said. "Barbadians want a Barbadian head of state."Barbados is one of nine Caribbean countries in which the queen fills that role. She also does in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and three Pacific islands. Like other Caribbean people, many Bajans, as Barbadians are also known, find it odd that their ceremonial leader is a white woman who lives an ocean away, however much they like her. Some of the monarchy's symbols make them queasy. The governor-general is Dame Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George, whose badge depicts a white-skinned angel stomping on a prostrate black-skinned Satan.
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