Nigeria?

[MaturingCheeseball]

Can this be true? That Harry and Meghan are off on a “royal” trip to Nigeria? What’s the game now? My head is spinning!

At the time William and Catherine blamed their staff.

When?

Are you just making stuff up as you go along?

@CoffeeCantata Your comments show that you have zero understanding of the political context.
What the Royal Family wear on official visits matters. The photo opportunities they create send messages.
Maybe the Royal Family and their staff simply are not bright enough to navigate a modern context?

Maybe they should have made clearly uncomfortable black women sit on the floor and expect them to be grateful for their princely baby's hand me downs?

Just to be 'modern'?

With due respect to the Jamaicans' right to choose their future for themselves I agree with you, CoffeeCantata

I'm not fond of the concept of inviting guests so you can be rude to them, but with some nations it's a well worn path to hold out one hand for money and flick the Vs with the other, and while Brits can be blamed for a lot this approach probably avoids posing awkward questions about exactly how the nation's running its internal affairs

Jamaica were not holding their hands out for money. They were demanding an apology and reparations for slavery that the Royal Family participated in and benefitted from.

This place!! No wonder you have no understanding of why William and Catherine Colonial Tour was such a disaster.

NoisySnail
What the Royal Family wear on official visits matters. The photo opportunities they create send messages.

That statement has no connection whatsoever with what I said in my post. You made a bizarre, illogical connection between a red dress and....what? Racism? Based on Gone with the Wind? You haven't explained why red is a problem colour when Scarlett more famously wore white, green, mauve and black - oh, and blue as well, I seem to remember.

So please explain your comment about the offensive message of a red dress. I'd be fascinated to hear!

Taken to its logical conclusion this idea is bonkers. What colours, then, may inoffensively worn in Jamaica? Please specify.

It isn’t only photo opportunities that send messages.

Silence does too.

African Parks and the Sussex Squad spring to mind.

How did you determine that they understood the political context when they went to a movie in Jamaica? It’s apples and oranges anyway but more knowledgeable people than anyone here thought it was a goat rope.

With due respect to the Jamaicans' right to choose their future for themselves I agree with you, CoffeeCantata

I'm not fond of the concept of inviting guests so you can be rude to them, but with some nations it's a well worn path to hold out one hand for money and flick the Vs with the other, and while Brits can be blamed for a lot this approach probably avoids posing awkward questions about exactly how the nation's running its internal affairs

I agree, Puzzled. I think the elephant in the room here is the apparently very confused and confusing messages coming from the Jamaican govt in all of this! I think a massive chunk of what is supposed to have gone so wrong ought to be laid at their door.

You left out the word racism.

@CoffeeCantata you are deliberately changing what I said. Surely no one is this dim?
It was not just a red dress. It was the type of dress Scarlett O Hara wore and recreated an image of a white slave mistress.
They knew the political situation in Jamaica and would have known about the open letter signed by many prominent Jamaicans about their planned visit, if they once looked at a newspaper. And still they recreated a Colonial look throughout their Caribbean tour.

You might at least try to get it right, NoisySnail; what on earth do you think this is about if not money:
:
^"The reparations petition is based on a private motion by Jamaican lawmaker Mike Henry, who said it was worth some 7.6 billion pounds, a sum he estimated is roughly equivalent in today's terms to what Britain paid to the slaveholders.
"I am asking for the same amount of money to be paid to the slaves that was paid to the slave owners," said Henry, a member of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party"

I hold no particular view as to whether this is fully justified, though do wonder if anything paid would simply end up in someone's Swiss bank account, but let's not pretend it isn't about money

https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/jamaica-plans-seek-reparations-britain-over-slavery-2021-07-12/

Are you talking about the green dress she wore to a state dinner?

Can someone post a picture of this red dress? I can't find a pic of any red dress that Catherine wore on that tour, let alone one that looks like something Scarlett O Hara might have worn.

I'm also a bit baffled by this mysterious red dress.

I'd be interested in seeing a picture however. Kate looks fantastic in red.

I'll wait, along with the links about how the government didn't want the then Cambridges there, and how the Marley family refused to meet them. I may be waiting some time.

This exactly! Some nutters out there clearly!

How petty.

Talk about scraping the barrel.

I am leaving you to it. I have had enough of the whitesplaining.
If anyone reading is interested in understanding the context you can read the open letter to the Royal Family signed by many prominent Jamaicans here. It explains clearly what they thought about the Royal visit before William and Catherine had even landed in Jamaica.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/prince-william-kate-middleton-jamaica-independence-b2040630.html

I think the elephant in the room here is the apparently very confused and confusing messages coming from the Jamaican govt in all of this! I think a massive chunk of what is supposed to have gone so wrong ought to be laid at their door

Agree once again, CoffeeCantata, but as said - and while Britain undoubtably did some terrible things - it's so much easier to blame absolutely everything on someone else

Jamaica's been independent for 62 years now, though they retain the UK monarch as Head of State, and after decades of complaining I hope they'll change that if enough wish to (only wish we could!!)

You are actually delusional. Nobody is saying that!!!

I may think they are a pair of twats but I don't wish ill on them on their children. I just wish they would grow up and cultivate a little humility.

Still no link to the Scarlett O'Hara red dress, noisySnail?

NoisySnail · Today 16:29

And they addressed this to W & C why exactly? Their concerns would have been better directed to their own govt. Or are they a very small minority - I don't claim to know - do you?

So isn't Jamaica a democracy? Why were they invited if the the general population was opposed to the visit? Either things are not so very democratic there, or there must have been more support for the visit than you think.

Your comments just make no sense on any level.

The RF is a constitutional monarchy. If they do an.official visit it is at the request (instructions, phrased politely...) of the UK government and the host government.

The 'open letter from Jamaica' was from a number of individual Jamaicans, not the Jamaican government. If the government didn't want the visit they shouldn't have arranged it.

I suspect there were internal political aspects to inviting the visit and then publicly criticising them.

But, I also suspect pointing this out is a waste of time... just wanted to dissociate myself from this particular snail.

Sweeping generalisations about the colour of posters is tiresome.

As for reparation?

I would rather modern day slavery was addressed than something people living and breathing now had nothing to do with.

There have been atrocities all through history.

All we can do is be better.

The French had the right idea 🍽️

So isn't Jamaica a democracy?

Yes it's been one since 1962, CoffeeCantata, though sadly plagued with electoral fraud - and no doubt that's all someone else's fault too