Sujet 2 - Partie 2 · Bac Anglais, monde contemporain Métropole 2023

Document A

Barbados parts way with the Queen and becomes world’s newest republic

After 396 years, the sun has set on the British monarchy's reign over the Caribbean island of Barbados, with a handover ceremony at midnight on Monday marking the birth of the world's newest republic. [...]

A solemn Prince Charles was on hand to witness the transition. “The creation of this 5 republic offers a new beginning,” he said in a speech to the ceremony. “From the darkest days of our past and the appalling atrocity of slavery, which forever stains our history, people of this island forged their path with extraordinary fortitude.” [...]

Announcing the decision to cut ties 1 with the monarchy in 2020, prime minister Mia Mottley, who led the ceremony, said the time had come for Barbados to “fully leave our 10 colonial past behind”, though some in the country said the moment had been long overdue. [...]

“It reduces you psychologically in terms of being a citizen of your nation, and then you have public officials who have to swear allegiance to this sovereign who is not a part of their reality,” [said Sir Hilary Beckles, a West Indian historian]. A comprehensive 15 survey of Barbadian attitudes to the royal family [...] suggested that more than 60% of Barbadians were in favour of becoming a republic, half of them enthusiastically, while about one in 10 people preferred to keep the status quo.

On an island whose anglophile tendencies once led it to be dubbed “little England”, where people still drive on the left, play cricket at Kensington Oval and bathe at 20 Brighton beach, the republic is part of a wider agenda building steam across the Caribbean to forge a future outside a British framework.

1 connections

The Guardian, 30 November 2021

Document B

With Queen gone, former colonies find a moment to rethink lasting ties

The British royal family reigned over more territories and people than any other monarchy in history, and among the countries that have never quite let go of the crown, Queen Elizabeth's death accelerates a push to address the past more fully and strip away the vestiges of colonialism. [...]

5 Many former British colonies remain bound together in the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 56 countries. The vast majority of them are connected by their shared histories, with similar legal and political systems, and the organization promotes exchanges in fields like sports, culture and education. Especially for smaller and newer members, including a few African countries that were not British colonies and joined 10 more recently, the group can confer prestige, and while the Commonwealth has no formal trade agreement, its members conduct trade with one another at higher-than-usual rates.

Most of the Commonwealth members are independent republics, with no formal ties to the British royal family. But 14 are constitutional monarchies that have retained the 15 British sovereign as their head of state, a mostly symbolic role. [...]

Though Prince Charles has now been proclaimed the new king for all these “realm and territories,” in many of them, the queen's death has been greeted with bolder calls for full independence.

On Saturday, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda announced plans to hold a 20 referendum on becoming a republic within three years. In Australia, the Bahamas, Belize, Canada and Jamaica, debates that have simmered for years about their democracies' ties to a distant kingdom have started to heat up again. [...]

“The British monarchy has shown a capacity to evolve over the ages, from colonial to a post-colonial monarchy, and the queen undertook that re-creation quite well,” said 25 Robert Aldrich, a historian at the University of Sydney.

Unlike many of England's political figures, she was quick to accept former colonies' independence. [...]

But as the queen aged and receded from view, and as the world tackled a broader examination of the sins of colonialization, it became harder to keep the monarchy at a 30 benign distance from racism and the acts of empire. In former colonies worldwide, demands for a full accounting 1 of the pain, suffering and plundered 2 riches that helped contribute to the royal family's enormous wealth have been increasing. [...]

And yet, trying to decolonize — to free a country from the dominating influence of a colonizing power — is an empire of work in its own right. The queen gazes from the 35 currency of many countries, and her name graces hospitals and roads. Institutions like the Scouts have created generations who swore allegiance to the queen, and educational systems in many countries still prioritize the British colonial model.

1 recognition

2 stolen

The New York Times, September 11, 2022

Document C

The Council on Foreign Relations, September 9, 2022

Document D

Partie 2 [4 pts]

Traduisez en français le passage suivant du document B (l. 5-10):

« Many former British colonies remain bound together in the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 56 countries. The vast majority of them are connected by their shared histories, with similar legal and political systems, and the organization promotes exchanges in fields like sports, culture and education. Especially for smaller and newer members, including a few African countries that were not British colonies and joined more recently, the group can confer prestige [...]. »