The end of the seventy-year reign by Queen Elizabeth II triggered a global response as was to be expected. There are those who are in mourning, those who are celebrating and those who do not care.
For those who mourn, like a large section of the British who have been raised under the monarchy, maybe we can understand their grief. But there is also a large section of the British population that chooses not to mourn as they acknowledge the atrocities on which the monarchy was built.
Perhaps those who loved the queen saw a dignified soft-spoken woman and overlooked the stolen treasures on her crown or gold on her carriage. The ugly centuries of the British monarchy have been minimised by many in honour, respect, and love of the queen. There those whose ancestors suffered, were humiliated, and annihilated, and whose pain and deaths built and enriched the British Empire. Still, some of them are also honouring the queen, like Jamaica, which is dedicating 12 days of mourning for the queen, and our government, which has declared Monday, September 19, a day of mourning. Leaders of former colonies have also been expressing their condolences.
Some groups that took to social media to celebrate or announce that they were not mourning included Africans on the continent, Africans in the diaspora and the Irish. Knowing the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the effects of colonialism on Africa and the diaspora that are still being felt, I understood the reaction of those of African descent. But I had to research why the Irish were also celebrating the death of the queen.
For eight hundred years Ireland was under British rule, which came with violence and brutality. In Ireland there was a potato famine from 1845 to 1849. This famine is known as Great Famine or An Gorta Mor, the Great Hunger. However, according to many of the Irish it was not a famine due to failed crops but in fact during this time the British exported food to England which was enough to feed the Irish. Because of the actions of the British approximately one million Irish people died of starvation and about the same number were forced to migrate. Queen Elizabeth’s great grandmother Queen Victoria was on the throne at that time, and it is said that she showed little compassion to the suffering of the Irish. In 1997, then Prime Minister Tony Blair acknowledged Britain’s culpability in the suffering of the Irish.
But it is not only Ireland that the British deliberately starved. India also suffered under British rule starting in the early 1600s. There were famines in India while they exploited the land by stealing, dividing, and conquering. The last famine, known as the Bengal famine, occurred between 1943 and 1944 and caused the death of over three million people. It was said to be a manmade famine. One can read details about it in the book “The Bengal Famine: How the British Engineered the Worst Genocide in Human History for profit” written by Rakhi Chakraborty.
In South Africa, British colonialism led to the dispossession of lands from South Africans and wars. In Australia, before colonialism the Indigenous Australians or Aboriginals as they called then, were living simple lives in harmony with nature. The Indigenous Australians were not only welcoming of the British but other European imperialists. However, their kindness was repaid with conflict, war and terrorism and their land was expropriated. Many Indigenous Australians were dehumanised and killed.
Slavery and colonialism resulted in many human rights violations and some estimate that as many as 100 million Africans died. The destruction, genocide, disease, instability, wars, famine, and poverty have had a lasting effect. The world stands on institutionalized racism and prejudice. Everywhere on Earth there are non-White people who measure their value on how close they are to Whiteness and with an institution like the British monarchy the blatant and subliminal messages of so-called White superiority cannot be denied.
Queen Elizbeth II’s legacy began in colonialism when she became queen in 1952.
There are those who argue that she should not be held culpable for slavery or colonialism. The queen, however, knew her family history. Not only did she maintain the monarchy by sitting on the throne for 70 years, but her rule was also stained by blood.
Kenya’s suffering is one example of some of what took place under her rule.
British soldiers committed atrocities against Kenyans at the height of the Mau Mau uprising between 1952 and 1960. The Mau Mau uprising came about because of issues like the expulsion of Kikuyu (a Bantu ethnic group) tenants from settler farms, loss of land to white settlers, poverty, and lack of true political representation for Africans. About 1.5 million people were forced into concentration camps, where they were tortured, raped, and endured other human rights violations.
We must be honest about history and the lasting effects it has had. For those who mourn the queen, it is their right to do so. However, those who choose not to mourn are also well within their rights to protest the wrongdoings of the British Empire.
It is questionable and even absurd that former colonies would dedicate a day or days of mourning for a queen who sat on a throne built on the blood, rape, torture, exploitation, and murder of our people. But perhaps they have chosen to forgive, forget or are simply following protocol.
The death of the queen has heightened calls for reparations. The world we have created largely functions or rather malfunctions on greed, malevolence, injustice, and unequal distribution of resources. In Guyana, the people are seeing the gap between the rich and the poor widening and a small percentage of people who believe they have the power to do as they please without consequences. In some instances, Guyanese are being treated with disdain while immigrants are fawned over. We are witnessing blatant corruption and it is obvious that justice for many of the wronged will never be seen. What will become of us?
So, while the government has made Monday a day of mourning for the queen, let us also remember that we must mourn for ourselves. After 56 years of Independence, we are still divided, many are still impoverished, many of our leaders are still only concerned about enriching themselves and our oil finds have resulted in the new imperialists tightening their grasps around our necks.
