The ratification of the Declaration of Independence could not be achieved without severing ties to Great Britain. No taxation without representation! That spirited message sent to King George III espoused the spirit of a new nation during the Boston Tea Party of 1773. How would America’s founding fathers react if they knew the nation they freed from British rule would one day fly the nation’s flag at half-mast after the death of a prominent British monarch 246 years into the future?
No conversation about the British Royal Family is complete without first reconciling with the legacy of the British Empire. On the day Queen Elizabeth II died, she stood as the official monarch of 15 different nations having continuously used her likeness in their national currencies. For 70 years, Elizabeth headed the Commonwealth of Nations consisting of former colonies, dominions, & territories. Arguably, the Royal Family is practically inseparable from the idea of British power. The royals inspire symbols of British cultural history in the likeness of a former empire where the sun never set.
As the longest serving British monarch, Elizabeth II’s rule proved to be as turbulent as it was propitious for Britain’s colonies during the twilight era of her empire. Any crash course with history reminds quests for sheer conquest are not without organized bloodlust campaigns spearheaded by absolute rulers such as kings, queens, & princes. The question is: at a time when much of the Global South was burning for national independence against British colonial rule, how complicit was Queen Elizabeth II in crimes against humanity in Britain’s post-World War Two vanity project dedicated to saving its colonial empire?
Runaround histories narrativizing Great Britain’s decline as a world power are best describable as “organized convoluted compartmentalization” defined as: no one knows anything knows everything knows nothing. This translates as an intricate web of plausible deniability where the highest officials of her majesty’s government including the queen herself can dismiss & deflect darker periods of British colonial history during the empire’s phased disbandment by simply explaining it away. It remains post-colonial British policy to place blame on local officials & enforcers tasked with implementing colonial decrees on behalf of her majesty’s government. One such practice was air control.
Although primarily the brainchild of Winston Churchill, air control policy allowed weapons testing in the airspace of former colonies turned independent nations. The ongoing Russian Invasion of Ukraine restored fears of nuclear war to the public discourse for the first time since the end of the Cold War in 1991, but the question is: how did Britain’s air control policy impact former colonies in the Global South when the United Kingdom began developing & testing its own nuclear weapons program beginning in 1952? Can the British government deflect & plausibly deny ruin caused to the Global South from nuclear weapons testing by her majesty’s nuclear ordinances?
Villagization was a process of forced resettlement used by British authorities in the late 19th century to pacify rebellious locals after imperial rule was established. No one was spared; the elderly, women, & children were displaced at gunpoint & resettled in detention camps turned makeshift villages surrounded by barbed wire. Forced labor & starvation were common. 1.5 million Kikuyu in Kenya alone were held by British authorities without trial. Elizabeth II was crowned queen the same year the 1952 Mau Mau Rebellion began in Kenya where repressive practices like villagization were used to silence independence minded Kenyans. This rebellion lasted until 1960 & gave free reign to local henchmen to brutalize & terrorize their own people under watchful British rulers.
Did Queen Elizabeth II inspire any watershed moment during her reign to reconcile the legacy of empire in equal proportion to the darker legacies of colonialism beyond inevitable concessions made to independence of the colonized? Elizabeth II’s funeral is projected to be one of the most televised events in history albeit far from the most expensive. Although no official figures on the total cost of the queen’s funeral have been released, but the New Zealand Herald reported the funeral will cost UK taxpayers $10 million.
British Royals are hardly known for their modesty, but instead of spending millions turned potential billions on future funerals & coronation ceremonies over the next century, perhaps the British government could repurpose said monies as reparations to her former colonies while forgiving foreign debt?