Roundtable: Amid Tributes to Queen Elizabeth, Deadly Legacy of British Colonialism Cannot Be Ignored

[cbabe]

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/9/9/uk_queen_elizabeth_ii_dies_96

Roundtable: Amid Tributes to Queen Elizabeth, Deadly Legacy of British Colonialism Cannot Be Ignored

…

The monarchy really has come to represent deep and profound and grave inequality,” says Cambridge scholar Priya Gopal, author of “Insurgent Empire: Anticolonial Resistance and British Dissent.” We also speak with Harvard historian Maya Jasanoff, Novara Media editor Ash Sarkar and Pedro Welch, former chair of the Barbados Reparations Task Force, who says the British monarchy’s brutal record in the Caribbean and other parts of the world must be addressed. “The enslavement of our ancestors has led to a legacy of deprivation, a legacy that still has to be sorted out,” says Welch.

…

The narrative placed there by bloodline superiority.
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[jimfields33]

1. I'd wait until after she's buried at least

Was she personally involved in this? She has no power really. British government? What years? Lots of questions to be answered and discussed.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

2. I don't really know the fine points of British Imperialism

But I saw one post blaming her for India and the Partition - which was several years before she took the throne.

[jimfields33]

3. Oh my goodness

I guess it’s easy to blame those who can’t fight back or even know the timeline.

[AZSkiffyGeek]

4. it seems that her death is being used as an indictment for hundreds of years of imperialism

Even if she wasn't directly involved...

[cbabe]

6. Consider if your grandparents owned slaves, what do

you owe this generation? How much of your wealth and privilege are you willing to share?

Someone may not be directly responsible to benefit from imperialism, etc.

Recommended:

https://www.goodreads.com › book › show › 944320.Slaves_in_the_Family

Slaves in the Family by Edward Ball

This book is written by a descendant of a South Carolina slave holding family who used his family's records to search for and find many of the living descendants of the slaves who had been owned by his ancestors. The narrative tells the stories of his search and his many interviews, and along the way he also tells the history of slavery in America.

…

He takes the unusual step of traveling to Africa to ask the hard questions of Africans selling neighbors.

[leftstreet]

5. I don't think it's personal

If anything, many people and politicians from colonized areas have waited decades, in almost deference to a respected grandmother figurehead, to push for change and/or reparations.

Things will likely start to change now

[WhiskeyGrinder]

7. Why? She's dead.

Was she personally involved in this?

Everything the British government did during her reign was done in her name.

She has no power really.

Either the monarchy matters, or it doesn't.

[DBoon]

8. de-colonization began years before Elizabeth took the throne

and continued throughout her reign

BTW, it was a Labour government that decolonized South Asia. Elections do matter.

[Enoki33]

9. The Monarchy was another cog in the

exploitation of worldwide native people. England viewed it's colonies primarily as a supplier of raw materials, which included labor. They also left the majority of those colonies with the basic structures on which to build future good governance, judiciary and educational systems. The question of whether or not their previous colonies were fully prepared for self government, and ultimately independence, is very debatable. The fact that so many of those past colonies chose not to build on those infrastructures is a symbol today of those failures.