Imagine that there’s this colossal corporation that ran authoritarian governments across the world, killed tens of millions, pioneered the use of concentration camps, sold people into slavery, destroyed the material prospects of countless nations, and generally committed atrocities the globe over. Then, imagine that after a few centuries of that, the corporation gets a new CEO. The world would, not unreasonably, expect that person to take responsibility for their company’s actions in the past. Even big business, not known for its morality or contrition, speaks with the expectation that people want to see new leaders remedy the damage the organisation has done in the past. See: Uber, Volkswagen, the oil giants, etc.
Now, imagine that CEO started their reign by overseeing more brutal repression, including all the same killings and torture, and that their corporation kept moving people into camps. In that case, I don’t think we’d argue that they deserve any respect in that position. It would be even worse if that executive was happy to adopt tens of millions in profit and multiple stately homes gained from the genocides of the company before, made no reparations and didn’t apologise. And that’s without talking about how they’d be treated if they sapped hundreds of millions from UK taxpayers, lobbied the government to change legislation including land and wealth disclosure laws, or tried to heat their literal palace with a fund meant to protect the impoverished.
Look, the parallel I’m drawing here feels obvious, and yet these facts about the Queen, that we can all look up, don’t enter almost any of the popular channels of UK political discourse. Nor is there popular acknowledgement of just how bloodthirsty and gruesome the monarchy’s regime has been. When the UK press are urged to take a moral stand, the boilerplate response is that it’s the duty of media outlets to remain neutral and let the audience draw their own conclusions. But they routinely ignore this supposed oath of neutrality for their pet causes, and their treatment of the monarchy has been a classic example. The coverage of any royal event is relentless, fawning, and breathy with admiration for the unelected head of state and the people genetically and legally linked to them.
When critics confront royalists with the realities of what the Queen has stood for, they rarely even argue the horrific history. Instead, they exhaust their energy reserves talking around the unflattering truths of the commonwealth and its exploits. As is always the case when distinguished statespeople pop their clogs, the national motto has become “Now is not the respectful time to bring up your grievances”, but it’s never been the time according to them. Conservatives have always reviled criticism of the monarchy, and given that it’s when one monarch dies that the next takes over, now seems to be the perfect time to discuss the consequences of having a King or Queen.
At a stretch, fans of the Queen might admit that she is a “complicated” figure and tell us that everyone has their “flaws”. But this rose-tinted view of Lizzie again adds insult to injury by dismissing the atrocities of an empire as everyday character conflicts. You might know someone who has cheated on their spouse, has a drinking problem, or was a thief for a while. None of this is remotely on the same scale of cruelty as was perpetrated under British colonialism. I keep hearing that the Queen was the UK’s grandma, but I guarantee you, my grandma did not violently eviscerate the Mau Mau when they tried to overthrow their dictator.
Another mainstay of conversations about Elizabeth is papering over the whole genocide thing with vague allusions to the good she’s done. “Whatever else you might say about the Queen”, she’s shown “commitment” and “loyalty” and performed her “duty”. But these bromides do not describe heroic or productive acts. They’re descriptors of relationships to acts, which beg the question of what those acts are. Okay, the Queen was committed, but committed to what? The Queen was loyal, but loyal to whom? When a musician dies, the news plays their songs and talks about the genres they helped develop. When a scientist passes away, we get reports about their discoveries and inventions. It’s only in the case of the Windsor family that we seem to get these hazy signposts to virtue.
I believe you see weasel words so often employed in the adulation of the Queen because once you start analysing the record, it becomes clear there were no tangible steps she took to improve the state of affairs for the average person in this country. Without too much digging, you can also see the very institution she represents making peoples’ lives a living hell. You might say that duty or commitment or the fact that she was beloved are virtues in themselves. But do we really think that there weren’t dictators that didn’t have strong internal support in their country? Does that make them any less dictators? Many murderous warlords put their whole selves into their cause. Does that mean we should celebrate their actions?
And if the Queen did meaningfully affect politics in this country, that would be, definitionally, anti-democratic. What nation that values the freedom of its citizens makes an icon out of a hereditary master that decides the conditions people live under? If you want to make the opposite case and say that she did not meaningfully interfere in the politics of the UK, I don’t agree with you, but also, that means she is benign, that you can’t credit her with great deeds. The obsession with this idea of the “Good” monarch is part of a continuing argument in this country that tries to suggest that the character of leaders, not the systems they run, decides the function of political instruments. That this time the Murder Factory will help people instead of killing them because there’s a kindly old woman pulling the levers, and not that, by its design, the Murder Factory murders people.
Look, I get the social utility of investing yourself in the monarchy. The UK’s state institutions are crumbling, and the message is clear that the government will not protect us in our current period of grievous crisis. The culture is evolving and diversifying faster than ever. Moderates are more aware of demographic struggles, and the political lines are being more resolutely drawn as people look for a way to maintain their wealth or aspire to some semblance of survival. In the face of that nightmare, plenty of Brits look to what they see as a unifying, loveable, and enduring symbol of the nation with the will and capability to care for the people under its flag. But that impression of the empire Grandma is born out of propaganda.
Most of the people who lived under the British flag were prisoners in their own countries. The UK’s liberals cannot say they stand with Black Lives Matter and are the enemies of racism one day and then support the CEO of racial oppression the next. Even domestically, the monarchy has always moved wealth up the chain, away from the working person. The UK now consumes over 2 million parcels from food banks annually, the cost of energy jumped 54% in the space of a year, and 4.7 million receive benefits. At the same time, a dying Queen leaves behind a personal fortune of $500 million and a palace adorned in gold. To not distribute the wealth from the rich to the poor would be an unforgivable endorsement of suffering. But then, when has the crown supported anything else? Thanks for reading.
Further Reading
Queen’s Death Mourning Ceremonies Alienate Brits From Former Colonies Like Me by Ayan Artan.
