The Queen, Class & Colonialism
Why Professors can't teach 'class', and the legacy of the British Empire
She ain’t a crook son, you just a ‘Shook’ one
It’s becoming more and more a curious time to be alive.
In the recent past, and most notably in the post-pandemic era of the 2020s, it seems we’re waking up and turning on the radio, opening Twitter, or receiving memes in a group chat, and learning of a news story that truly doesn’t seem real.
The first true shock of the coronavirus outbreak that left families locked in their homes, the storming of the capital on January 6th, people clinging on to planes in the chaos of a quickfire withdrawal from Kabul, and the day we saw footage of Fighter Jet dog fights in the skies over Kiev with Putin’s insane invasion of Ukraine.
These were just some of the moments that seemed momentous enough to be included in history books, moments taught to children tasked with writing a paper for their history class on the global realignment, economic decline, and cultural shifts that occurred in the early part of the 21st century. These moments never really feel real when you’re living through them.
It’s the strangest feeling, learning of the death of a 96-year-old woman, with documented declining mobility and fragility, and feeling ‘shook’. I’ve asked myself, well, how long did I expect her to live for? and it’s obvious that if you possess an adult brain and even a modicum of basic reasoning skills, it’s quite obvious that this day was going to come, but it’s finally happened and it caught a lot of people off guard.
Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II is dead.
Fuck sake.
Resentment & Responsibility
We all look at the monarchy and it’s easy to be resentful. Some, perhaps most of us outside of media elite or celebrity class, see a bunch of gold-wrapped ponces sitting around In massive fuck off palaces. They dine on feasts in excess. They are driven around in Rolls Royce’s and Range Rovers and take private jets instead of Ryan Air economy. They’ve got vacation homes and grand estates for weekend retreats in all corners of the kingdom if they fancy a bit of fox hunting?
Moreover, they’ll never have to put in a shift repetitively squirting tartare sauce in a ‘Maccies’ and slamming down a filet o’ fish somehow always 3/4 of the way off the side of the bun, before peering out of a drive-thru window and asking you to pull up in Bay 1 so they can wait till your fries are lukewarm to bring you your meal.
I digress, it’s easy and possibly normal to envision anyone with this level of wealth and grandeur that surrounds every aspect of their life and not feel some kind of resentment or jealousy.
What a lot of us possibly don’t consider, is just what went into being the Queen, and seeing as the world has experienced more updates than all of the devices in your average city-centre Apple store in the past 70 years, being Queen Elizabeth II.
This woman served her country and the Commonwealth for 7 fucking decades. I won’t bore readers with a full biography of such a remarkable woman, but I feel it important to note that after the death of her father King George VI in 1952, she was crowned Queen when she was in her mid-20s.
Sacrifice & Service
I feel some people really don’t allow themselves the time to think of how much sacrifice and responsibility is involved in living almost your entire adult life bound by the duties Elizabeth undertook from such a tender age, and I respect the fuck out of her for it.
In order to serve as up a personal comparison. At a similar age, I myself decided to take a summer’s worth of savings, and a virgin credit card waiting to be abused more than the fabric lining a Hollywood casting couch and embark on a season as a Snowboard instructor, drinking Weissbier and €3 bottles of red wine from 9 am till closing hours, smoking, frolicking, dislocating various parts of my body, and enticing women of various nationalities frequenting the town of Kitzbuhel into my dorm room for nights of mostly forgettable sex and hangovers.
The resentment of some toward her Majesty typically does not account for the fact that the one thing she was never allowed to do….was just be herself.
For all of the inevitable scandal, lapse of judgement, scrutiny, and weight on every poor choice of word, phrase, and terminology that would accompany my hypothetical time wearing the crown, I for one would not have traded places with her if you paid me. This lady has never let her country down.
Her consistency throughout the post-WWII decades of a waning Britain, decolonisation, and a populous backlash from the far left, full of accusations of racism, murder, rape, calls for reparations and abolishment of the Monarchy has been truly magnificent.
and as confused as I and many others now are about the passive or present tense, and the fealty we must now swear to her heir , I shall say “God bless our Queen!” and may she rest in eternal peace.
Time to put on your ‘Big Boy’ Pants Charlie!
I’ve never been a massive fan of Charles, but fuck it, God Save the King!
All of the aforementioned responsibilities cast upon his mothers head from the age of 27 were not ones Charlie boy had to endure for the majority of his 70 odd years on this earth that has certainly given us more moments of scandal than ever surrounded his predecessor.
There is a certain amount of decorum and duties, of course, that come with being a Prince and Royal heir to the throne. The level of discernment and thought for one’s actions and words are of course far greater than those shouldered by Fred from the local butchers, but Charles has at least been able to craft a life for himself by investing in the causes and personal passions he chooses. He eventually managed to marry his beloved Camilla without being assassinated by a some nutter possessing a collection of Diana memorabilia and newspaper clippings of Parisian underpasses lining the walls of their spare bedroom. He’s been quite outspoken on issues such as climate change and a huge advocate for a green revolution and has been included on quite a few occasions now brazenly referring to “The Great Reset”.
He’s now got to put on his ‘big boy pants’ and continue the work his mother excelled at, in being the glue that keeps tradition and true values alive in a 21st century intent on tearing it all down. He must learn to do what Lizzie did best - not let people know what you actually believe, and let the Monarchy serve as a symbol of inspiration, tradition and decency without involving itself in the messy world of politics.
Possibly one of the main reasons the Queen’s reign has received so much adulation and respect is due to the utter decline in the decency of our politicians.
I fear he’s going to face some tough times in the wake of Queen Elizabeth’s death. There has been an overwhelming amount of support, grief, and tributes globally for his mother and her incredible reign, however, time will tell if King Charles will capture the hearts and minds of the world, and perhaps more importantly, their respect.
‘Colonialism’ & the hatred from the ‘Inclusionary’ people…again.
It’s true that the majority of our major institutions have been well-prepared for this day to come. The BBC updating their website headers to a solemn black at about 15:00 on Thursday gave the game away somewhat that Elizabeth was no longer with us. The 10 days of mourning will come with an incredible amount of procedure and protocol that will be, if nothing else, intriguing for all of us who have never been privy to the changing of the British Crown in our lifetimes.
As much as there have been preparations and planning for this day from these institutions readying themselves for a respectful sign-off for the Queen, obituaries at the ready, there has also been a much-anticipated desire to pounce on this occasion and spew vile, hatred, and negativity towards anything and everything involving the monarchy - the worst of which attacking a 96-year-old woman’s character at the time of her death.
Here are just some of the absolutely pathetic responses to the occasion…
Perhaps the most disgusting high profile tweet making the rounds on twitter in the last 48 hours was this incredibly hateful tweet from Uju Anya. Her bio as follows:
Uju Anya - Professor. Field: applied linguistics. Antiracist, feminist, Research: Language learning+teaching, Blackness in multilingualism. Views are mine.
No words for this one really, other than it just showcases the overwhelming gap in class between this university professor, and the longest-serving monarch in history, who in 2012 visited Ireland to shake hands with the former commander of the IRA, and the man responsible for the death of her beloved uncle in a symbol of unity.
Uju is a professor of course. As they often say though - You can’t teach ‘Class’.
Then there were of course a series of liberal news outlets who offered a more coded denouncement of the legacy left by the Queen, insistent on never letting us forget the evils of colonialism - of which of course there were many, but does not entirely sum up the British Empire, nor does their message ever seek to attach any positive results of what Britain has done to help shape the world as we know it.
Maya Jasanoff, a "Professor of History," at Harvard, exemplified the common theme obviously present these days from outlets such as the New York Times, by focusing on colonialism that surely should tarnish the death of this iconic figure.
Eugene decides that in the wake of the Queen’s death, in September of 2022, we should ask “when is the appropriate time to talk about the negative impact of colonialism”
….as if outlets like the Washington Post, which he writes for, haven’t been ramming that conversation down our throats over and over again for most of my adult life.
I wonder where he’s been this whole time? Possibly making a decent living as an elite journalist writing for one of the biggest news outlets in the world, as a black man. Certainly much financially better off than someone such as myself I might add.
Our Karen, a writer at the esteemed Washington Post, feels that we should respect black and brown people (the monolith that they are) around the world who were ‘subject to the horrendous cruelties and economic deprivation’ caused entirely by this 5’3 grey haired monster hell bent on their suffering.
Karen luv, you’re welcome to feel however you want, just pick up a history book and tell me what the world would look like today if the British Empire never existed?
The British Empire: Power & the Survival of the Smartest
The point i’d like to make to these people is that it has become exceedingly ‘trendy’ to throw infinite amounts of shade at the British Empire in a lazy, spoilt narrative completely lacking in self-awareness, historical relevance, and dosed up to the eyeballs in victimhood.
Since time began, and men formed tribes and communities, the human race has been at war. The evils of empire are obvious, as empires are comprised of men and the worst parts of what makes us men.
The desire for power, the desire to conquer, was not just a trait of the British. The idea of Empire occurred in various scales worldwide since man discovered that with power, and the conquering of your neighbours, the utility of their workforce and their resources, you secure protection for your people, and in your conquest you ensure you are not the conquered party.
Predating the British Empire the British Isles were invade and conquered on multiple occasions by foreigners, we did not invent this ideology. We did not invent slavery, but we sure as fuck abolished it. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it why don’t you?
The Mongolian Empire, The Byzantine Empire, The Ottoman Empire, The Roman Empire, The Mayans, The Aztecs, does anyone dedicate half as much of the journalistic efforts casting our minds back to the murder, torture, and horror suffered under these regimes as they do the British Empire? We know the answer to this, No.
It serves our modern journalists, social media influencers, and celebrities and institutions much more to slag off this specific version of Empire because it ties is quite perfectly with their disdain for capitalism, and the guilt they enjoy castigating upon patriarchy and unfortunately ‘Whiteness’ of the western world.
I don’t suppose they also hold that same level of disdain for democracy, modern medicine, British common law, seeing one’s day in court, freedom of speech (the irony), technological advancement that led to industry and has since pulled millions of people out of poverty in the past century. All of these, partly, or solely due to an Empire that although not unblemished, oversaw a restructuring of so many things that makes out world great today.
Opression in 2022
Alas, even today, as what’s left of the British Commonwealth withers away with every passing decade, slavery and the stripping of resources still occurs in places such as the middle east and China (where Uyghur Muslims are locked up in re-education camps).
India, which spent time suffering under the oppression of British rule yet have just surpassed the UK as the fifth largest world economy…..still have a caste system!
Where is the perpetual outrage of these blights on mankind in our quest for decency? Need I mention this is not 100, 300, or 1000 years ago, this is in 2022, long after we formulated the concept of ‘Human Rights’.
To these people that do not recognise that the world has been changing century after century and that we are living in the most privileged time to be alive - be it as a man, a woman, black, white, gay, or straight - part of the reason the world looks the way it does today is down to this “Empire” you’d like us to admonish at every turn.
Peace.