The Queen and British Colonialism

Earlier today Democracy Now! hosted an insightful and informative roundtable discussion on the “deadly legacy” of British colonialism, a topic that’s very much in the spotlight given the recent death of Queen Elizabeth II.

One of the participants in this roundtable was Priyamvada Gopal, Professor of Post-Colonial Studies at the University of Cambridge and author of the award-winning book, Insurgent Empire: Anti-Colonial Resistance and British Dissent (2019). Following is part of what Gopal had to say about the Queen and British colonialism.

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I find myself appreciating the circumstances in which [the Queen] passed. She had good care. She had good medical supervision. She was in secure shelter in a place that she loved. And I am glad for that. I do wonder, given the state that Britain is in today, which is in a state of crisis, whether many British pensioners will have the same easeful passing this winter. I fear not. I think many people will be in insecure housing, without heat, potentially without food, and certainly without access to good medical care.

So I’m really struck by the difference between the circumstances of Queen Elizabeth’s passing and what many of her subjects may have to endure this coming winter in a country where the monarchy really has come to represent the deep and profound and grave inequality [that] is going to be a problem in the months to come.

. . . [T]he other thing I want to say is that we often talk about monarchy as an anachronism. [For example, people say] she came into a world where monarchy was normal, and now it’s an anachronism. Actually, we still have a world order in which, both in Britain and in the colonies, there is enormous concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few. And monarchy really, in a sense, is not anachronistic. It represents exactly what we are ruled by across the world, in the U.S. as much as anywhere else: power and privilege and wealth in the hands of a few, which the rest of us are then invited to worship and think of as perfectly normal. The monarchy is really one aspect of plutocracy: the rule by the wealthy. And that is something that hasn’t essentially changed from 1952 to 2022. If anything, here we are again, ruled by a handful of oligarchs across the world, as ordinary people in Britain and beyond suffer deprivation. So, I slightly wonder if we do in fact live in a very different world from the one that she inherited.

And in terms of [her] knowledge of foreign policy, I think . . . she was very faithful and dutiful, as the word is often used in the British press, about representing the British state’s understanding of its own foreign policy. I have no evidence that she was knowledgeable about what was happening in the colonies, that she was knowledgeable about the enormous violence with which empire ended in many places. When she came to power, there were brutal counterinsurgencies not just in Kenya, but in Malaya and Cyprus. Many of the records of the crimes of the British state at that point have been destroyed willfully by the British state. So . . . how much did she know? We won’t know that. But did she speak on these matters? Could she speak on these matters? Was she knowledgeable about what took place? I’m afraid I have no evidence of anything other than that she, and the institution of the monarchy, perpetuated the British state’s and the British elites’ narrative of itself and of Britain.

– Priyamvada Gopal
Excerpted from “Roundtable: Amid Tributes to Queen Elizabeth,
Deadly Legacy of British Colonialism Cannot Be Ignored”
Democracy Now!
September 9, 2022

Related Off-site Links:
Mourn the Queen, Not Her Empire – Maya Jasanoff (The New York Times, September 8, 2022).
Mourn the Queen, But God Save the People – Richard Eskow (Common Dreams, September 9, 2022).
After Queen’s Death, Victims of British Imperialism Share Why “We Will Not Mourn” – Brett Wilkins (Common Dreams, September 9, 2022).
The Complicated History of the British Commonwealth – Ari Shapiro, Karen Zamora, and Ashley Brown (All Things Considered, September 9, 2022).
Former Colonies of Elizabeth II Want Their $400 Million Diamond Back From the Crown Jewels – Pallavi Pundir (VICE, September 9, 2022).
Legacy of Violence Documents the Dark Side of the British Empire – Arun Venugopal (NPR News, July 11, 2022).
Britain’s Shameful Colonisation of India – Shashi Tharoor (Asian Century Institute, December 9, 2019).
Viewpoint: Britain Must Pay Reparations to India – Shashi Tharoor (BBC News, July 22, 2015).

UPDATES: MSNBC Host Flips the Script on Royal Coverage to Document British Colonial Brutality – Tom Boggioni (Raw Story, September 10, 2022).
Not Everyone Mourns the Queen. For Many, She Can’t Be Separated From Colonial Rule – Juliana Kim (NPR News, September 12, 2022).
Dismantle the Commonwealth: Queen Elizabeth’s Death Prompts Reckoning with Colonial Past in Africa – Democracy Now! (September 12, 2022).
The Queen is Dead – Maybe the Monarchy Needs to Die, Too – Barrington M. Salmon (The Washington Informer, September 14, 2022).
The Impacts of Colonialism Outlive the British Queen – Amy Goodman and Denis Moynihan (Democracy Now!, September 15, 2022).
“Racism Is as British as a Cup of Tea”: Kehinde Andrews Says Many Black Britons Don’t Mourn the Queen – Democracy Now! (September 19, 2022).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• “Royal, Yet Servant-Hearted. Regal, Yet Hard-Working. Crowned, Yet Kind”
• Progressive Perspectives on the 2019 British Election
• Resisting the Hand of the Empire
• John Pilger on Resisting Empire
• John le Carré’s “Dark Suspicions”
• Tariq Ali Discusses Rudyard Kipling
• Rock of Ages

Opening image: Troops parade for Queen Elizabeth II as she arrives in Kingston, Jamaica, in 2002. (Photo: PA Images via Getty Images)
Image 2: Photographer unknown.
Image 3: The last official photograph of Queen Elizabeth II. It was taken on Tuesday, September 6 in the Drawing Room at Balmoral Castle.
Image 4: An official portrait comemmorating Queen Elizabeth II’s June 2, 1953 coronation in Westminster Abbey, London.