The crown and the colony

The queen of the United Kingdom died more than a week ago. News of her worsening health had been lingering for a while; she withdrew from some of the platinum jubilee celebrations to take rest, and did not participate in many public events.

Last week, however, things suddenly appeared more ominous when various members of her immediate family were seen rushing to Balmoral Castle in Scotland, where she was staying. When Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the British monarchy’s currently controversial couple, rushed to Scotland, it appeared imminent that the long reign of Queen Elizabeth was about to be over.

The aftermath of the queen’s death, at the age of 96, has been both expected and unexpected. The pomp and fanfare of the British monarchy continues to endure, at least in the attention it gets from the international media. Even before the queen was dead, there were live broadcasts from the gates of Balmoral Castle, and everything that happened after was covered minute by minute.

The sheer length of her reign means there is no dearth of dramatic moments to memorialise and mourn, and the week of media coverage appears to have covered each one. Not soon after the queen’s passing, Prince Charles, cooling his heels no more, was crowned King Charles III and was finally able to deliver the coronation address he must have rehearsed for over half a century. The British media and their American mimics made much of the fact that the British could once again sing “God Save the King” — you know... because there was once again a king.

Those, however, were the expected goings-on of the official narrative, one in which the British monarchy was still regaled as having brought railroads and civilisation to the rest of the world. That world is no more, transformed as it has been by the emergence of social media, whose tentacles allow even the most ordinary of opinions, that at the very least have the possibility of ruining a king’s day, to be aired.

On those digital streets belonging to the world’s plebeians, where there are no borders and the entry fee is a WiFi connection, there were immediate rumbles of discontent. It was all very well the British wished to mourn their queen and sing praises of the unifying character of their monarchy, this view held; but they could not expect similar adulation by the rest of a world that had markedly different memories of her reign.

On Thursday, even before the queen was officially declared dead, Nigerian-American Professor Uju Anya posted: “I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating.” Later, Anya in a second tweet said: “If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star.”

Dawn