Bobby Kunhu
Many of us aren’t grieving a head of state, but rather grieving truth as we watch history be rewritten right before our eyes. – Brea Baker
I bear no ill will towards Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, known as Queen Elizabeth II, the ruler of 15 sovereign nations at the time of her death as a person. In fact, neither her life nor death had any impact on me or my life or my concerns beyond what it means to political discourse and the zeitgeist. But I do bear ill will particularly towards—liberals who were reveling in the archaic and feudatory spectacle on display across the United Kingdom for the last ten days; watched according to these self-congratulating monarchy enthusiasts, by billions across the world but in my estimate, at least millions. And I do bear ill will towards the institution of monarchy.
The proud statement of one of the Sky TV commentators at the funeral procession captures the problematic of the entire spectacle and the monarchy itself. He said that the British as a people were proud of the more than 1000-year history leading to this spectacle. That begs the question, what and who are proud of this history. And most importantly, what is this 1000-year-old history. In the past 1000 years, the British monarchy has overseen cruel feudalism, the crusades, violent anti-Semitism, patricide, fratricide, sororicide, matricide, uxoricide, pedophilia, slavery, genocide, torture – in fact the list would include every reprehensible act that human beings have come to loathe universally. The Church of England cut ties with Rome, not for any lofty principles against Catholic hegemony like the Protestant movements, but to facilitate Henry VIII to annul his marriage with Catherine, so he could marry Anne Boleyn. These crimes were committed not only during the medieval period, but even later. The ethnocide of North American natives was started and went on from 16CE onwards and continues till date – and we may well remember that Canada, which is another nation state built on ethnocide is one of the realms of the crown. And it was more recently, during the reign of George III, a direct ancestor of the deceased Queen that the International Law principle of Res Nullius (a principle that allows a land that is unpopulated to be occupied by anyone and assert sovereignty) was fraudulently invoked to annex Australia and clean the land of its original inhabitants, making it a prisoner colony. The equally cruel colonialism was overseen by almost the entire ancestry of Queen Elizabeth and even during her regime – for instance, the brutal thirty-year conflict in Northern Ireland, Falkland Wars, Mau Mau Rebellion, the occupation of Palestine and so on.
The royalty has also epitomized racism throughout its history up until this century. They managed their imagined purity of bloodline through incestuous marriages, so much so, that Prince Philip was Queen Elizabeth’s third cousin. All the European Royalty that assembled at Westminster Abbey were related to the deceased Queen. It wasn’t just marriages that mattered to the British royalty, but also who could work with them. Unearthed documents have revealed that the Queen ensured that coloured immigrants or foreigners cannot be employed at the Buckingham Palace, except as domestic servants!
The argument can be made that the Queen is only a Constitutional Monarch and therefore a de jure head of the state. To understand this better, we need to take a deviation to understand the history of Constitutional Monarchy in the United Kingdom. Constitutional Monarchy was ushered in only after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, when James II & VII, King of England, Scotland and Ireland was deposed and replaced by his daughter Mary II and her husband William III of Orange, promulgation of the Bill of Rights (An Act Declaring the Rights and Liberties of the Subject and Settling the Succession of the Crown) in 1689 and the Act of Settlement of 1701. Nonetheless, the power and influence of the monarch over the elected officials and the peerage over the House of Commons decreased only over time. Queen Elizabeth’s Great Grandmother, Victoria was known to have had strong political views and also influenced politics. However, irrespective of all this, the monarchy is emblematic of all the past crimes, personal and political that gives it the wealth and privileges it enjoys today.
The maxim Rex Non-Potest Peccare (King can do no wrong) is only applicable to the sovereign and not to her family members. This principle is also applicable in many republics including India. However, the difference is that in a republic, the ultimate sovereignty rests with the people and the representative sovereign isn’t chosen for her heredity. Moreover, the principle is applicable only for the duration of the person holding office and isn’t applicable to her family members. Not that the royalty is made accountable for crimes today as well. Let us take the case of Prince Andrew, whether he is guilty of child sex trafficking and/or pedophilia is something for the judiciary to decide. Despite being accused of child sex trafficking and pedophilia, the prince refuses to stand trial, the British government subtly protects him, and the US doesn’t seek his extradition for diplomatic reasons.
Again for all the grandstanding on secularism and separation of religion from the state, by the simple fact that the British sovereign is coronated also as the “Defender of Faith”, by the Arch Bishop of Canterbury – whose power derives from a former British monarch, Henry VIII’s desire to annul his marriage with Catherine – s/he is bound by a 320-year-old law (Act of Settlement) to practice Anglican Christianity, whether personally s/he believes in it or not, if s/he has to keep the crown. This would become even more complex if s/he isn’t a heterosexual – as the Church of England, though it allows same sex unions, it has limitations set upon its clergy – where they have to remain celibate and aren’t allowed to become Bishops (case of Jeffrey John). So, for a system that forced Edward VIII to abdicate the throne because the Church then didn’t allow marrying a divorcee with a living spouse, it would force queer royals to either abdicate or repress their sexuality.
Most of the progressive political direction towards constitutionalism, rights and liberties during these thousand odd years that the Sky TV commentator is so proud of, happened in spite of and in opposition to the Monarchy, be it the Magna Carta (rights wrested by the nobility) or the glorious revolution. The monarchy never has had a history of having ceded its power voluntarily. Let us take two illustrations. Queen Victoria liked to be woken up to the tune of bagpipes – and we must remember that the first Gramophone would be invented only by 1887, towards the end of her reign – and after a trip to Scotland appointed a Piper to the Sovereign in 1843, who would play for 15 minutes under her window every morning, wherever she was residing. Even after Alexa and the latest technology that the Royals definitely would have access to, the Piper to the Sovereign still continues on the payroll. Similarly, the Royal Bargemaster and the Royal Watermen, who were responsible for transporting the sovereign through the Thames before water transport was motorized, are still on the payroll ceremonially and stand in the foredeck of the modern motorized barges that carry the royalty in full uniform, when the sovereign travels by the river.
Apart from the argument that the monarchy symbolizes much of the horrors of human history, particularly in the realms that they rule(d) (like any monarchy), it also militantly agitates against all ideologies that are liberal – including capitalism. To be proud of such a history is an advocacy of all things humanly abhorrent.
Coming to the funeral itself, it must be the most elaborate and expensive exercise for an individual in the history of human civilization. The details of the funeral have been planned since the 1960s code named Operation London Bridge and has been rehearsed to a fault. The preparation was seen in the result and the entire ten-day long exercise went without a hitch. Except for Joe and Jill Biden, all the international guests were taken to the Westminster Abbey by bus – here too the Royalty from abroad had better buses. But what was noteworthy is that from the little I saw of the funeral and the photographs; the mourners were uniformly white. The argument that could be made out in this regard is that Britain has an 87.1% white population and therefore it is only natural that the public would be predominantly white. I repeat that I couldn’t spot a single person of color among the crowd and the white mourners also heckled Megan Markle. The argument also exposes the racist and colonial underbelly that built the British empire, wherein the empire built all its wealth from coloured people and even exported people to large tracts of land in Australia and North America, while maintaining its own racial integrity.
The security detail for the funeral is estimated to be a minimum of 7.5 million Pound Sterling and is supposedly the biggest policing exercise ever undertaken in Britain (perhaps the world). The cost of the ten-day long pageantry apparently cannot be estimated when one third of the citizens of the commonwealth nations (most of whom were former colonies) don’t have access to primary education and 60% of HIV infected people live in these countries. The United Kingdom, itself, as reported by the Guardian, one day before the Queen’s demise, speculated that poverty is expected to increase from 13.9 million to 16.65 million this December, while the liberal commentators were busy appreciating the diamond brooches and jewelry worn by the Royalty and estimating their costs – to assert the power of the monarchy.
The pomp and splendor aren’t merely show just because the royalty has money or as a reminder of the dark past of the region – it has a larger use. To erase memories of the real past, to display awe that would distract from real issues and assert power to extract obedience and subservience to the current status quo.
The liberal commentators’ hypocrisy is stark. For instance, the British Broadcasting Corporation that made a documentary “Decadence and Downfall” criticizing the 2500-year Celebration of the Persian Empire hosted by the Shah of Iran had no problems celebrating the 1000 odd year decadence at display in London. The very commentators that are critical of Grand Ayattollahs have no problem with hereditary kings and queens – the comparison is because of the fact that both are linked to religions.
Epilogue
- This kind of pageantry and feudalism, irrespective of location – geographic, religious, racial, gendered or caste is reprehensible.
- This is not a comment or reflection on the effects of colonialism – particularly in India – which is a much more complex subject in how it affected Dalit-Bahujans both in empowering and disempowering them.
- I distance myself from the savarna Nationalist clamour regarding declaring mourning for the late Queen. India is a founder member of the Commonwealth of Nations and it is part of its diplomatic role and responsibility to mourn the death of the de jure head of the Commonwealth.
“There’s never a bad time ever to talk about oppression… Someone passing away doesn’t suddenly absolve them of the things that they’ve done, especially if they didn’t do anything to correct the ways they’ve harmed people or benefitted from harm unaddressed while they were living.” – Frederick T. Joseph
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Bobby Kunhu is a lawyer, researcher and writer.
Meme courtesy: the internet.
