Elizabeth II: Flipsides of a smiling Qeeen

Several days after her recent death at 96, comments which have been flowing in torrents with respect to Queen Elizabeth the Second, fall into an interesting counterpose of two popular expressions on death. In one vein is the universal convention of not speaking evil of the dead, while the other is the famous verse by […]

Several days after her recent death at 96, comments which have been flowing in torrents with respect to Queen Elizabeth the Second, fall into an interesting counterpose of two popular expressions on death. In one vein is the universal convention of not speaking evil of the dead, while the other is the famous verse by William Shakespeare that “the evil that men do lives after them” while “the good is oft interred with their bones”. Taken together, they teach the living to take matters of death from a broad perspective in order to be well grounded in life. It is also against this backdrop that a review of the outpouring of grief laced condolences as well as encomiums on her, when taken along with the non-flattering notes, accentuate the deep ties she established and enjoyed with much of the world, courtesy of the various capacities in which she touched people across continents. 

In a large sense, a preponderance of comments on the departed Queen tally with the official narrative of her reign by the British establishment – which is that of a smiling benevolent monarch, a queen in whom there is no guile; but all smiles, virtue and tranquility.  Yet along with the encomiums are also anti-establishment salvoes that constitute the other leg of the counterpose to the official narrative of her reign, and which provide a welcome balance to her profile as a figure whose role went beyond a titular head of the British government. Meanwhile, within the ambit of the counterpose, are also a potpourri of brainwaves comprising among others factors, the rash of invectives on her person and the British establishment as well as  revisionist tendencies in several former British colonies toward vitiating or terminating the sway of Britain over their internal politics. Specific instances of ‘bad belle’ include the now trending tirade against the queen during her last days on earth by Nigerian born Professor Uju Anya of Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania US. Anya had referred to the late Queen as wearing a crown made of ‘blood diamonds’ and was “directly responsible for the Nigerian Civil War”. Expectedly, Anya’s blast attracted condemnation from ‘establishment friendly’ sources including billionaire Jeff Bezos, whose attack on her was one of the factors that actually triggered the viral spread of her take on the queen.  

Beyond Anya’s incident, there have been several other instances across the world which capture tacit or manifest misgivings and aversion towards the official narrative by the British establishment, and include even demonstrations in the UK itself by anti-royalists and other non-conformists whose hate creed found expression with her demise. This is just as several former colonies of Britain which still retain the British monarch as their Head of State, have been kicking to change the status quo in order to enjoy full political autonomy. 

Ordinarily it is not surprising that different perspectives of leaders should be held by equally different people. This is due to the dynamics of the protocols that drive perception of leaders by various sections of a designated public. Understandably, leaders are usually seen as icons by their followership and thereby constitute the personification of such constituencies. The same must be true for the queen who had creditably served as the icon of the British establishment for 70 years, leaving for further interrogation, the extent to which she could have influenced the course of British politics. Can it be said that a British monarch will remain a passenger or mere pawn in a government which is notionally established in his or her name?   

Meanwhile from lessons of history, the extent to which the British monarchy and the government has been a matter of significant public interest. Against the proclivity of the British government to engage routinely in viciousness in advancing its expansionist engagements and domination of the world, it constitutes an antithesis to represent such a system with a smiling queen. In that context therefore the scathing comments by Anya and her co-travelers fit into context. For behind the disarming smile of the Queen lie in perpetual killing formation, the bare fangs of a formidable killing machine that is the British power establishment. 

Hence while it may be attractive to blame the queen for the atrocities of the British government as the monarch and Head of State, discretion would have favoured a recognition of the flipsides of her routine life of shifting roles between the monarch as a person and as the head of a political system where personal idiosyncrasies and proclivities hardly override the imperatives of national interest.

With respect to Anya’s thesis on the queen wearing a crown of ‘blood diamonds’, not much can be removed from the argument given the history of Great Britain as a conquering and mindless scavenger on the patrimony of subdued peoples. However such is not the same for the argument that the Queen was responsible for the Nigerian Civil War. This second argument requires further interrogation given the wide complement of factors that led to the Nigerian Civil War of 1967–1970.