Queen Elizabeth II was the longest reigning British monarch, and the greatest of all non-executive monarchs. By this I mean monarchs who held little political power, which were all monarchs since King George I, a German, who came to the British throne in 1714. His main (only?) credential for the throne was that he was a Protestant. The second-longest reigning monarch was Queen Victoria, who was the worst non-executive one.
Victoria, a bigoted woman, ruled over the most vulgar, racist, and acquisitive stage of the British Empire. Elizabeth, liberal, modest, and tolerant, ruled over the decline of the British Empire and did so with grace, skill, humility, and charm. She was a wonderful woman. She died last week at the age of 96. Her oldest son will now become King Charles III.
Like so many others, I feel two things. On the one hand I feel a creepy sense of history. Simply looking at names is enough to bring on a bit of a shiver. Consider Charles III. Look what happened to Charles I. Think of the rule of Charles II. How about Elizabeth I? On the other, I feel the queen has always been part of my life and her death makes me feel an almost personal loss, as if I am now a political orphan. I am about the same age as Charles (I’m five months older) although, apart from that, I have nothing in common with him except British birth and a common revulsion at the hideous modern architecture that has blighted so much of London. Charles once described the new National Gallery as a “monstrous carbuncle” and said of the National Theatre that “it seems like a clever way of building a nuclear power station in the middle of London.” A bit of an insult to Koeberg but I agree entirely with his sentiments.
A pity he talks such awful nonsense about climate change and has such goofy ideas on almost every contemporary green fashion. More of a pity is that he is not more like his noble and sensible mother, who kept most of her own ideas to herself. But let’s see how he does now that he has a real job at last – at the age of 73. (His mother got the job at the age of 25.)
I listened with interest to radio callers-in on their views about the death of the Queen. Many of them said they felt “entirely indifferent” about her passing. They were obviously seething with emotion, and it would be interesting to know why. Many condemned her simply for being a British Monarch, and therefore heir to the British Empire and Commonwealth. Many criticised her for not having apologised about the wrongs of British colonialism. I’d be interested to know what wrongs they want her to apologise for.
In my view colonialism is always wrong. The British were wrong to colonise Africa. They were wrong to bring writing, railways, electricity, modern science and technology, Christianity, rugby, soccer, cricket, and the English language to Africa. They should have left Africa alone. Their policy of unite and rule was absent minded and wrong. They forced together completely different African nations (also called “tribes”) within the same colonial borders. South Africa is a prime example. Is this what the callers want her to apologise for? Do they want South Africa, for example, to tear down her colonial borders and allow free entry to everybody in Africa?
Slavery
Consider slavery. Slavery has existed for tens of thousands of years in every continent on Earth, especially Africa. Thousands of years before the white men came, black African businessmen had been making a fortune by capturing blacks of other tribes and selling them into slavery to other black African businessmen, and later to Arab slave traders, who castrated the male slaves and sent them off to the Middle East. The Europeans came along in about the 16th Century and bought black African slaves from black African slave dealers to sell them across the Atlantic to slave owners in the Americas. It was a lucrative business for both black and white slave exploiters. In 1833, the British imperialists banned slavery throughout their empire. Black African slave traders were horrified and sent deputations to London to protest. Should Queen Elizabeth have apologized for Britain’s continuing the traditional black African business of slave trading or for banning it?
The greatest wound that the British inflicted on black Africa was to rob it of pride in the most important part of its culture: its languages. The wicked British tricked innocent Africans into thinking that their own beautiful languages were primitive and crude and that they should all speak English. They should make English the national language and teach and learn in English. The most arrogant English imperialist of all, Cecil John Rhodes, wanted English to become the universal language. Should Elizabeth have apologized for this cultural racism? When she visited South Africa, should she have said, “We apologise for forcing English on black South Africans. Please now feel free to revert to African languages. Please let the Universities of Cape Town and the Witwatersrand teach in Sotho, Zulu and Xhosa.”
Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1952. By that time, India and Pakistan were already independent, and Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African country to become independent in 1957. Others followed quickly. The British Empire became – in an ill-defined way – the British Commonwealth, and then just the Commonwealth. The British Empire had been acquired in a fitful and illogical way, without any clear purpose or plan or ideology, a combination of national pride, competition with European rivals, financial gain, missionary zeal, adventure for ambitious young men and pure accident. The way it disintegrated was equally arbitrary and inconsistent.
For almost all African countries, life for ordinary black people was worse after independence than before, and many disintegrated into tribal bloodshed and economic ruin. The Queen travelled graciously around Africa, speaking in her sympathetic way to African leaders. As far as I know she never criticised any of them for their corruption or despotism. The African leaders who had fought against British colonial rule nearly all adopted English as their official language and nearly all wanted to be part of the British Commonwealth. The outstanding exception were the Boers of South Africa, who wanted their own language, Afrikaans, and were eager to be out of the Commonwealth and freed from all British culture – except rugby. The Queen apparently urged her prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, to apply sanctions on apartheid South Africa. This was just about the only political opinion she ever openly expressed. (I think she was quite wrong. Sanctions had the effect of prolonging apartheid, making it more difficult for reformers such as F W de Klerk, and playing into the hands of hardline Afrikaner nationalists.) The fall of the British Empire was a tremendous relief for England. Most African colonies had probably been a drain on England and most ordinary British people wanted nothing to do with Africa. But the Queen, loved by her people, had a different view.
Monarchy versus republicanism
There are some good arguments for monarchy rather than republicanism, and some bad. A bad argument is that monarchy, since it is hereditary, ensures the claim of the new ruler without the destructive contests for power than happen in republics. Actually, the worst contests for power in history have come from different claimants for the hereditary crown fighting bloody wars amongst each other, such as the War or the Roses in England or the War of Spanish Succession. A good argument for a constitutional monarch is not the power she has but the power she denies politicians. Better that the aura and status of the head of state goes to a hereditary monarch than a politician.
Britain has no written constitution, which might be good or bad, and I don’t think anybody knows just what powers the Queen really had. A British military leader was asked what he would do if he were faced with the prospect of nuclear war and the Prime Minister had been killed, and he had to decide whether to launch nuclear missiles and start World War III. He replied, “I’d have to ask the boss.” He was referring to Queen Elizabeth II.
The Queen herself was a marvellous woman. The same cannot be said by most of the rest of her royal family, by birth or by marriage. I thought Diana was a silly and trivial woman, and that the Queen was much maligned by her treatment of her after her death. I am glad that the next queen is Camilla rather than Diana. Of Andrew, the least said the better. Of the ghastly Meghan, if nothing more is heard of her it will be a blessed relief. William, Charles’s oldest son, next in line I assume, seems a decent sort.
This was my closest approach to Queen Elizabeth. We were on a long holiday in England in 1956, when I was eight. We were staying with relatives in some little town in the south and heard that the Queen would soon be passing by on some sort of royal visit to somewhere. We waited at the roadside, and sure enough her little cavalcade came past us and she waved at us from about 10 metres. That’s the nearest I’ve ever got to a monarch except for a brief chat to Prince Buthelezi, whose ancestors were treated abominably by the British. I’m sure she would have been happy to apologise to Buthelezi about that.
Now there is King Charles III and Prime Minister Mary Elizabeth Truss – a singular combination. Let’s hope for the best, and mourn for the sweet, gentle and wise soul who ruled Britain for 70 years.
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR
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