Global Issues
Queen Elizabeth: Are The Condolence Messages Not Enough? -By Abdulkadir Salaudeen
States across the globe, irrespective of their views of the Queen as villain or heroine, sent their condolences. This is conventional and in line with international best practices. Nigeria, a former colony of the British Empire, followed suit. This is in order and commendable. But Nigerian Government, as if the condolence message is not enough, went further to order its flags to fly at half-mast.
The Queen has gone to the land of no return. That she is virtuous or a vulture depends on how you interpret and understand history; and also how you are affected by her history and the history of her ancestors. Wherever you stand on the spectrum of the debate, what is glaring is that Queen Elizabeth wielded an enormous power and is very influential having spent 70 years on throne—years that spanned across three generations. That is the longest period that any woman leader, empress, or Queen had spent on throne in recorded history.
But the fact that a leader is influential does not mean they are virtuous. Some were ‘great’ by the circumstance of history but not great in the real sense. Michael Hart makes allusion to this in his The 100: A Ranking of the most Influential Persons in History. He wrote: “I must emphasize that this is a list of the most influential persons in history, not a list of the greatest. For example, there is room in my list for an enormously influential, wicked, and heartless man like Stalin, but no place at all for the saintly Mother Cabrini.” It is in this light that I consider the Queen being very influential.
Before Hart, the Qur’an recognizes Fir’aun (Pharaoh) as an influential king and he will continue to be remembered for the atrocities he committed against humanity. We read in Qur’an 28 v 4: “Indeed, Pharaoh exalted himself in the land and made his people into factions, oppressing a sector among them, slaughtering their (newborn) sons, and keeping their females alive. Indeed, he was of the corrupters.”
While Pharaoh oversaw the killing of the newborn of his time, slavers and colonialists masterminded not only the killing of newborn in their colonies but the killing of all categories of people. They raped, enslaved, dehumanized our ancestors; pillaged our resources, corrupted our leaders, shattered the existing unity and thus created unbridgeable cleavages among the various ethnic groups. They, afterwards, handed over to us a disoriented and disjointed economy.
Some, in an attempt to whitewash the stinking stain of colonialism off the Queen, argued that she did not participate in the ugly act of colonialism but her ancestors did. That is, considering the time of her enthronement in 1952. They further argued that she rather midwifed the transition of many colonies to independence. This argument is not only disingenuous, it is lame, flawed, baseless and ahistorical. Rather, she became Queen when the agitation for independence had gathered such a momentum with an unbearable heat that unseated the colonialists. It should be remembered that Indian got her independence in 1947 and many colonies were on the verge.
To set the record straight and demolish this romantic view, most colonies, including Nigeria, got their independence mostly in the late 1950s and in the 1960s despite the Queen not because of her. Plus, what independence are we even talking about? It is a celebratory independence—a calculative jamboree which was meant to keep erstwhile colonies colonized after de-colonization. This is phony and pathetic. An African proverb says it all: “You don’t give someone a goat for a gift and still hold on to the rope.” This is the exact similitude of the independence the Queen handed over to her colonies in Africa.
The history of Queen Elizabeth will continue to be narrated alongside the atrocities of colonialism (if not slavery). And why not even slavery? If her era did not witness slavery on a large scale, those of her ancestors did. European enslavement(or if you like Atlantic slave trade) is one of the most horrible calamities that stroke Africa and the Africans. Though this dehumanization (slavery) occurred elsewhere, I am writing as an African.
A voyage into the history of slavery and colonialism always leaves one with rancor. It is flabbergasting that any living African on earth, and specifically black African, express sadness over the death of the Queen. Could this be as a result of our ignorance of history or negligence of history? More than a decade ago, in the company of others, I led some students on an excursion to the Badagry Slave Trade Museums in Lagos were relics of slavery were kept. There, before our eyes, were the original chains and manacles with which our forefathers were shackled.
The small and unventilated rooms with very small holes (called windows) in which they were kept in waiting for European slave masters/buyers immediately stirred a gushing of involuntary and uncontrollable flood of tears. It is the height of cruelty of human to human. The infamous ‘point of no return’ is better read in book than shown in reality. The modern version of this cruelty (slavery) is what we call colonialism and neo-colonialism which the Queen represents throughout her life.
Against this background, Uju Anya, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the US, addressed the Queen in the ugliest term for which she received many backlashes and accolades. She tweeted “I heard the chief monarch of a thieving r*ping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating.” Anya’s unsavory characterization of the empire is nothing new. The timing of her tweet and her wish for the dying Queen is what is condemned.
But why do we even blame Anya? Is she not expressing her freedom of speech which democracy encourages? She has only paid them in their democratic coin. To punish Anya, by the West democratic standard, will amount to injustice. That is why the university where she teaches, even if it was not happy with her tweet as she claimed, has no case against her.
States across the globe, irrespective of their views of the Queen as villain or heroine, sent their condolences. This is conventional and in line with international best practices. Nigeria, a former colony of the British Empire, followed suit. This is in order and commendable. But Nigerian Government, as if the condolence message is not enough, went further to order its flags to fly at half-mast. This is condemnable in my considered view. This is a country which is supposed to be in perpetual mourning mood with its flags permanently flown at half-mast to mourn the death of its citizens who are mercilessly killed by bandits on daily basis. Instead of mourning the avoidable death of its citizen, it went out of its way in its mourning of the Queen.
To add salt to injury, our President wants to be praised for his ‘excellent’ performance. Hmm! Our leaders have probably outdone the colonialists in their ruthlessness. Their affection for colonialism and the colonialists is reflected in the disdain they have for the masses and the way they govern. They are agent of Western capitalists.
Anyway, the outgoing Kenyan Government of President Uhuru Kenyatta surpassed her Nigerian counterpart by declaring four days of national mourning for the late Queen. Now I realize it is not yet Uhuru. Africans, with this kind of leaders and mentality, have a long way to go. Though we are not literally shackled like the ugly days of slavery but how can we be free with this kind of mental slavery?
What is funnier is an attempt to link Queen Elizabeth to Prophet Muhammad (SAW). Though the claim that she was a Prophet’s descendant isn’t new, her death only resuscitates the old theory. Why do people peddle fairytales unnecessarily? Could this explain why a Muslim Yemeni, after the death of the Queen, embarked on an idiotic ‘Umrah (a lesser pilgrimage) on her behalf? It is high time we stopped this stupidity. Rather than being a Prophet’s descendant, the Queen represents white supremacism, white narcissism, and colonialism. By this article, I join others to say adieu to Queen Elizabeth.
Abdulkadir Salaudeen
