God judge the Queen

Fungi Kwaramba-Political Editor

“I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong,” these were the words of the now late Queen Elizabeth II while she was holidaying in South Africa in 1947.

Her sojourn to the continent, then firmly under the clutches of the British, had also taken her to Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

 “As I speak to you today from Cape Town, I am 6 000 miles from the country where I was born. But I am certainly not 6 000 miles from home. Everywhere I have travelled in these lovely lands of South Africa and Rhodesia my parents, my sister and I have been taken to the heart of their people and made to feel that we are just as much at home here as if we had lived among them all our lives” she said.

Her people were not natives, nay they were the colonisers, the white supremacists, those who had curved for the continent among themselves, and for 70 years, a long life for that. 

Queen Elizabeth II was a symbol of the British colonial rule, warts and all.

When she made the speech she was only 21 in April 1947. 

Four years later she would succeed her father, as the symbol of aggression, violence, plunder and all the evils that slavery, colonialism, and even post-colonialism on the African continent and indeed lands afar that suffered under the British brutal rule.

Thus even though a wave of sadness swept the globe when Queen Elizabeth II died at the age of 96 last Thursday, with many remembering her enduring human qualities such as grace, power, and longevity, the feeling was never universal. 

It must never be such for she symbolised the barbarism that not only burdened Africa for centuries, but also looted resources, including the throne she wore till her demise.

For Zimbabwe, and its neighbouring countries, the queen was the poster girl of exploitation, who even after many years on the throne never apologised for the crimes committed by the crown.

Therefore, there is a danger of romanticising the legacy of the monarchy, while her human attributes are worth the while. 

She set at the helm of an empire that perpetuated colonisation, racism and the suppression of independence movements.

During her long life, she had the opportunity to atone for her family colonial past, to protect Africans from colonial excesses as wrought by Ian Smith, a firmer believer in the monarchy and the British empire.

During her long reign she could have returned stolen bones of our own chiefs like Chinengundu, skulls that were taken as trophies to the queen’s court. 

Queen Elizabeth II never did enough to push for reparations that remain due to the formerly colonised states that to date fed her coffers fat.

The British Natural History Museum has a collection of 20 000 human remains taken by the colonialists during the romanticised British imperial heydays, which the late queen vowed to protect, but never, even after 70 years in power, apologised about.

Yeah, the British empire thrived on violence, theft, and oppression. 

On the pinnacle of that system for a peerless 70 years was the now late Queen Elizabeth II who was perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the evil racial system that today finds form and expression through punitive measures such as illegal sanctions that are imposed on countries that dare express their sovereignty through the control of God-given resources such as land.

For a bit of perspective, Queen Elizabeth II was not a relic of imperialism and colonialism, instead, she was an active participant, who like many of her vainglorious compatriots, sort to delay the inevitable independence of colonised nations.

To this date, when nationalism is yet again finding expression, albeit in former colonisers backyards, it is perhaps remiss that there are 14 territories that remain under the British latch.

For Zimbabwe, which has endured baneful sanctions for more than two decades the queen remains a figurehead of the brutality that Zimbabweans, Africans, and the rest of the colonised world under the British suffered.

The crown worn by the queen is nothing, but a shameless parade of stolen riches from the colonies, not least Africa where the largest uncut diamond at 3,106 carats, adorns the both the crown and the sceptre which is a little more than one pound.

The stones that make up the Cullinan diamond are valued in total at US$2 billion, no price of guessing that all this was stolen from Africa.

Of course, it is a delicate task to balance respect for the dead and reckoning their past transgressions, whether by commission or omission. 

Such a task is indeed beyond our realm and comprehension as mere mortals; it is thus for that reason it can only be God who judges the English queen.

As Africans, we condole the grieving British family in the spirit of Ubuntu, we grieve with those in grief, as it is the humane thing to do, but we will never forget the legacy that the British Queen left. 

We will never forget that our own kings and queens were hanged by the Royal Family’s emissaries. 

We will never forget that today Zimbabwe groans under the yoke of sanctions for restoring land to the black majority, something that was considered an affront by the Britons.

Queen Elizabeth II never raised her voice against the suffering of ordinary Zimbabweans as a result if these illegal sanctions.

The trouble is she could, but she never did. God judge the Queen.