Article: Time to turn that crown upside down
By donning a second-hand hat, a 74-year-old man is about to become monarch of a small island kingdom.
Sipho Kings in Europe
“You can shove your monarchy up your arse,” sang the supporters of Celtic football club in Glasgow last weekend. It is safe to say that there are few people in Scotland who will be obeying the official exhortation to swear “true allegiance” to their new head of state.
King Charles III is the newest head of an unelected family that has ruled the country and its empire for generations – term limits don’t apply here – and who built their wealth on empire, slavery, mass killings, weaponised rape and the calculated devastation of entire cultures.
British taxpayers will pay $130-million for the pleasure of watching his coronation which just 9% of them “care a great deal” about, according to the latest YouGov poll.
Over the centuries, the British royal family have made Africans – and other imperial subjects – pay a far higher price.
Not that it is easy to pin down the details. While England has records of who lived in what village in 1068, its empire was quick to destroy the histories of those it colonised. These could then be overwritten with Protestant orthodoxy and white exceptionalism, banning things like queer
love, once part of Africa’s cultural fabric.
It has worked hard to forget the details of its past. In Kenya, colonial officials burned 3.5-tonnes of documents that allegedly detailed atrocities by British forces. With their history overwritten, Africans are left rebuilding, and contesting the dominant, Western narrative of Africa as a self-inflicted basket case.
The family that drove this generational
injustice has held on to what it stole, refusing to acknowledge responsibility, or make things right. At this weekend’s coronation, far from hiding its sordid history, the family’s ill-gotten gains will take centre stage.
Charles and his wife will wear crowns with hundreds of precious stones plundered from around the world. The largest, the Star of Africa, is embedded in the royal sceptre, the symbol of his sovereignty over country and commonwealth. It’s the world’s largest diamond, a “gift” in 1905 from South Africa, which England had just conquered.
The blood of Africans flows deep behind the glitter of gold leaf.
As expected, the best reporting on today’s coronation comes from @thecontinent
While many mentioned atrocities are well-known, this part of erased African history is rarely talked about:
”While England has records of who lived in what village in 1068, its empire was quick to destroy the histories of those it colonised. These could then be overwritten with Protestant orthodoxy and white exceptionalism, banning things like queer love, once part of Africas cultural fabric.”
Per Axbom
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