Queen Elizabeth and Her Legacy: Honorable or Condemnable?

Queen Elizabeth II passed away September 8th of this year and, as expected, there was an outpour of varying emotions globally. Within the U.K, mourners of Her Majesty gathered around Buckingham Palace, shedding tears and exchanging silence. On the day of the Queen’s funeral, the country essentially shut down, with the closing of schools, many businesses, and the London Stock Exchange. However, the response online has been something entirely different. 

Of course, there are a number of people who have taken to social media to express their grief following the Queen’s passing. But on all social media platforms, specifically Twitter, it has been more common for users to poke fun at the Queen’s death. This looks like creating memes, posting humorous videos, and developing jokes, all with the passing of the Queen as the punchline. A tweet that struck a nerve with Twitter themselves was Carnegie Mellon University’s professor Uju Anya tweeting ‘I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating’. The tweet caused quite a stir, resulting in  Twitter taking down the tweet , but only after it had accumulated thousands of retweets. The difference in how Twitter users chose to mourn is an indicator of a deeper conflict: how do we properly mourn Queen Elizabeth II? 

Many Britons and worldwide supporters of the British monarchy feel a loyalty to the Queen and believe it’s their responsibility to keep her reign remembered and respected. However, the brutality of British colonialism and imperialism is a legacy that cannot be forgotten. Within hours after her death was announced, a thread full of pictures and videos detailing Queen Elizabeth’s ruthless rule over South Yemen in the 1950s went viral. South Yemen was a strategic British colony for 129 years. The British seized Aden, a city in Yemen, in 1839, wanting to take control of its convenient location and valuable ports. The Queen ruled over South Yemen as a colony and made sure that native Yeminis were out of the public eye while Britons moved around as if it was their own land. In 1963, the Yemini people were rebelling against British colonialism and, with the little resources available to them, tried to stand up for their rights. The thread contained videos of Yemini men being beaten by armed British troops as a result of the Queen ordering her troops to ‘violently suppress any and all dissent as fiercely as possible’. Some of the men in the pictures and videos have lived and grown old just to see the same British bombs and intelligence still being used against them today. The colonization of Yemen is one of many in British colonial history, and those aware of these atrocities are taking the Queen’s death as an opportunity to make sure people know who they are really mourning. Yeminis are making it known that, if anyone should be mourned, it is those whose lives were stolen and brutalized at the hands of the empire; those who died martyrs to the genocidal structures that hold up the crown. 

Discourse over the monarchy’s proposed self-serving nature is amplified as news reporting network AJPlus reports that the UK is projected to spend an estimated nine million dollars on Queen Elizabeth’s funeral,  despite research showing that the U.K is coming close to a recession and significantly increased living costs.  have also shown that over two million people in the U.K cannot afford to eat every day, which implies that the country is not providing adequate support to their residents, while they splurge on an event for one royal individual Although many have come to terms with the reality of the British Empire’s past and present, the world collectively wonders what is to come in the future. Just two days after his mother passed away, King Charles III was proclaimed monarch at St. James Palace in London. With King Charles’ claim of the throne, Britons and people all over the world are already eager to know the legacy he will leave. Where will England go from here? Will the monarchy write a new name for itself and rightfully attend to the needs of the British people? Or will it continue its legacy of dehumanization and remain unable to cleanse the blood off of its hands? Only time will tell. 

Laila Trii is a senior at The Young Women’s Leadership School of Astoria in New York. She is actively working to grow her understanding of politics and the vitality of youth’s voices within it. She plans to study political science within university and is excited to be contributing to the rich discourse NGP makes possible.