The present is about reinterpreting the history we have been taught. The black subjects of that history have been silent about the orthodoxy that continues to print and teach that history.
The death of Queen Elizabeth II has brought about a global moment to mourn the monarch and to challenge the historical interpretation of her era by the media and institutions of learning.
It is also a challenge to the average citizen, who holds views that are either filled with a historical nostalgia or just uncritical endorsement of the British monarch.
Queen Elizabeth’s personal decency seems at odds with the unjust history associated with her crown.
Our own apartheid history lies deeply rooted in South Africa’s relationship with the dominant narrative of the time – that the colonial powers were a civilising force within the savage colonies and that indigenous people needed the leadership and control of the colonial powers to advance themselves.
The many stories of the Queen’s government’s role in promoting the supremacy of its people and institutions and co-opting indigenous people into servile roles to advance British interests are well known.
From India to Ireland and Kenya to South Africa, about 53 countries become colonies of England and had its wealth fuel the English economy, its people in indentured servitudes, its historical artefacts fill the great British museums and its land given to British settlers.
With the political empire largely dismantled through national independence movements within the former colonies, there is one fundamental issue that remains unresolved – that of the media still portraying Britain as a beneficial empire and that the violent deaths, beheadings, slavery, oppression and asset stripping do not require an apology nor reparations.
In Elizabeth’s sad death, her decency is undermined by her protocol-induced silence about the devastating and destabilising effects of colonialism. It appears that her own decent convictions might have died a slow death under the weight of a British government, business, academia and, sadly, the settlers still living in luxury in the former colonies, who all exacted a lucrative life from these exploitative constructs.
The revision of colonial history must be tackled head-on by the media. Now is the time for a corrected narrative on the history of Elizabeth II.
Not doing so would continue to perpetuate the skewed narratives of beneficial colonialism and skip the pages of its gross atrocities, committed in the name of the empire.
The most used phrase I have come across on social media platforms over the past 72 hours is, “Have some respect” when a revisionist approach to the history of Queen Elizabeth II’s life is mentioned.
Therefore the beneficiaries of colonialism continue to create this silent, generational trauma where indigenous people – largely black – are not allowed to think, cry, write or anguish over their enslavement, torture, imprisonment and executed relatives, all in the name of the empire.
And that silence once again looks to the new British king for the acknowledgement, apology and reparations that should follow the end of the colonial era.
The difficulty with revisionist history is knowing which lens the past must be viewed through.
For in many cases, the exit of colonial powers introduced many barbaric indigenous counterparts, graduates from the school of colonialism, that continued to exploit indigeneity and prototyped their leadership on the principles of colonial regality and exploitation.
The ignominy or celebration of one’s legacy is wrapped up in one’s bravery to correct history. South Africa would do well to note this.
* Lorenzo A Davids.
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.
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