Um, no. They’re not “defending” her by pointing out the original statement is inaccurate—that’s just correcting misinformation. I mean, I am extremely vocal on this blog about my anti-monarchy views, especially in regard to my distaste for British imperialism as somebody of South Asian descent. But the OP is misleading at best, and just flat out wrong at worst, and I honestly find it kind of offensive that people would disregard the actual, real-life violent history of British imperialism in favour of some half-cocked statement that lets so many responsible parties off the hook for their crimes.
Like, firstly, if you’re really dead set on solely laying the blame for expansion of the British Empire on one single member of the royal family, then that person, without a doubt, should be Queen Victoria. To quote this article, she was the “matriarch of the British Empire,” as well as a major propopent of its expansion. Between 1814 (just 23 years before Victoria ascended the throne) and the heyday of her reign in 1881, the population of the British Empire literally QUINTUPLED in size. By the time she died in 1901, Victoria was ruling over roughly 400 million “subjects,” in British-ruled territory that covered approximately 25% of the globe. It hit its peak in 1919 (7 years before Elizabeth II’s birth) under the reign of George V, after Britain acquired a bunch of German territories under Treaty of Versailles at the end of WWI. By contrast, when Elizabeth took the throne in 1952—about five years after India & Pakistan kicked off a major wave of decolonisation efforts—Britain’s global territory had shrunk by approximately 68%. By 1970, it had decreased even further:
Now, there’s absolutely no disputing that Queen Victoria’s imperialism is part of Queen Elizabeth’s family legacy. That’s true both from a historical and financial perspective, and something about which I am extremely salty! Victoria fucking ransacked India, and today’s royals still have the spoils. If you want to join Desi people in hating Liz & Co. for never giving us our fucking stolen diamond back, be my guest. In fact, we will make you cups of chai and feed you rotis while you bitch about it with us. But saying that Elizabeth II was directly responsible for colonising half ¼ of the globe is not only factually incorrect, but factually incorrect in a way that either outright erases the most devastating periods of British imperialism (if you’re only including events from 1952-present), or effectively absolves the people who actually engineered the violence (if you’re mentally replacing Liz for Vicky). Now, I admittedly have more beef with Queen Victoria, because my grandfather and great-aunties on the Indian side were literally born under her reign (yes, really, I’m old), but even so, it seems weird to just… rewrite the whole thing.
And speaking of absolving people, like… yes, the monarchy is a ridiculous fucking institution built on ill-gotten wealth and oppression of the working classes, no argument from me there. But they are not solely responsible for colonialism, and I don’t like the implication that it was masterminded single-handedly by one figurehead with a crown whose political role is largely ceremonial. Like, first of all, look up the fucking East India Company, an evil-from-the-depths-of-hell-level corporation built on greed and human suffering. They were acting as agents of British imperialism across swathes of Africa and Asia, eons before Queen Victoria was even born. The British government only got dominion over India after they intervened to stop the East India Company from exerting too much political and commercial control. Like, read up on Robert Clive and the Battle of Plassey sometime, and then imagine Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk buying the French army to invade the Indian subcontinent. While we’re talking about ye olden colonising CEOs, ever heard of Cecil Rhodes? Of course, he had a lot of help in fucking over South Africa from the PM, Lord Salisbury. It was actually Disraeli’s idea to confer the title of ‘Empress of India’ on Queen Victoria. It’s estimated that around 3.8 million people died during the 1943 Bengal famine, which was basically the result of a Winston Churchill policy failure. And it was not any monarch, but Secretary of State for the Colonies Joseph Chamberlain, who said “I believe that the British race is the greatest of the governing races that the world has ever seen… It is not enough to occupy great spaces of the world’s surface unless you can make the best of them. It is the duty of a landlord to develop his estate.” Like, yeah fuck the monarchy for the role they played, but don’t act like one single hand-waving, ribbon-cutting inbred royal was the British Empire’s master architect, when this was very much one of history’s worst fucking group projects.
Finally, a smaller correction, but that above “List of sovereign states headed by Elizabeth II” is mostly comprised of former colonies/Commonwealth countries. Now, is the Commonwealth a vestige of Britain’s bygone colonialism? Absolutely, no doubt. But nonetheless, that’s still a list of independent nations with their own governments who—at some point between 1952-present—chose to have the monarch as a state figurehead (albeit not a choice I understand). Also, if you actually look at the chart, it’s presently only a total of 15 countries who still have the monarch as a ceremonial figurehead (including the UK itself, Canada, and Australia). You’ll also note that more than half of these countries have severed ties already, including Barbados, who just became a republic last year (way to go, Barbados!), and I’m hoping that Charles’s relative unpopularity will see more nations follow suit. Still, the point stands: It doesn’t really make sense to post that as “evidence” of the fact that Elizabeth herself was personally responsible for “half the world’s colonisation,” when 1) It only dates back to 1952, well after the peak of the empire 2) None of the nations listed are current British Overseas Territories 3) The linked chart actually shows a decline in independent states using the monarch as a figurehead since the late 1980s. It’s quite literally making the opposite point as intended.
Anyway, as somebody who doesn’t like the monarchy, and thinks a lot about the irrevocable damage wrought by British colonialism, I am begging you guys not to downplay or rewrite its actual history for the sake of a pithy sound-byte on Tumblr dot com. “Queen Elizabeth spent a lifetime benefiting from the spoils of her family’s imperialist endeavours, and may have recently used some of that tainted wealth to help her son pay out a settlement to the woman who publicly accused him of sex trafficking” is a perfectly accurate, and scathingly damning statement; you do not need to rewrite British history to make it sound like the woman personally conquered India with an army of bloodthirsty corgis just to make your point.
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