What The British Empire Did To Black People Around the World
King Charles’s coronation was yesterday, May 6, 2023, and millions of people watched it on TV. Thousands of people in England lined the streets to watch his gold carriage go by and all members of the Royal family were there including Prince Harry who flew from California to be there. He flew right back to California which I think was the best thing for him to do as he was not allowed to be involved in the coronation at all. He sat in the third row at Westminster Abbey and wasn’t even allowed to stand on the balcony with the rest of the Royal family which was such a pity. Who knows, maybe his book "Spare" should have been published after the coronation. He might have received better treatment.
Prince Harry has given up many things that meant a lot to him including his relationships with his father, brother and other family members because of how Meghan was treated by his family, the establishment and the tabloids. I absolutely believe a husband should defend his wife at all times but to leave the only country you have known your whole life, the country you were born in, the country you grew up in, the country you proudly defended as a soldier of the British army...I don’t know. One thing is sure, Prince Harry did what he did to protect his wife and he should be applauded for that. He’s living in California now, a state probably half of America can’t stand because of the high taxes, multiple regulations, unsettling earthquakes, undeniable fakeness (especially in LA) and much more. People are leaving California in droves! I hope things work out for Prince Harry and Megan.
Anyway enough about Prince Harry, let’s talk about King Charles! His coronation was yesterday and he is now King Charles III. He inherited quite a lot from the queen as her heir. He’s not required to pay any taxes at all while the rest of the British public have to pay 40% tax which of course is very high especially when 1 in 5 of the British population live in poverty. It’s been reported that the coronation cost approximately £100 million ($190 million).
Yes, King Charles is the head of the British Empire but it was the British Empire that used violence to maintain power. That’s the truth and not many people know that. Colonists said that the British Empire was liberalizing and that it brought modernization to the countries it colonized but we know that’s very far from the truth. Detention camps were used in British colonies, indigenous peoples were massacred in many of the colonies and British policies made famines in colonies like India worse as they were seen as a tool to keep them dependent on British rule.
Millions of people died during the famines and massacres in Biafra, Kenya, Ireland, India and many other countries. After two-and-a-half years of war, almost two million Biafran civilians (three-quarters of them small children) died from starvation caused by the total blockade of the region by the Nigerian government.
Queen Elizabeth II did nothing to help the malnourished Biafran children who were dying of severe starvation everyday. Six thousand children were dying everyday and the queen was absolutely fully aware they were dying because she and the rest of the Western World saw them dying on the news every day and she did absolutely nothing about it.
I saw this as utterly cruel of Queen Elizabeth II but I wasn’t the only one. Africans, African Americans, White Americans and people from many other countries thought that what she did was horrific and cruel as well.
On May 29 1969, Bruce Mayrock, a 20 year old student at Columbia University set himself on fire on the premises of the United Nations Headquarters in New York to protest the genocide against the people of Biafra in the Nigerian civil war. He was carrying a cardboard sign that read "You must stop the genocide - please save 9 million Biafrans." The United Nations security guards ran after him to extinguish the fire but he ran into the United Nations garden collapsing on his knees next to Evjeniy Vuchetich’s bronze statue. The statue represented the figure of a man holding a hammer in one hand and a sword in the other in order to mould it into a plowshare. It symbolized man’s desire to end all wars and convert tools of destruction into tools of regeneration and restoration to benefit all mankind. The statue bore the slogan "LET US BEAT SWORDS INTO PLOWSHARES" which is from Isaiah 2:4. Bruce Mayrock died the next day. He was only 20 years old.
On November 25, 1969, John Lennon of the Beatles returned the MBE he was awarded by Queen Elizabeth II in 1964 in protest against British support for Nigeria and not Biafra.
The British Empire was also responsible for the 1943 Bengal famine which killed around 3 million people. In Kenya in the 1950s, Britain tried to crush the Mau Mau uprising. People were sent to concentration camps, tortured, castrated and murdered. The Queen was very much aware of what her soldiers did but she never acknowledged it and never apologized for it.
Also, did you know that Britain was almost solely responsible for slavery in North and South America, the Caribbean and other countries for almost two centuries? Britain was the most dominant and successful country involved in slave trade between 1640 and 1807 and many people do not know about this. African Americans in the United States today are here because of Britain’s involvement in the slave trade.
We haven’t even scratched the surface yet. Most of the jewels the monarchy has were taken from many countries. India was forced to hand over the 105-carat Kohinoor diamond to Britain and it became the queen’s crown jewel. And many people are demanding that Britain give back the Cullinan diamond it took from South Africa. Jewels were taken from many countries through deception, subjugation and utter racism. These jewels all belong to King Charles now.
There is so much to say about the utterly horrific things the British Empire has done to other countries for centuries but I’ll stop here. I just hope that one day all the 56 countries colonized by Britain can become republics and the British Empire ceases to exist because of the heinous atrocities it has committed directly and indirectly against millions of innocent people just because they were not British.
Excerpt from Ignored and Forgotten by Dr. Amaka Nwozo
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