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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones this is 7am.

Last week on the public holiday to mourn the Queen's death, there were protests against the Monarchy in major cities across Australia.

The marches represented many who have a resentment of the British Crown and unhealed wounds inflicted by the British Empire.

In the U.K., some people feel the same way and not all Britons participated in the scenes of public grieving that have been seen around the world.

Today, the U.K.’s first Professor of Black Studies and author of The New Age of Empire, Kehinde Andrews, on what the Monarchy represents today.

It's Monday, September 26.

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RUBY:

Kehinde last week, the world saw a huge display of grief from the British public. We had people lining up sometimes for up to 24 hours to see Queen Elizabeth II’s coffin. It's been pretty incredible but I also know that it doesn't represent everyone in Britain's relationship with the Monarchy. So what is it that you've thought as you've been watching both the public reaction, as well as the media coverage of her death?

KEHINDE:

Yeah, I mean honestly, I think the word I would use is bemused, to see this wall to wall coverage, you've got people taking their kids and they're queuing for 24 hours.

Archival tape – News Reporter:

“From across the United Kingdom and around the globe, they came and they waited and they queued.”

KEHINDE:

I mean, you look back on this, and I think we’ll look back and say, well, what happened? It was like a collective madness that took over the country.

Archival tape – News Reporter:

“As you can see many of them behind me and around me, back and forth across the gardens here and for miles along the River Thames.”

KEHINDE:

I mean on the day of the funeral itself, everything was closed, like everything was closed. McDonald's was closed, you can't go to the shop to get any food. It was complete and utter shutdown that I've never seen in this country before.

Archival tape – News Reporter:

“We should not allow anything to overshadow the most important event the world will ever see and that's the funeral of Her Majesty.”

KEHINDE:

And the African-American intellectual, W.B. Dubois, had this concept of double consciousness when he said, like being Black in America and sometimes they just don't really go together, you just don't understand. And I think this, the way that this has been over the past week and continuing on, it just is this double consciousness of being Black and British, a complete disconnection, alienation from the nation that you live in.

RUBY:

Okay, so can we talk a bit about where it is that feeling of disconnection and alienation really begins? What is it like growing up in the U.K. for people who have a family history in a country that has been so impacted by the British Empire and in your case, your family having a background in Jamaica? What is the experience of growing up in the U.K., with the Queen, like for you?

KEHINDE:

Yeah, I mean my Grandmother really was like proper royalist, like had a picture of the Queen in her front room until she died. If she was still alive today, she probably would have been in that 24-hour queue because she really was, like in that colonial period, they were brought up to love Britain. Born in Jamaica, the mother country, etc, etc. So she had a very different relationship.

But then you have to think when my Dad comes here when he’s younger and experiences the harsh brutalities of Britain, racial segregation, police brutality, fascists chasing them down the street singing “God Save the Queen”—He has a very different relationship to the nation and the Queen.

And that's what I grew up in, I grew up with, look, the Queen represents something else. The queen is a symbol. The flag is a symbol of racism. The flag is something you're not, you don't really belong here. I grew up feeling that.

RUBY:

And when you talk about that disconnection, there was a pretty stark example of that in the last week, wasn't there? There were these protests over the police shooting of an unarmed Black man in the U.K.. So can you tell me about that and about how it played out during the coverage of the Queen's funeral?

KEHINDE:

Yeah, so Chris Kaba was shot. In 2011, Mark Duggan was shot in similar circumstances where the police, basically they’re chasing, they do a hard stop and then they unload on somebody who they believe has a gun but doesn’t actually have a gun and it turns out they’re unarmed. And when Mark Duggan was killed in 2011 it sparked off massive protests, there were three days of riots and I think it was a huge thing, and 11 years later, exactly the same thing just happened.

Archival tape – Protest in Britain:

“Say his name… Chris Kaba! Say his name… Chris Kaba!”

Archival tape – News Reporter:

“24-year-old Chris Kaba was fatally shot on Monday. Police say the vehicle he was driving in was involved in a firearms offence in the days before his death. He died after a single gunshot. He was unarmed.”

Archival tape – Protest in Britain:

“No justice, no peace! No justice, no peace!”

KEHINDE:

And he's been investigated and they are treating it as a homicide, we'll see. So, yeah, stories like that are actually more important, but completely lost in all the Queen stuff.

RUBY:

But it did make the news, didn't it, just in this kind of accidental way?

Archival tape – News Reporter:

“It really is an incredible sight. So many people talking to each other about their journey here, why they wanted to come. Their memories of the Queen…”

KEHINDE:

It made the news because there was a protest. And whilst Sky News were covering this protest, where they were covering the Queen's—everybody going down to London to see the Queen.

And they reported that this band of Black activists were a part of going down to London to see the Queen and to mourn the Queen.

Archival tape – News Reporter:

“Early this afternoon, we showed pictures of a crowd of people in Trafalgar Square and described them as being on their way to Buckingham Palace. We’d just like to make it clear that those pictures were actually of a protest that was taking place over the death of Chris Kaba, who was shot and killed by a police officer in South London.”

RUBY:

And Kehinde can we talk a little bit more about the Monarchy and the British Empire? Because they're obviously not exactly the same thing, so could you tell me about how it is that they relate to each other and the ways in which the legacy of the Empire is still playing out today?

KEHINDE:

Well, you can't separate the Monarchy from the Empire at all, in the same way you can't separate Britain from the Empire. So the story that Britain likes to tell is it's this plucky little country in the North Atlantic, which has people that work really hard, really good scientists and lots of good investors. And this is why Britain made its place in the world. And obviously, the Queen’s just a benevolent figure who goes around shaking hands with the smiling natives.

I mean, that's the story. But the reality is that Britain only becomes great because of its empire, the largest empire that the world's ever seen, 24% of the world's population, 24% of the actual landmass of the world. And it’s built on genocide, slavery, colonialism.

Archival tape – Voice-over from documentary:

“This is Britain's colonial empire, two and a half million square miles—from the Antarctic to the tropics, with dependencies in every continent and every ocean.”

KEHINDE:

The British Empire is one of the worst, one of the worst human rights abuses in the entire history of the planet.

Archival tape – Voice-over from documentary:

“The people of Britain are directly responsible for the wellbeing of all the people of the colonies. To guide and develop this vast empire is no easy matter.”

KEHINDE:

The monarchy is totally tied up to this. So now, whilst now the Queen is symbolic, that wasn't always the case. Queen Elizabeth I was the one who launched Britain's involvement in the slave trade.

It was the Royal African Company that enslaved more Africans than any other company in the entire world. At this time Britain’s becoming Britain and the Monarchy is becoming what the monarchy is, it’s taking its wealth from exploiting Black and Brown people all over the world.

I mean, that wealth from colonialism is still with us and the poverty from colonialism is still with us.

Archival tape – News Reporter:

“This crown holds one of the world’s most famous and expensive diamonds, the Kohinoor, which has been the source of a decades-long controversy between India and the United Kingdom. For many the jewel is a painful reminder of India’s colonial past, and they want it back.”

KEHINDE:

So it's not an accident that if you look at a map of GDP per capita, that I guarantee you will find that Britain’s on the top and the White countries are on the top, and the Black countries at the bottom, doing really, really badly, and there is a hierarchy in between.

And actually those gaps are getting worse, they are not getting better.

That wealth and poverty is the legacy. And I can't think of a better embodiment of that than the Royal Family.

RUBY:

We’ll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Kehinde, it’s true, isn't it, that the British Empire had largely been dismantled by the time that Queen Elizabeth II came into power. And she's often credited with this achievement of transitioning into what we now know as the Commonwealth, which is made up of independent states. So what do you see as the relationship between the British Empire and the Commonwealth and do you think that the project of the Commonwealth under the Queen has been successful?

KEHINDE:

The idea that the British Empire is gone is problematic, the Commonwealth is just a rebranded British Empire, if we're honest. So the idea that imperialism is gone is a mirage and the Queen has led this transition to, I call, the New Age of Empire, where things seem benevolent and things seem better and she'll go around and give independence to countries etc etc. But actually this is basically exactly the same.

White supremacy continues.

Archival tape – News Reporter:

“When the news of the Queen's death broke, Twitter was awash with sentiments from former British colonies that condemned the monarch for overseeing the plunder and inhumane treatment…”

KEHINDE:

Even during her reign, you had the suppression of the Mau Mau in Kenya. It was so bad, Britain actually paid 20 million in compensation.

Archival tape – News Reporter:

In 2013, the British government paid €22.9 million to over 5000 elderly Kenyans who suffered abuse and torture during their rebellion. Just at the beginning of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign.

Translated archival tape – Kenyan victim:

“I was beaten by several policemen and they kidnapped my daughter.”

KEHINDE:

You had the British government supporting the Nigerian government to starve a million children in Biafra in the seventies.

Archival tape – News Reporter:

“Hunger became a weapon of war. Nigeria imposed an air and sea blockade on Biafra, one million Biafran children died of malnutrition in the months that followed.”

KEHINDE:

Now there's lots of things bad that’s happened. Let's not pretend that everything's been great in the rest of the world since she's been Queen.

RUBY:

Yeah, I think that's true Kehinde. But I also think that many of the things that you've been saying today will be seen as fairly controversial in Australia, talking about the Monarchy in the context of white supremacy. So what does that say to you about where this conversation, where the conversation around the legacy of the Monarchy, the legacy of colonialism, is at in places like Australia and England.

KEHINDE:

Why it just tells you just how badly we understand things. I mean, it stems from a number of things. So, one is just that we don't have an understanding of the empire. Like empire just generally, I'm a professor, I've got all my education in the U.K.. I have never, ever, I’m not joking, I’ve never heard the word empire in any class, at any level and I went through the whole entire system of education in the U.K.. That is insane when you think about this. It’s the main thing… You literally cannot understand the country without empire but we don't talk about it and so because we don't talk about it, we don't understand.

And I think that's also a problem not just in Britain but in the colonies. So Australia, I'm guessing, is probably similarly educated, in Canada I'm guessing, it certainly is in Jamaica mostly. Because Britain's impact is so large across the world, the education systems in the former colonies are still usually quite British. So it just shows you how badly we understand, this shouldn't be controversial. This should be really obvious. Not saying you shouldn’t have—that people don't have the right to mourn the Monarch, of course you do. You must understand why millions of us are like, she wasn't my Queen. So why? Why am I sad?

RUBY:

And so what would you say then to people? Because there are a lot of people who say this, that this moment is not the right moment to start talking about independence from the Monarchy or Republicanism.

KEHINDE:

Boy, I mean she’s not your family member. You shouldn’t be mourning like you knew her because nobody knew her, right? She's a public figure and as a public figure, you’re open to scrutiny like this. It's insane that you wouldn't have it, it’s the perfect time for that conversation.

I think there will be now re-examination. Do we really want to continue this? It doesn't really make any sense. There had been a lot of pushback, so countries like Barbados, for example, getting rid of the Queen as head of state, countries thinking about their place in the Commonwealth. This is a good time to reopen this conversation and hopefully, yeah, people will.

Australia, hey, Australia's got a complicated history with white supremacy, let's be honest. But there is a shift to a new King who doesn't seem to be as popular at all. It's a perfect time, like when else? If we're saying the Monarchy needs to fundamentally change, the role of it needs to change, I’m saying it needs to go—it would probably be the best, the only real decent option.

But certainly the end of a seventy-year reign of a Monarch, I can’t think of a better time to discuss what’s the future of the Monarchy and should we start to deal with the legacy of colonialism and racism.

RUBY:

Kehinde, thank you so much for talking to me.

KEHINDE:

No worries, thank you, I enjoyed that.

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Also in the news today…

The data of over ten million Australians was hacked from Optus late last week, and it looks like it will soon be for sale on the dark web.

An anonymous account claiming to represent the hacker has asked for $1 million US from Optus by the end of this week, or they will begin to sell off data that includes addresses, driver’s licenses and passport numbers.

And Iran has been swept with the most significant protest movement in years, with demonstrations confirmed in almost all the provinces of the country.

Protests began in response to the death of a 22-year-old woman in the custody of Iran’s morality police. She was arrested for allegedly breaking hijab rules.

I’m Ruby Jones this is 7am, see you tomorrow.

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