'Monarch of a thieving empire...': Carnegie Mellon Prof's tweet on Queen Elizabeth II sparks fury
2 min read . Updated: 09 Sep 2022, 03:21 PM IST
Premium- Several prominent writers and activists from African community have come out to condemn the British colonial rule and atrocities committed under Queen Elizabeth II as Commonwealth
The entire world is mourning the death of Britain's longest serving Queen who died at the age of 96 on Thursday. World leaders have offered condolences and Indian Prime Minister called her ‘stalwart of our times’. However, from some corners of the world Queen Elizabeth II's death has revived criticism against the British colonial empire - an institution that enriched itself through violence, theft and oppression.
"I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating,' tweeted Uju Anya, an associate professor of second language acquisition at Carnegie Mellon University. She later deleted her post.
Also Read: Queen Elizabeth II Death Live Updates
Amazon Founder, Jeff Bezos then quoted Anya’s tweet and wrote: “This is someone supposedly working to make the world better?"
“I don’t think so," Bezos added. “Wow."
As a reply to Jeff's comments Uju reimposed her stand, “If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star."
Her tweet had been retweeted more than 13,000 times and had garnered nearly 55,000 likes.
In an interview Anya claims, she is "a child of colonization" — her mother was born in Trinidad and her father in Nigeria. They met in England in the 1950s as colonial subjects who were sent there for university. They married there and moved to Nigeria together.
"In addition to the colonization on the side of Nigeria, there's also the human enslavement in the Caribbean," she said. "So there's a direct lineage that I have to not just people who were colonized, but also people who were enslaved by the British."
Zoé Samudzi, a Zimbabwean American writer also wrote on Twitter, “As the first generation of my family not born in a British colony, I would dance on the graves of every member of the royal family if given the opportunity, especially hers."
An Argentinian TV host also sparked disgust after celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's death by popping open a bottle of champagne.
Queen Elizabeth II was the first British monarch to accede to the throne after India’s Independence from colonial rule in 1952 and admired the “richness and diversity" of India where she made three state visits over the course of her reign in 1961, 1983 and 1997.
“It is no secret that there have been some difficult episodes in our past. Jallianwala Bagh is a distressing example," the monarch noted in her banquet address. She and her husband later paid a visit to the scene of the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar to place a wreath at the memorial, amid widespread calls for an apology for the thousands killed at the orders of a British General during the Raj era.
