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Will the queen apologize for the old empire?

. | 29.05.2002 10:09

Britain's Queen urged to say sorry for Empire

By Reuters

LONDON - Britain's Queen Elizabeth should embark on a world tour to apologize for the "past sins of the British Empire", a left-wing think-tank aid on Tuesday.

London-based policy body, Demos, said the tour would help modernize the British monarchy and reinvent the Commonwealth group of 54 nations.

"This could begin with a world tour to apologize for the past sins of Empire as a first step to making the Commonwealth more effective and relevant," Demos director Tom Bentley and head of strategy James Wilsdon said in a joint statement.

Critics of the British Empire, which at its peak in 1918 covered a quarter of the world's population and area, say its huge wealth was built on oppression and exploitation.

Demos also urged the Queen to "quit while you're ahead, ma'am," suggesting she hand over the throne before her 80th birthday in four years.

Other suggested reforms included sending future princes and princesses to state-run schools and using royal land to ease Britain's housing shortage.

In a foreword to a collection of essays called "Monarchies: What are Kings and Queens For?", Demos said the royal family's recent bid to modernize had been little more than a public relations exercise.

Demos, set up in 1993 with the aim of influencing government policy and public opinion, said the Queen had stifled debate on the future of the monarchy.

"There is something absurd about someone declaring that they intend to keep going forever," Bentley and Wilsdon said. "Britain is in danger of replacing its monarchy with [a] gerontocracy."

The Queen used a speech in April to send a clear message that she had no plans to step aside for her 53-year-old son Charles, the heir to the throne.

Public support for the royal family appears to be on a high, as many Britons prepare to celebrate the Queen Elizabeth's 50 years on the throne.

Britons were touched by the royal family's display of grief after the deaths this year of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, the Queen's younger sister.

In two recent newspaper polls, just over half of those questioned believed Queen Elizabeth should continue to rule until her death.

http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=169636&contrassID=1&subContrassID=8&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

Comments

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Out Damned Spot

29.05.2002 10:38

The sins of the British Empire have not passed, it has been a continuing holocaust in Africa since Victoria crushed the Zulus for gold and her cousin King Leopold murdered 10 million Congolese for rubber... what's changed?

She only wants to rub their noses in British Petroleum.

"Sorry we killed 100 million people in the last Century"

"Oh, that's Okay Ma'am, all is forgiven."

Lady M.

nothing to apologise for

29.05.2002 12:15

We tripled their life expectancy, provided health care, education, an economy, transportation, cities, advanced technology, etc. If you want an apology first get rid of everything we brought, and that includes western clothes and the English language, and then you can have it. Many poor people on the streets of London lived far worse than the slaves. We owe Africa nothing more than perhaps a small apology for some of the brutality, but they'd have done the same to us had they had the chance. So all in all, they can stuff it.

dnm

Empire

29.05.2002 12:27

There was no rubber in the Congo.

Population in African colonies increased vastly after colonisation.

Kenya - population 1900 - less than half a million.
At independence: 7 million.

Infrastructure 1900: zero. no schools as there was no written language. no rail, no roads.

Infrastructure 1964: airports, railroads, roads, schools, hospitals, university.

think it could be said that the inhabitants benefitted considerably under British rule.

SO where do you get the figure of 100 million dead?

yessuh massah boss

29.05.2002 12:57

You am so right mistah dnm, we ignorant black folk is so lucky to have de great white folk come an help us..

By us selves we'd nevva hav thought a turnin half de population into slaves to build dem railways and goviment buildins, and shippin de otha half to America to work on de plantations. We is so lucky you come along.

a nonny mouse

YES BOSS!!!!

29.05.2002 16:24

nonny mouse thats what you should be thinking. And by the way, loose the ebonics, and BOY, while you are at it, hurry up and finish picking my cotton and then fetch me a lemonade.

1st_ammendment

The King v The Kodak

29.05.2002 19:16

The Kodak can't lie. The population of the Congo was reduced from 22 million to 9 million in 1904 and many were mutilated.

Me Amy
Homepage: http://www.boondocksnet.com/congo/congo_kodak02.html

21st century scramble for Asia

29.05.2002 23:00

I think we can safely say that the western powers didn't put together the infrastructure of rail/road etc simply out of a sense of affection for the natives. On the contrary, the purpose was simple: to suck natural resources out of the region, and the west has been raping Africa ever since. Anyone who denies this is either dense or wilfully blind.

Who really gives a damn whether some crusty old monarch apologises for this or not? Crashingly irrelevant I'd say, given that the rape continues unabated.

More to the point: we are now witnessing a 21st century version of the same process, this time in the Caspian region dominated by Eastern Europe, Russia and central Asian states. Like the original 'scramble', there are certainly enough economic motivations to fuel this enterprise - not just oil and gas but some new markets for other commodities, new arms contracts, new sources of cheap labour.

Consider Afghanistan, the current site of intense conflict. Standing as the buffer between India, the jewel in Britain's imperial crown, and Russia's south eastern empire bordering China, and astride the old Silk Road east-west trading route, Afghanistan could not fail to find itself the battleground of rival empires. The very phrase 'the Great Game', coined to denote this rivalry, was first used here. So it is again today. The Russians are still players but the British, long out of India, return only on the vapour trails of the United States.

mantrastic

mantrastic is a wigger

30.05.2002 03:57

Yeah but you're a coon wannabe mantrastic. your idle is a big hairy black ape.

death_to_reds

Solution for Royal

30.05.2002 06:10

The Queen can be disposed of quite cheaply with a single shot to the head at close range. I hope this is televised so we can all enjoy.

Bolshevik

hang on here

30.05.2002 16:31

who syas we want the monarchy modernised ? anyway, its not so much the old empire we should worry about, but the new one being built right now. i detect many social attitudes are reverting right back to those of edwardian times, and the prime monster is writing introductions for pamphleteers aclling for a 'new imperialism'. certainly, the new empire will be similar in many ways to the old one, but will have its distinct features.
ultimately, imperialism is all about extracting resources and profit from the world, building military bases to protect the investors (and generating racialism to keep the peoples divided against each other). Palmerston then or the WTO now, theres a lot of similarity...

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