She was a good person, and has my respect but she was also a symbol of a deeply flawed system of governance.
There are lots of notable figures that have died recently (Gorbachev alone may have saved the world as we know it), that don’t get the same, almost pathological level of admiration. It’s not normal to break down crying because a person you never met died at age 97.. that’s hundreds of years of indoctrination, social, and religious manipulation at work.
I would argue, on the opposite, that being unaffected by the passing of significant symbols of our lives/traditions, is the product of modern indoctrination.
Civil unrest is going to happen when you rule for 70 years.
When you say "extraordinarily cruel" then maybe you refer to the 2,100,000 to 3,800,000 Bengals you starved to death
The murder of 13 people (the inciting incident of the troubles) by the British army is not exactly comparable; even taking into consideration the total losses during that time of 3,500~, hardly comparable at all.
The Troubles - was literally a rebellion violently suppressed... for 3 decades.
Let alone all of the Unionists are staunch monarchists and were tightly linked to government institutions.
I wasn't comparing anything to anything. You think that comparing The Troubles to bengal Famine, somehow excuses you from writing an obvious false sentence.
PS: Civil Unrest isn't Civil Unrest, when the army is literally shooting.
I just don’t see it as “extraordinarily cruel” when comparing to other cruelty committed. I see it as quite significantly reduced.
I’m not saying she was perfect, but describing her reign as extraordinarily cruel is a real stretch.
I really don’t want to talk about the troubles but if I’m going to be a dick I will mention that the IRA intentionally targeted civilians, I don’t think the military at that time are as black as they’re painted. It’s all villains I’m afraid.
What the hell are you talking about? This mindset is not remotely "mainstream". I've never once in my life heard anyone talk about Ireland as if it's a place that the UK still owns or feels entitled to.
> The way Ireland was publicly handled after 2016
Do you mean Northern Ireland? Northern Ireland is a different country from Ireland, and as far as I'm aware the reason it's still part of the UK is because a solid majority of its citizens want to be part of the UK, not because it's been imposed on them from outside.
I believe he's referring to talk post-Brexit of annexing Ireland to get rid of the problem, rubbish about Ireland becoming part of the UK again to "fix Brexit", and to top it all off, Priti Patel's threats[1] to starve Ireland.
The post-Brexit discourse in the UK regularly featured threats to Irish sovereignty of various kinds, including from prominent Tories, which makes it sufficiently mainstream to matter. I'd recommend you have a read over what Fintan O'Toole and Tony Connelly have written on Brexit over the past few years.
Do I think such opinions are representative of most Britons? No. But they have been a major part of the mainstream discourse peddled by people with prominent voices and in positions of power. There is some part of the English psyche that sees Ireland as a wayward province and not a real sovereign state: witness the moaning and complaining when the UK became a third country about Irish people using the EU lane in airports that we were being "treated specially" - that kind of thinking assumes that Ireland is not its own sovereign state.
Also, the "solid majority" in NI isn't so solid anymore. Unionism is on the decline, nationalism is gaining more of a foothold, and the broad apathetic middle is growing. There's a reason why Sinn Féin is now the largest party there.
[1] Let's leave out the multiple levels of historical irony in what she said, and just focus on the fact that Ireland can feed itself five times over even though agriculture is now a tiny part of the economy, but the UK doesn't produce enough food to feed itself.
I'm sorry, but I think that Irish media is giving you an exaggerated view of Ireland's significance in the British psyche. The sad truth is that your typical Englishman doesn't think of Ireland much at all except when watching rugby and drinking Guinness.
I've never heard anyone talk about annexing Ireland or making Ireland part of the UK again (aren't those two things synonymous?). I have heard Brits complaining about having to use non-EU lanes at airports, but that has nothing to do with Ireland - it's a completely predictable and negative consequence for Britons of a very divisive and unpopular political decision. I promise you that few people in England care either way what happens to Ireland, or at least no more than we care about, say, Sweden or any other near-neighbour who we're not at war with.
Hell, even Northern Ireland doesn't get much attention here, and that's part of our country. Most young Brits today are completely uneducated about the Troubles (although they've heard of it) and probably can't name a single Northern Irish politician. Brexit was a welcome reminder to the rest of us that Northern Ireland exists; our current dilemma is caused by the necessity of reconciling two utterly incompatible goals - keeping Northern Ireland within the same system as the UK while maintaining an open land border with an EU country. (The irreconcilability of these goals was pointed out by many people before the referendum, so I guess we can't say we weren't warned.)
> the "solid majority" in NI isn't so solid anymore.
Yep, I'm aware of that, and Brexit has definitely eroded that majority. Irish unification (as foretold by Star Trek) within my lifetime seems increasingly likely. Good for them - it's for the people of Northern Ireland to decide for themselves and I truly don't care which way they decide.
That was not my intended emphasis, but I think you could make a good case for it anyway. It involved the dispossession and genocide of native peoples in North America and Australasia. It was built on slave plantations in the Caribbean, and led to state-engineered famines in India. The total human toll is enormous.
Yes, the Queen took the throne at the twilight of the British Empire. But it was in the midst of the Malayan emergency, the Mau Mau uprising, the Suez crisis was on the horizon, and South Africa had just launched the apartheid regime. Those were all, in different ways, attempts to stamp out democratic independence. Britain didn't relinquish its sub-Saharan African and Caribbean territories until the 1960s. You cannot cleanly separate the Queen from the empire which she crowned.
The Queen willingly became head of a Commonwealth that included dependent colonies, and a British state that was actively repressing several independence movements. That the head of the Commonwealth is coupled with it is obvious, not my 'choice'.
If that's your measuring stick then Adolf should get the credit for creating the right condition.
European colonial power would have never left if they hadn't got into war of attrition with Hitlar.
British left their biggest colony India only when Indian soldiers revolted and they were too weak to crush it post WW2. It was simply not possible to rule after this incident.
Queen Elizabeth presided over its dismantlement. No famines occurred during her reign and no rebellions violently suppressed.
The Empire was cruel, but it's unfair to wash her with the cloth of empire.