I’ve never felt much either way about the Queen. I’ve never held her in as much disdain as I’ve held some of our prime ministers, and never held her in as much esteem as I have held, for example, Uncle Archie Roach. But the old dear has died and it seems the world has gone a bit nuts – and that has caused me to take a closer look at what the Queen means to me – and to my country.
Sometimes we go along blindly in our lives and it’s not until we stop and think that we go ‘shit!’
Here’s an example – I never really thought about the animals I was eating until I stopped and thought about the animals. Their lives, their parents, their children and their pain. And once I did that, I became an annoying vegan pretty quickly.
So when I stopped to think about ‘our’ Queen and her death, and what it meant to me, it made me take a closer look at the monarchy.
Many of us have read the tales of King Arthur and the roundtable, and it’s all very romantic and jewel-encrusted. Millions of us sat and watched the now King Charles the third, marry a 20-year-old. Think about that for a minute – if my 20-year-old daughter wanted to marry a thirty-two-year-old, I’d be wanting to take a really close look at how that was going to work. (I am not saying it can’t and doesn’t work, but I’d be wanting to make bloody sure of his intentions – right?)
Back then it was all very cute and very romantic. But we didn’t think about the consequences of that.
If you stop – and think – about how kings and queens become kings and queens, what you realise is most of their wealth comes from conquering. Conquering lands, conquering people, conquering cultures – pretty much war, rape and pillage. There’s not a lot of back-breaking hole digging or field ploughing happening in royal history. Well, there is – but not a lot of it done BY the royals – they have subjects for that.
The death of the Queen has allowed many Indigenous people feel they have the opportunity to speak their minds. It has given rise to Blak Fellas telling us about their vision of the queen, a sovereign who took their sovereignty, a leader who lauded her power, the inherited power from her ancestors, who are basically a bunch of mongrels and inbreds, and used THAT power over their ancestors.
This land, the Great Southern Land, was never ceded. I might just say that again so you can think about it. THIS LAND WAS NEVER CEDED.
In the name of royalty, this land was conquered, the people were conquered, the culture was conquered – pretty much war, rape and pillage on the people who were here first.
Whats next?
Where does the death of the Queen leave us now?
It will cost the government a lot of money to change the countenance from the Queen to Charles III on our money, our coins and a myriad of other official documents and signage and paraphernalia and bits and bobs.
But, no more, in fact, than it would cost them to put anyone’s face on coins and the documents and replace them with the likes of Archie Roach, Uncle Jack Charles, and Aunty Oodgeroo Noonuccal.
The Queen is dead and I believe, so has is the relevance of the monarchy in Australia – it’s a sign!
One thing I’m really objecting to today is the public holiday. It seems ridiculous to me that we don’t have a public holiday when some incredible Australians pass away yet we will stop the country, (as does a horse race), to give people some time off to remember a monarch whose family stole a bunch of really cool stuff: like Australia.
I personally object to this. And don’t think I should be able to scour an extra 1.5 hours of work dollars, per hour, from my employer to ‘remember’ a Queen I’m not even interested in.
The hardship this death is going to cause this already financially COVID-fire-flood strapped nation is bloody redonkulous!
I say it’s time to put our money where our mouth is as far as this public holiday is concerned. We need to make a silent personal protest – we can all rub our hands together and enjoy the extra cash, but are we selling our soul for 1.5 extra pieces of silver – per hour? If it actually means something coming out of, or rather, not going into your pocket, then that’s a real protest.
My suggestion is, if you will unavoidably be paid extra money this week, use it to buy goods and services from an Indigenous company or donate it to a worthy cause for Indigenous people.
If you want to have a minute’s silence today, have a minute’s silence for the deaths of all Indigenous people and mourn them and the loss of THEIR sovereign lands.
Make the Queen’s death matter to the people her family stole from, and please stop and think. Because when we don’t stop and think about things, that’s when people literally get away with murder.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
