There is a man sitting in the street. He is homeless and he has a hat out, asking for donations. The cardboard sign is crudely drawn and says ‘I am not a bad person. Bad things happened to me.’ People walk by. One stranger stops, and proclaims ‘Extraordinary! I have a lovely big house, I have a holiday in Noosa every year. I have three investment properties, and my kids are all at private school. But now – I can’t rent my Byron Bay investment houses on Airbnb 12 months a year anymore! Bad things have happened to me too!’ Then they throw in a few dollars.
I think you’d agree that was cruel. You’d think, ‘Wanker!’. Flaunting your wealth is gauche, especially in the presence of people who are doing it tough. If you are in the presence of people who have nothing, you need to keep your affluence to yourself. Not everyone has intergenerational wealth.
And as we know, not everyone comes from a family that killed and colonised and stole to secure said wealth.
The recent Coronation of King Charles III was an outdated display of stupid entitlement. Couldn’t he have just had a cake? Or maybe put on a keg of beer and a sausage sizzle? Or gone to an RSL club and hired one of their big function rooms and did some limbo, wore some silly hats… actually they nailed the silly hat section.
Charlie’s coronation has cost upwards of 100 million pounds. This is after a brutal winter during which nearly a quarter of UK homes couldn’t afford heating. The weather there gets dangerously cold. This is fuel poverty. Meanwhile, people who can’t afford to heat their homes were treated to a three-day celebration of privilege and meaningless wealth – paid for by the public purse.
All I could think was: ‘Who cares? Why are we even watching? Why is every media platform carrying coverage and commentary for days and days? Why haven’t we evolved past this? We know what they did. It’s like celebrating the relatives of war criminals…’.
Who even wears a crown anymore? I’m sorry, but anyone who puts a crown on looks like an idiot. It has the bike helmet effect on your street cred. And it gives you crown hair. That’s hair flattened down by the weight of your privilege. Celebrating a history of colonisation and then getting the public to pay for it is like telling a homeless man how much you own.
How amazing to decimate cultures around the globe and then expect them to get excited watching your stupid party – while you wear diamonds and gemstones stolen from them. I’ve made the faux pas of wearing a dress someone left at my house, posting a pic on socials only to have the owner comment ‘That’s my dress!’. Awkward. Don’t the royal family feel embarrassed? Don’t they squirm every time a nation they colonised asks for their stuff back?
Most of the riches displayed at the coronation ceremony belonged to other countries. India has long been asking for the return of the Koh-i-Noor. Owning this diamond – thought to be worth $10–12 billion symbolises the power of the English monarchy and their ‘colonial superiority’. It’s why, even now, they won’t give it back. It belongs to India. Give it back.
Charles could spend his first year as king at the post office, just sending back what his family stole: skulls, artefacts, precious stones, artworks… and maybe at his coronation, instead of engaging in a ritual that looked like Monty Python on acid, he could have pulled a few bonbons, worn a paper hat, and had all those struggling Londoners over at Buckingham Palace for a piss up.
It’s time we stopped admiring and celebrating stolen wealth. It’s time they gave it back.
So agree with you Mandy!
And thanks for the laughs out loud !
All correct and all ignored by the millions who bought into the coronation farce , albeit there are many reasons people did that. I can’t say they are “bad” reasons, but ignoring the wealth stolen from colonised countries ignores the far-reaching damage done by stealing other country’s resources, including multiple leaders, some democratically elected assassinated in the name of protecting colonial interests. The estimated “value” in “today” dollars of the wealth the colonialists, including the UK, appropriated or just plain stole from the colonised countries over the centuries runs into the trillions. It is no coincidence that, by-and-large, the southern hemisphere is now much less wealthy, or impoverished than the northern hemisphere. The colonialists were invariably northern hemisphere countries that pillaged southern hemisphere countries. One of the reasons they were able to do it is they had lots of forests to cut down and turn into boats, so Columbus could sail to the America’s, for example. Sadly, they they still do it, only now it’s greedy corporations that corrupt government officials, exploit resources (including cheap labour) and take the wealth, promising to make better the lives of the populi but never actually delivering. The UK’s record is at least as bad and is arguably worse than any of its fellow “claimed in the name of the crown” plunderers, but that gets minimal attention. Even in Australia – England didn’t steal diamonds or gold – it “stole” indigenous culture by trying to eradicate it. Sure, “we” didn’t do it, mostly, but “we” are happy to enjoy the vacuous pomposity (for me at least, doubtless for millions of others it feels totally real) watching a guy wear a silly ceremonial hat worth countless millions, none of which were mined in the UK, so I think that means we have to share responsibility for acts done in the name of the King or Queen as the case may have been. Then again, I don’t have any interest in the concept of a God either.
Giving it all back ?
That would be called REXIT
Thank you Mandy, couldn’t agree with you more. Once again you hit it on the head. LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC !!!
But he threw in a few Australian dollars, which would be a week worth of begging money in most parts of the world. And he shares with the beggar, that though he may be wealthier, even he is becoming poorer under the current economic conditions, implying he is simply further from the gutter, not free from it. It’s a beautiful parable, illustrating that even those who make better life discussions and benefit from their greater wisdom, are still at the mercy of forces beyond an individual’s control.
Google this!
Approximately every 6 days there is a country celebrating freedom and independence from Britain. Australia is not one of those countries, YET? There are only 22 countries that have not been invaded by Britain!
Australia Day celebrates our independence from Britain. Are you disappointed we negotiated our independence instead of killing people?
What! What history books have you been reading?
Is it that you think we had a revolutionary war, or do you think we are still part of Britain, or are you unaware of the Statute of Westminster 1931 and Australia Act 1986?
When our head of state lives in the UK I can’t see that we are independent from Britain. What I find surprising is that you believe Australia Day, that marks the arrival of the first fleet and the start of Britain’s new convict colony, “celebrates our independence from Britain”.
Sure we have been evolving towards independence – and another important date is perhaps Jan 1 1901 – but we like to teeter on the edge. It’s reported that when Phillip of Edinburgh heard the results of 1999 referendum he asked “What’s wrong with those people?”
Evolution – no need for a revolution. The monarchy has told us just to let them know when we want to go. Trouble is, too many of us can’t take the hint.
I agree it’s largely all about symbolism – except at crunch times like 1975 – but it’s a symbolism many of us find acutely ludicrous and embarrassing.
Hey tweed ..don’t need to educate you on history mate..!! However was wondering when the English
are going to ask the Italian’s for a apology ..
Regarding Slavery…
Hey Barrow – the Romans had the good grace eventually to leave.
“Romani ite domum” Monty Python’s Life of Brian
Cheer up
The Voice wants to enshrine a section of the population by birth to more say and benefits than 97% of the population.
Inheritance and entitlement, again, I believe.
Hermie, looking at the lot of First Nations People as a whole – as ‘Closing the Gap’ does – they need plenty of help just to get up to the same speed as the 97% that you seem so concerned for.
Will take a lot of genetic engineering to make them the same as White people, and I suspect they won’t go along with it Joachim.
Humans are strange