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The Queen: End of a long-ended era - and new world order

13 September 2022 12:08 am - 5     - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

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  • It was a different world in many ways. The first television sets arrived in the 1950s; hers was the first televised coronation. Many things that would shock the liberal literati today were the standard norm then. Her first prime minister, by most accounts, was a racist and a white supremacist.
  • Britain today is a skeleton of its former self. It is at best a regional power in Europe, a steep climb down from the global empire it was.  It is viewed more as an appendix of the American power, than an autonomous entity capable of asserting itself against a commensurate world power

The Queen is dead. With her, the Second Elizabethan era came to an end.  During her Seventy years on the throne, the world has changed beyond recognition; she might well have felt as if she had time travelled. 


At her coronation in 1953, Britain, though it was no longer the predominant world power, was still brandishing the glory of the victory of World War II. Its old hegemonic status had been cut to its size, yet it still returned to the global high table as a Veto-wielding permanent member of the United Nations. The dissolution of the British Empire was in progress, but the colonial hangover reigned supreme even in the countries that were eager to establish themselves as new states. 


The Jewel of the empire, India, where the independent leaders wanted a clean break from the past, became a republic but joined the Commonwealth.


It was a different world in many ways. The first television sets arrived in the 1950s; hers was the first televised coronation. Homosexuality was prawned upon. The World War II code-breaker Alan Turing was forced into chemical castration. Many things that would shock the liberal literati today were the standard norm then. Her first prime minister, by most accounts, was a racist and a white supremacist. 


Since then, the word has moved faster than Jet travel which was first introduced in the 1950s. Even the Queen pondered in 1997 that “the world is changing almost too fast for its inhabitants.” That was still before the arrival of the internet age in its full throttle. The dawn of a whole new era of social media happened a decade or so later and has since influenced every nook and corner, in a way no monarch could even dream of doing. 


But, at least on one count, the world has stuck in the past.  A protracted period of royal mourning that is punctured by elaborate rituals, customs and fawningly deferential news coverage is an anachronism.  


The last time a world witnessed a nation in mourning of this intensity was probably the death of Mao Zedong in 1976. Mao may not be the comparison that monarchists, conservatives and their well-wishers find acceptable, though the Great Helmsman of China could well be deemed far more consequential in the second half of the 20th century than most of the aristocracy and elected leaders, perhaps, only second to his own predecessor. But, when the latter, Deng Xiaoping died in 1997, having brought China out of the woodwork and set in place the economic foundation for the juggernaut it would become in the following decade, there was hardly any pomp. 
If any Third world country resorted to a fraction of ritualistic national mourning now on display in London, to honour a dead leader, many sanctimonious souls would have a thing or two to say. 


Britain today is a skeleton of its former self. It is at best a regional power in Europe, a steep climb down from the global empire it was.  It is viewed more as an appendix of the American power, than an autonomous entity capable of asserting itself against a commensurate world power.  India, a former colony passed Britain in the size of GDP, this year. It still wields outsize influence in world fora, but that inheritance of the colonial and immediate World War II legacy denotes a great disjuncture with the actual distribution of power in the international system. Such clout is not sustainable in the long haul. Yet, the colonial hangover has outlived the decay. Old colonies of the empire have united in grief, real or affected. 


President Ranil Wickremesinghe has announced a day of mourning on September 19 and directed that the national flag be flown at half-mast.


India, where the first independent Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru wanted a clean break from the colonial past, and Shashi Tharoor is demanding reparations from Britain for colonial injustice has declared a national day of mourning.  Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the Hindutva idealogue who is said to have influenced young Narendra Modi, India’s current prime minister, called Mahatma Gandhi a sissy for being too accommodating of the British.
That conflicting relationship with the old colonial power might still be a strength. The imperialism of the Dutch, Belgians, French and even the Japanese were downright predatory.  Even the harshest critic of imperialism would not lump the British colonial exercise with the rest. From Ghana to old Ceylon and India to Malaya, colonial British built both railroads and institutions. A few former British colonies could blame colonialism for their modern-day ills, though one would find that too much divergence from the colonial model - and overly idealistic effort to re-invent the wheel - had been a cause of the problem.


Thus a heartfelt send-off to the departing monarch is within the realm of the civilized. 


That however should be an extension of the conflicted relationship of the colonies with its former colonial master, and not one that is guided by unabashed sycophancy.  


Sycophancy would not take us anywhere either, perhaps other than a photo for Ranil Wickremesinghe with King Charles - and not even a less partisan approach by the UK at the UN Human Rights Council.


Over the last 70 years, the world changed, but, for the first 50 years, much of the power that was generated was recycled within Americas and the Europe. That changed during the last 20 years.  Since then, global power is in transition en masse to the East - primarily to China, and probably, if it sustains the recent economic success, to India.


They hold the future. Not Britain. That is where any aspiring nation should look for. 


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  Comments - 5

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  • Tamil Historian Tuesday, 13 September 2022 05:45 PM

    SUPERPOWER Russia is struggling with manpower shortage in their six month old war with Ukraine. So this begs the question , HOW WAS BRITAIN, A SMALL ISLAND , ABLE TO INVADE MANY COUNTRIES ALL OVER THE WORLD AND KEPT THEM AS COLONIES FOR MORE THAN 150 YEARS. THE SURPRISING ANSWER IS STARVING MILLIONS OF INDIANS AND THEIR PENCHANT FOR VIOLENCE. THE CUNNING BRITAIN REALISED THIS NATURE ABOUT THE INDIANS AND EASILY RECRUITED MANY MILLIONS OF THEM, PUT THEM IN BRITISH UNIFORMS, GAVE THEM BASIC TRAINING, GAVE EACH ONLY A SINGLE BAYONET AND A GUN, PUT THEM UNDER BRITISH OFFICERS , TOOK THEM ALL OVER THE WORLD AND LET THEM LOOSE TO MASSACRE AND SAVAGELY SUPPRESS ANY REVOLTS BY THE NATIVES AGAINST BRITISH OCCUPATION. TOWARDS THE END OF THE EMPIRE BRITAIN DELIBERATELY PROMOTED GAHNDI AND HIS NON VIOLENCE AS SYMBOL OF INDIA AND COVERED UP THE UNSPEAKABLE ATROCITIES COMMITTED BY MILLIONS OF INDIAN MEN TO MAINTAIN THE BRITISH EMPIRE. AFTER 1947 THIS INDIAN KILLER FORCE BECAME THE INDIAN ARMY.

    Fact Friday, 16 September 2022 06:17 PM

    Tamil Historian - there are brilliant people like you in Sri Lanka. That's why you are where you are. Today, there was a news of an Indian businessman -Gautam Adani becoming 2nd richest person in the world. His net worth is 155 bn USD..Twice that of Lankan GDP. Despite India going out of the way and helping you guys in current crisis, you guys are filled with India hatred. Trust me ..Today India is 40 times bigger than Lanka, in next 20 years it will be 400 times bigger. These are the projections. Drop your hatred. Look at India as opportunity. Else u are gonna be the losers.

    Thirukumar , Canada Saturday, 17 September 2022 07:24 AM

    Fact , can you dispute one single thing the historian has mentioned ? No, you can’t . So what is the point of you talking about Indian businessmen as it has no correlation to the facts outlined. Your head is simply screwed up ! I am getting really suspicious why your bizarre outbursts is getting permitted in this paper. Daily Mirror is becoming extraordinarily stranger than this person to allow comment from patently disturbed individual. I feel there is more to it than an unbalanced person making a comment. Only time will tell. I am sure others are looking into it.

    Kariyawasam , Lawyer and Former Sri Lankan Diplomat Saturday, 17 September 2022 07:50 AM

    fact - There is no merit in praising India. Google it and see for your self (1) 45% Indian households don’t have toilets. Name a single country where even 2% households with no toilets. (2) In India every year nearly 100 thousand children go missing and never found again. This shocking fact is sufficient to say India should not be recognised as a “normal” country for humans.(3) In India raping and killing of women is so widespread, current Indian Prime Minister spoke in an interview and said “ every Indian parent should ask their sons if they come home late ‘where you have been all this time ‘. What a society parents have to suspect their sons could be rapists or murderers. This is India !

    Unleashed Wednesday, 21 September 2022 12:08 AM

    Fact should learn to digest the bitter truth, todays billioner is tomorrow’s fraudster, see what happened with Vijay mallaya, we have no hatred towards Indian people but you should know that India helping Sri Lanka during crisis is pure business and not out of concern. We don’t buy that shit anymore!!


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