Reparations Not Coronations!
The British Crown made much of their vast personal wealth from the human slave trade. Every monarch and their family from Elizabeth Tudor onwards were financiers and beneficiaries of this trade in human flesh.
By the 18th century Britain was the world’s leading slave trafficker. About half of all enslaved Africans were transported in British ships. Eighty per cent of Britain’s income was connected with these activities. The royal family has never apologized for its role in the slave trade and the genocide of the Indigenous peoples. Nor has it paid a single cent in reparations.
In 1833, Britain used £20 million, 40 per cent of its national budget, to pay slave owners reparations for freeing their “property.” British taxpayers, including many descendants of enslaved people, were paying interest on the amount of money borrowed to fund the Slavery Abolition Act (1835) until 2015 when Britain paid off the loan.
The symbols of the monarchy and crown jewels that will be on display at the coronation represent the theft of the wealth of the colonized peoples and the blood and sweat of the enslaved peoples. Their estimated value today is set at $5.3 billion Canadian dollars — all of which should go to the peoples owed reparations for slavery, crimes of genocide and the slaughters and massacres that took place and continue to take place, thanks to the regime imposed on them that continues into the present in alleged democratic forms. The crimes for which reparations must be paid include the imposition of a constitutional order, which is said to provide “peace, order and good government,” designed to keep the people in thrall.