/ 16 September 2022

Kings, queens and looted legacies

Thierryhenry Gettyimages 1214932155
There's only one king in Paddy Harper's eyes, and that is Thierry Henry.

Thursday.

There’s a bit of an impromptu celebration going on in the street outside — and all over Durban’s ward 33.

The residents of the ward aren’t observing the installation of Charles III as the British monarch.

They’re not ululating over the announcement that Misuzulu ka Zwelithini will finally get his certificate of recognition from President Cyril Ramaphosa at the Moses Mabhida Stadium on 29 October — the latest challenge by his half-brother, Simakade ka Zwelithini be damned.

The good people of Glenwood and Umbilo — monarchists and republicans alike — have something far more important to celebrate than a royal installation or death.

After months of work stoppages, interruptions, changed dates and no pickups, overflowing bins and filthy pavements, the Durban Solid Waste (DWS) trucks have finally turned up as scheduled to take away the trash.

Since 2020, when we moved into the ward, there’s been drama with the bins, predominantly over the city’s refusal to continue paying 120 hours of overtime a week to the DWS staff.

Likewise the street cleaning, because of beef over making the city’s Expanded Public Works Programme workers permanent rather than them being retained through sub-contractors, who may or may not pay their staff.

Since the work stoppages began, the only refuse removal that has happened has taken place on Sundays — by paying the truck crews overtime, obviously — so getting the bins emptied on schedule is a big thing, worthy of a celebration.

A result.

It’s been a week since the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the British monarch.

I was a bit confused when the news of the queen’s death broke.Aretha Franklin left us on 16 August 2018, so it took a while for me to work out what was going on.

Likewise the talk of a new monarch. There’s only one king I recognise and that’s King Thierry Henry.

Word has it that the United States’ president, Joe Biden, was even more confused when he heard the queen had died and sent a message of condolence to Freddy Mercury’s mother — and Brian May — before his minders took away his mobile.

It’s been a week of wall-to-wall television coverage; tributes and mass outpourings of grief — in the Northern Hemisphere, at least — as the Brits prepare to bury their queen and get introduced to their new king.

Lots of messages of condolences, flowers and marmalade sandwiches; tales about corgis, stories about special moments with the monarch and memories of the departed queen’s 70-year reign.

Plenty of parades, carcades, cavalcades; oodles of pomp and ceremony; lashings of decorum and dignity as Britain prepares for the royal funeral on Monday.

Fair enough.

There hasn’t been much in the way of returning of diamonds looted from Britain’s former colonies; no repatriation of other people’s monarchs’ coffins, bronzes or gold; no giving back of land first invaded in 1169.

There’s been no discussion about reparations for slavery on the part of the Empire; no promise of compensation for centuries of colonialism and imperialism to mark the passing of one monarch and the ascension of another.

Nothing.

No apology, not even sorry, we didn’t mean to steal your gold, behead your ancestors, take your land, we won’t do it again, promise.

Nada.

The Brits don’t appear to get it. They really believe it is a Commonwealth, rather than the stolen wealth of nations.

It’s understandable.

The Brits never woke up to find their monarch’s tomb had been stolen and placed on display in a museum in Cairo; that their history and their heritage had been stolen, pillaged and taken to India.

No Londoners have had to take cover from cannon fire from Zimbabwean warships steaming up the Thames, guns blazing, on their way to pillage, loot and conquer.

There are no English diamonds in King Misuzulu ka Zwelithini’s crown.

No Afghanis ever “discovered” Britain.

I guess it’s naive to hope that the British — and the monarchy — would use their own moment of grief to atone, belatedly but at least in part, for the grief they imposed on the populations of the countries they conquered and looted in the name of king and country.

They’ve had hundreds of years to do the right thing — and a couple of royal successions— so why would they start now?

It would be lovely though if Mingus turned things upside down, did the right thing.

Used his powers as king to give back all the ill-gotten gains taken in the institution’s name.

Apologise — and send Ramaphosa and the other heads of state of former colonies home with plane-loads of looted gold, diamonds and historical artefacts.

Lovely, but not likely.