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‘Sounds a bit like forced mourning’: Queen Elizabeth’s death draws attention to monarchy’s ‘despicable’, ‘violent’ history

Queen Elizabeth II, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, died Thursday after 70 years on the throne. She was 96.

Upon hearing the news of her death, love poured for the Queen from all over the world—leaders, organizations, families all reached out online and on the ground to offer their support to the monarchy. But as the entire world mourned the loss of the only Queen most had ever known, we also witnessed conflicted views on the monarchy.

The reaction was intense, even personal for many, as many anti-monarchists also took to the Internet to try and awaken the world to another grim reality—their reality—that they claimed to have witnessed in the past.

One such reaction came from a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who wished the Queen an “excruciating death” and tweeted that she hoped the Queen would die “in agony”. Dr Uju Anya expressed disdain for the monarch who “supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred” and displaced half her family. She also claimed that the consequences of such actions by the monarch are still being felt by “those alive today”.

Dr Anya faced serious Twitter backlash for her Tweets and her Tweet was taken down for violating Twitter’s policies. The University also reached out and apologized on the professor’s behalf.

Another such reaction came from the South African political party, the Economic Freedom Fighters who wrote in a statement on Twitter that they would not mourn the Queen because “to us her death is a reminder of a very tragic period in this country and Africa’s history.” During her reign, they added, “she never once acknowledged the atrocities her family inflicted on native people that Britain invaded across the world.”

Other threads on Twitter discussed the imperial atrocities she never apologized for, while some talked about the amount of wealth Britain took from the other countries.

The tweets from love and support shifted dramatically over the course of the day as conversation moved more towards widespread colonial diaspora. As people talked about their lack of grief and highlighted not only the bloodiness of the British rule, but the Queen’s role in it.

Here are some of the anti-monarch reactions on Twitter from across the globe: