With the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, admirers from around the world and her countrymen have been extolling her virtues as a transformative, compassionate, and caring leader.

Conveniently forgotten in the vain ritualising of personal attributes is the sordid history of British imperialism, which, in its heyday, created an empire that was reputedly the largest, wealthiest, and most ruthlessly powerful global hegemon in history.

How it came to be, how its self-serving ends were pursued, and the role she, Queen Elizabeth II in her 70-year reign, played in maintaining the vestiges of what is today a second-tier power on the world stage are issues of continuing debate. Oblivious to these concerns, the longest-serving British monarch will be accorded a State funeral intended to immortalise her.

This contrasts with the treatment meted out to another leader of a hegemonic world power, Mikhail Gorbachev, who died a few weeks earlier on August 30, 2022 at age 91. He served as the president of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1985 to the empire’s dissolution in 1991.

Possibly driven by aspirations of grandeur to be like the British empire, which, at one time, because of its size, was described as the empire on which the sun never sets, the USSR, at its height, was a federal union of 21 republics, covering one-sixth of the world’s land space, spanning 11 time zones. It was the largest country and a world superpower militarily.

Through a policy of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), and democratisation measures, Gorbachev created the conditions which undermined the one-party State of his predecessors. When various Eastern bloc countries abandoned Marxist-Leninist governance and chose instead independence from the USSR between 1989 and 1990, Gorbachev did not intervene militarily. This ostensibly led to the break-up of the Soviet empire.

For taking a decisive blow against totalitarianism and a system that violated the sovereignty of other countries, Gorbachev, unlike the British monarch, was denied a full State funeral. Russian President Vladmir Putin, who is busy invading neighbouring Ukraine in a reversal of Gorbachev’s policy, did not attend the September 3, 2022 funeral due to “the tight schedule of the president”.

The irony of it all.

Jamaica remains one of 14 crown jewels of the British monarchy. Starting with the capture of Jamaica by the British from the Spanish in 1655; the introduction of the British transatlantic slave trade in the mid-17th century; being made a crown colony in the wake of the 1865 Morant Bay Rebellion; introduction of Universal Adult Suffrage in 1944; the Windrush generation 1948 to 1971; independence with full dominion status within the British Commonwealth of Nations in 1962, it has been an incredible, some would say incredulous, 367 years locked in a death dance.

As colonisers the British have been like a negligent absentee landlord, bequeathing to this forlorn island nation entrenched underdevelopment with poor social, human, and physical infrastructure, and an unrecompensed legacy of slavery.

The obligatory eulogising by our Government and Opposition party, pandering to the failed experiment of colonialism and the British monarchy, is out of sync with the sentiments being expressed by a segment of society with whom they are out of touch — the powerless victims of a poppyshow form of governance, which pays deference to an alien sovereign. Bob Marley in Redemption Song resolutely and unapologetically speaks on their behalf.

“Old pirates, yes, they rob I, sold I to the merchant ships minutes after they took I from the bottomless pit. But my hand was made strong by the hand of the Almighty, we forward in this generation triumphantly.”

Biblical dogma admonishes one to not speak ill of the dead. Eulogies are by tradition commendatory. History is not so kind in recalling the deeds of tyrants, oppressors, and those with power who just stand aside and look.

Dr Henley Morgan is founder and executive chairman of the Trench Town-based Social Enterprise, Agency for Inner-city Renewal and author of My Trench Town Journey — Lessons in Social Entrepreneurship and Community Transformation for Policy Makers, Development Leaders, and Practitioners. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or hmorgan@cwjamaica.com