Conflicted Emotions: How Should Southeast Asia Mourn the Queen?
Every time a famous person dies, a similarish narrative would pop up across all social media platforms. There is a group of people who mourn the death of this individual, glorifying their achievements throughout their life; there is another, who would heavily criticise the individual’s shortcomings, and reject such glorification.
The first time I got involved in this debate came from the sudden death of famous basketball player Kobe Bryant. There was an excellent Guardian article that reminded us that behind the glories of a star basketballer, was a man with a history of sexual assault. Given both situations: how should we mourn him?
Society failed to answer that question then - after all, he was just a basketball player. Yet recently, with the death of Queen Elizabeth II, countries across the world, including some fellow ASEAN states, have found it challenging to decide how they should mourn the death of the longest reigning British monarch, who was responsible for their country’s colonial history.
I don’t aim to provide you with a solution in this article - but I hope just through this, we would think a bit more.
For starters, why do we need to mourn public figures? Or more specifically, when do we mourn public figures?
The basic consideration for the mourning of public figures is when the individual has made some sort of large impact in a specific society, and has been reported by the media for other aspects. This means that if your country’s former prime minister or president dies, it is probably normal for that country to mourn the loss of a former leader.
But this relationship is only built on the premise that the individual that passed is related to those who mourn. In other words, it is not expected for a Vietnamese to mourn the death of a former Kazakhstan president since the Vietnamese were not impacted by the actions of the president, nor were the Vietnamese exposed to him.
The explanation here is simple. Humans are simple emotional creatures, and our relationships are built not merely through conversation but observation. If for the past few years, you have been going to the same coffee store with the same barista for a morning coffee. One day, you hear of the barista’s unfortunate passing. It doesn’t matter if you have ever talked to the barista - but the loss of an individual creates a lingering impact on people’s emotions. You might not care that much for the barista per se, but you might become more appreciative of the people around you in the next few days.
But there’s another consideration to this - which is that we should not be mourning for an individual that has made a negative impact on our lives. The impact the leader made has to be one that was positive. For example, there was no expectation to mourn the death of a public figure like Hitler, even though he was both impactful and appeared a lot on public media.
This means that there are two criterias for people to mourn a public figure:
They have made a positive impact in their lives
The individual has been exposed to a decent amount of public media on that figure
So given this premise, why do we mourn the queen?
I think Queen Elizabeth II is rather a significant exception in British monarch history. Many British citizens have some sort of attachment towards the Queen. She has been a symbol of peace and stability through times of chaos and uncertainty - during the Cold War, the post-imperial years, and the COVID-19 crisis.
It is not as if Queen Elizabeth went out to give public speeches or announcements, and in fact she rarely did these things as compared to other royals. And yet, she remains one of the most photographed people in the world, allowing her to be constantly ‘visible’ to the world.
One of the most impressive things Queen Elizabeth has been able to achieve under her reign is to steer clear from any sort of controversy and media drama. Even within the royal catastrophes of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, or Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Queen managed to present herself as a leader in those incidents, carefully navigating through the media craze to protect the reputation of the royal family.
Under such a narrative, it can be reflected as if Queen Elizabeth is an individual with a sufficient stature in British society that brought about positive change, while maintaining a healthy public image and influence to make people feel emotional.
Then the question begs - what if Queen Elizabeth did not bring a positive impact on my life? What if I simply do not care for the Queen?
The latter question tends to be an easier one to answer. Although you might not care for the death of an individual, you might be empathetic to those who are mourning. For example, if you had a friend who lost their grandparents, you might be supportive of them, even though you have no idea who their grandparents are.
But in the Southeast Asian context, or any other countries that were colonised by the British, the sentiment we share for the royal family in Britain are not as positive as our British friends. It was a historical period of oppression, and for some - enslavement.
So as the Koh-I-Noor diamond sat on the Queen’s coffin in a grand church and the whole of Britain mourned for her, poverty-stricken Indians stared at it with the thought of what their life could have been without imperialist Britain.
Many Southeast Asian states, such as Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, just to name a few, were at one point under Britain’s colonial rule in the 18th and 19th century. These nations were introduced to the exploitative colonial economic system and subjected to racial discrimination. Many natural resources were exploited for the profit of the colonisers, which has left many communities stranded in poverty till this day.
But there is another colonial sentiment that Southeast Asians share, which is that British rule brought about rapid economic development and transformation within the region. It developed key ports and brought about secular politics, which accelerated the growth of these countries.
British colonial history in Southeast Asia is significantly more complex than the few sentences I have to offer here. But my point is, this area is contentious. Some might have seen benefits while some still suffer from the effects of British colonisation till this day.
But I think there is one key argument that I would like to leave in this debate, which is the role of Queen Elizabeth in the history of colonisation.
Queen Elizabeth’s role is not as clear. On one hand, many British colonies gained independence under her reign. The Queen shifted the empire away from its imperialist ways, and led it to become a much more secular region. But how much of a role did she truly play in this? Was the decision-making aspect in her power?
I think for all that it’s worth, Queen Elizabeth inhabited an institution that was built on the exploitation of communities across the world. While some can argue that her silence indicated that she was complicit in the atrocities committed by the empire, others could argue that she tried her best to shift the institution as far away from its imperialistic ways, without compromising the integrity of her role.
So the question then begs, do we mourn for the queen? If you feel sad, disheartened by the news, and hold the opinion that she has benefited your life, it is more than justified for you to mourn her death. If you feel anger and hatred towards the evil imperialist nature of Britain’s royalties, then don’t.
At the end of the day, humans are empathetic animals. We can mourn people while being conscious about the bad things they have done, and those that have suffered because of them. And we should also try to be a bit more understanding of why people are mourning, for not everything is as simple as black and white.
