Anonymous wrote:"My great grand father was marched into the woods and shot in the head along with thousands of others. My grandmother hated every Russian until the day she died. I now have friends who are Russian because sitting around randomly hating people has never made for a better world and because they are cool people."
What I find frustrating about this thread is people who go to extremes. We shouldn't hate on the Queen and your Gma shouldn't hate all Russians. Talking about restorative justice doesn't have to mean all of us abandon this continent, except native Americans.
Of course we aren't guilty for other people's actions, or the past. We are responsible for acknowledging reality and our actions here and now. Instead of getting angry for being "blamed" why can't we ask ourselves some honest questions about how history is impacting us and our fellow citizens now, today? And whether there is anything REASONABLE that can be done to address that?
With great power comes great responsibility, and she had great power. Generally I am an admirer of QE. We can still ask questions about colonialism and her role in, not the enactment of it, obviously, but HER actions or lack thereof in relation to it.
Well said. I am not a fan of the Queen, nor do I dislike her. As a citizen of a commonwealth country, I recognize the role of the British Empire on me and my ancestors, and I also recognize that while she may have done what she saw as her duty, that duty caused harm to my family whether she explicitly made those decisions or not. At the end of the day she was the Head of State, and, while she may not have had direct influence, she did have power through her position and role as Queen. I view her no different than leaders in the U.S. and what they have done in the name of "spreading democracy." One man's victor is another man's tormentor.