Indigenous leaders from a string of former British colonies yesterday urged King Charles to apologize for “centuries of racism” and the “legacy of genocide” perpetrated by the British crown.
In a staunchly worded letter that could sour the buildup to tomorrow’s coronation, indigenous representatives from 12 Commonwealth nations called for financial reparations and the return of stolen cultural treasures.
The letter was signed by leaders from Australia — where indigenous people were massacred by British colonizers and forced off their lands — as well as several Caribbean nations once plundered for slaves.
Photo: AP
The group said they had banded together to help their people “recover from centuries of racism, oppression, colonialism and slavery.”
Charles has in recent years stepped up efforts to engage with indigenous leaders, as the monarchy faces a reckoning over its links to the slave trade and the British Empire’s legacy of violence.
Although he has conceded that the crown must “acknowledge the wrongs which have shaped our past,” the letter implores him to go further by offering a formal, royal apology.
Former Olympian Nova Peris, the first indigenous woman elected to Australia’s federal parliament, was one of the leaders to sign the letter.
A staunch critic of Australia’s ties to the royal family, Peris said it was time to “acknowledge the horrific and enduring impacts” of colonization and the “legacy of genocide” felt by many indigenous populations.
“It’s vital for us to discuss and educate people on the truth behind colonization, during the week of the coronation,” she said. “Conversations start with listening.”
The king should start discussions about compensating indigenous people, who watched as British colonizers pilfered their treasures and trashed their cultures, the letter said.
Human rights expert Hannah McGlade, an indigenous woman from Western Australia, said reparations remained a key sticking point for many.
“We are increasingly seeing indigenous people call for reparations from the royal family,” she said.
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A Maori artist has designed a way for the public to tune out of royal coverage, with a Web browser plugin that replaces all monarchy and coronation stories with indigenous news.
Despite a distance of more than 18,000km from the UK, New Zealand news headlines have featured a steady flow of royal family gossip: the latest potential snubbing, deep-dive analysis of the king’s conduct, invitation list scandals and features on the coronation quiche.
For some, the fanfare and compulsive coverage has been grating.
“People are sick of it — they don’t care about how much a diamond costs and who’s wearing what dress,” said Hmiora Bailey, a Maori artist who created the plugin. “Across the globe, indigenous folk are tired of [this] rhetoric around frivolity and class.”
The service, called Pikari Mai, is a free plugin to download, and promises users an opportunity to “switch off the toff.”
Made with agency Colenso BBDO, it uses data scraping to scan Web pages for words and images related to the royals, then replaces those with articles linked to indigenous news produced by indigenous Maori outlets.
Although King Charles III is New Zealand’s ceremonial head of state, Maori never ceded sovereignty to the crown.
New Zealand continues to reckon with a violent colonial legacy — for which the crown has made a number of formal apologies — including land confiscation, atrocities, aggressive warfare and unlawful arrests.
Although the app’s creator held that in mind, Bailey said he hoped to offer a playful vision — one of “independence, where we can talk about our own people, and if we want to we can switch off and we don’t have to rationalize and we don’t have to contextualize ourselves as victim or respondent.”
Maori authors made up about 1.8 percent of authors at news outlets, he said, adding that swapping monarchy news for their writing is an opportunity to raise the profile of their work, and of indigenous stories more broadly.
“I want to give my koroua, my grandparents or my elders, and indigenous nationhood as big of a platform as the crown gets,” Bailey said. “And why not?”
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