Oxford students remove portrait of the queen as she represents colonialism

[NutellaEllaElla]

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I am neither pro, nor anti monarchy and have no wish to become like Thailand where insult to the monarch is a punishable offence. Also, if they had chosen to take down the portrait because they were redecorating and it's a bit stuffy to have a portrait of the queen then fair enough. But this political statement....isn't it a bit rude? To the country? I mean, it's not as if Oxford is a bastion of equality so they're in a glass house throwing those stones.
I'm a bit bemused by it all, anyone else?

MrsIsobelCrawley it's virtue signalling as a replacement for action.

How does publicly removing a picture make a jot of real difference to the real effects of racism in the UK?

I'm a republican. Keep the picture up or lob it in the bin, entirely up to the students. But doing so publicly 'because colonialism' is hilarious.

In this situation, you would appear to have difficulty distinguishing your arse from your elbow, Wrongsideofhistorymyarse.

@MrsIsobelCrawley I nearly spat my coffee over my desk. Lol.

It's far weirder that they ever put it up in the first place

People complaining about this are giving off some serious cult vibes

These people should go and emigrate to North Korea

They would be frothing at the mouth to have a picture of our Queen up on their common room wall by the time they had finished.

Spoilt entitled brats

[quote QwertyGirly]@MrsIsobelCrawley I nearly spat my coffee over my desk. Lol.[/quote]
But you didn't though, did you?

Students have always tried to appear “edgy” and liked to make statements that get them a bit of attention. It was always so and this is just continuing the tradition, bless em

The Queen wouldn’t give a shiny shit!

Spoilt entitled brats^

If you want to choose what photo goes up on your own wall in private, it means you're a spoiled entitled brat?

Maybe you should go to North Korea, seeing you think no one should be allowed to choose their own interior decor.

The Queen wouldn’t give a shiny shit!
But you obviously do.

I removed a print of a train from my student wall, because I'm not that keen on trains.

Does that make me a "virtue signalling spoiled brat wokester who should be exiled to North Korea", or not?

Can never remember if trains are right wing or left wing. I guess if they're nationalised they're left wing and thus Woke=bad. If they're steam they're from the Good Old Days and therefore good?

In related news, my neighbour has just taken down the union jack that was flying in their garden. I've reported them as probable terrorist sympathisers.

@ohforarainyday

Spoilt entitled brats^

If you want to choose what photo goes up on your own wall in private, it means you're a spoiled entitled brat?

Maybe you should go to North Korea, seeing you think no one should be allowed to choose their own interior decor.

The Queen wouldn’t give a shiny shit!
But you obviously do.

It’s about the constant attack on our culture as being some brutal, inhumane Neanderthal society

We are one of the most civilised cultures in the world and they don’t know they are born

It’s about the constant attack on our culture as being some brutal, inhumane Neanderthal society

Blimey.

A few students took a print from a wall in their own private space because they didn't really fancy looking at it...

@hamstersarse no I really don’t give a shiny shit which is why I was pointing out this is just the usual student sort of thing to do. Don’t know if you are old enough to remember The Young Ones, but when I read this I thought of Rik Mayell’s character!

why I was pointing out this is just the usual student sort of thing to do.

Exactly.

The real issue here is not "a group of students don't particularly fancy staring at a photo of the Queen."

The real issue is that a right wing newspaper is wasting time and space exploiting a total non-story to deliberately whip up froth and division.

A lot of people are in the habit of denying there are attacks on our culture yet this sort of thing is particularly commonplace

You might be glad one day of the ‘right wing press whipping up a frenzy’ about the constant attacks on our culture

It’s strange to me that these students think Queen Elizabeth II “represents colonialism” because when you actually look at her actions during her reign, she has deliberately broken up the British Empire and consciously gotten colonies their independence. She’s passionately anti-colonialist in her views. Of course the Constitution doesn’t allow her to have just done it by Royal decree. But she’s influence PMs and Parliaments through the years to take a Commonwealth approach that is like a United Nations with everyone being equal and valued by U.K.

These are obviously not modern history students at Oxford....or I’d have to wonder what the fuck type of revisionist propaganda version of history are they teaching them?

What Wrongsideofhistory said.

@MrsIsobelCrawley

How dare Oxford students condemn slavery and exploitation. After all, it was on the basis of slavery and exploitation that many in Britain became wealthy and great.

The bloody cheek of these students.

? But there were/are zero slavery and zero colonies (exploitation) added during Elizabeth IIs reign. So removing her portrait doesn’t make a statement about slavery or exploitation of colonialism.

Out of 65 countries that have gained independence from the in its entire history UK, 57 of these countries did so during Elizabeth IIs reign.

She is by far the most decolonisationist of any other British monarch!

A lot of people are in the habit of denying there are attacks on our culture yet this sort of thing is particularly commonplace

A few kids not wanting a photo of the queen on their own private wall is not "an attack on culture."

You sound utterly unhinged.

Do you honestly believe all British people should be forced to display portraits of the Queen in their own private homes?

You might be glad one day of the ‘right wing press whipping up a frenzy’ about the constant attacks on our culture
The right wing press are the ones leading the Cancel Culture movement. The right wing press are the ones promoting censorship and making an attack on freedom of speech and freedom of expression.

No, I will never ever be glad about cancel culture or a culture that censors and suppresses anything those in Power dislike.

@ohforarainyday

They’re not kids, but young adults and supposedly receiving one of best educations in the world. So, yes if they just didn’t want a picture of the Queen on the wall, just because and quietly took it down that is completely different from taking it down with a big declaration and public statements that they took it down because the Queen “represents colonialism”. We have every right to question the stupidity and ignorance of their rationale for taking down the portrait. I think you are missing this point. it’s not that they took it down, but the reason they say they took it down is both from a place of ignorance and prejudice.

There's a particular sinister aspect to all of this.

As Goebells noted, in order to completely subjugate a population, you don't need to get everyone. You'll never sway the intelligent with simple populist propaganda- so you sideline them. You make them the enemy of the people as well as the outsiders whomever they may be.

It's why the first thing Russia did in the subjugation of Poland was exterminate the intelligentsia - the university professors, physicians, judges, lawyers, teachers, writers and journalists.

These days, you don't need to kill - if you control the flow of information sufficiently, you can simply discredit the opposition before it's even started to oppose.

@ohforarainyday

The right wing press promoting censorship? I think you’ve got that completely the wrong way round

I don’t recall the DT or DM shouting for ‘colonial’ statues to be torn down, quite the opposite

A few kids not wanting a photo of the queen on their own private wall is not "an attack on culture."

That’s not what happened.

They were attacking the Queen for colonialism.
The Queen sits at the heart of our culture 🤷‍♀️

What, like this you mean?

a big declaration and public statements that they took it down because the Queen “represents colonialism”.

But that simply did not happen.

No-one from the student group has spoken to the press. There have been no "big declarations" or "public statements." The statement about the Queen representing Colonialism does not come from any "press statement" but was a remark a student made to other students during a private meeting of members of that student group.

Read the article. The Times admit they copied and pasted all their information from the Minutes of the private student group meeting, which the Times managed to get their hands on, via Guido Fawkes website.

The question you should be asking is how did Guido Fawkes get his hands on the minutes of a private student group meeting, why did he decide to publish those minutes on his website, and who tipped off the Times about it?

Every student group has meetings, and every student group writes up minutes from those meetings. Normally the Minutes from a student group would of no interest to anyone outside of that group. It's deeply sinister to think people can't say anything in a private meeting, in case anyone sends the minutes to a newspaper.

It's very dodgy and sinister that the Times are using minutes from private student group meetings as a source for such an incendiary article.