Shaneel Lal: King Charles’ coronation represents a royal family whose existence is undemocratic, a waste of money and legitimised by a god that does not exist

King Charles’ £100 million coronation is a slap in the face for UK families fighting to stay afloat, says Shaneel Lal. Photo / Getty Images

Opinion

The UK is in the middle of an economic crisis. Families are struggling to pay their bills, put food on the table and send their children to school.

Instead of pumping money into those homes, those families had to endure Charles being crowned King in a coronation ceremony that commentators estimated to cost nearly £100 million ($202m). It was a colossal waste of money and a slap in the face of the families fighting to stay afloat.

And the royal family will continue to suck millions of taxpayers’ money every year through the sovereign fund, which in the 2021-2022 financial year was set at £86.3m – about £1.29 for every person in the UK.

The stark comparison between the everyday family and the royal family demonstrates that the monarch is out of touch with reality. That is not surprising. They believe people should bow to them and call them highness and majesty by virtue of being born into a family.

When people first greet Charles, they must call him Your Royal Highness and subsequently Sir. Highness means a person is higher than another. Who does Charles think he is to demand to be treated as higher than any other person?

It is absurd that for so long, the royal family has demanded people’s unreserved respect without providing any reason, and the world has slavishly gone along with the monarchy’s delusions. Why should I respect the monarchy? I see no reason why I or any New Zealander should. I also see no reason why we, the commoners, should bow to them.

It is 2023 and every person with a bit of self-respect should know not to bow their head in fear of a family with no legitimate reason to exist.

The British monarchs are the heads of the Church of England and their power above commoners is legitimised by a god that does not exist. I do not care if Charles believes there is an imaginary man in the sky that has deemed him the ruler of many nations. Anyone who does not believe in a white Christian god does not have to play pretend with Charles. There is no place for the head of the church to wield political power in any democratic society.

The royal family symbolises an imperialist regime that violently colonised nations and allegedly rampaged indigenous populations, taking their riches back to the UK.

During Queen Elizabeth’s reign, between 1952 and 1960, about 1.5 million people were confined to detention camps and heavily patrolled villages in Kenya during the Mau Mau uprising where some were tortured and raped. It would later emerge the British had tried to destroy official records of the crackdowns.

In 2013, the British Government paid £20m to torture victims in a lawsuit.

The royal family has been accused of racism countless times, and Prince Harry has claimed he and his wife, Meghan, - the first black royal - were “bullied” out of the family by his brother, William. This isn’t surprising, given Charles’ predecessor was exempt from abiding by race and ethnic anti-discrimination laws.

The argument for keeping the monarchy is that it keeps the countries from falling into chaos. If the UK is what royalists deem the ideal for unity, then I don’t want it. Far-right extremism is thriving in the UK. We recently imported their anti-trans hatred. Importing ideas from the UK was harmful in the 1800s, and it turns out that doing so in 2023 has the same effect. We do not need Charles to keep New Zealand together.

The royal family’s existence is undemocratic, a waste of money and legitimised by a god that does not exist. We must envision a world free of the monarchy that leeches off the vulnerable to remain in power.

It is time to yank the silver spoon out of these spoilt Brits’ mouths. Abolish the Monarchy.

Shaneel Shavneel Lal (they/them) was instrumental in the bill to ban conversion therapy in New Zealand. They are a law and psychology student, model and influencer.