On October 21, independent Indigenous senator Linda Thorpe disrupted King Charles III’s stop in Canberra on his Australian tour, and proclaimed the following:
“You are not our King. You are not sovereign. You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us! Our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people! You destroyed our land. Give us a treaty, we want a treaty in this country. You are a genocidalist. This is not your land. This is not your land! You are not my King! You are not our King!”
Linda Thorpe, 2024 (Watson, Relph, 2024)
. Thorpe’s protest of the British monarch’s continued presence in Australian political and legal life quickly became the source of significant contention and conversation – sparking a vast range of opinions. While the vocally riotous nature of her disapproval may be contested, even by fellow Indigenous actors such as Ngunnawal elder Aunty Violet Sheridan, Thorpe’s disturbance provides a fruitful jumping board in reevaluating the British role in Commonwealth states (Watson, Relph, 2024). Ultimately, Thorpe brings one to interrogate contemporary society’s inherent contradictions and paradoxes; amidst ongoing global efforts1 toward reconciliation and reparation, the persistence of neo-colonial relations is strong and deeply entrenched within policy, law, and ideology.
As Thorpe exclaimed “You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back … you are not sovereign … You destroyed our land,” (Shakhnazarova, 2024) as she was escorted outside by security, Charles and Camilla continued with the event, seemingly unbothered (Economic Times, 2024). While the King himself began his address by explaining how his person has been in part “shaped and strengthened by such traditional [Indigenous] wisdom,” (Watson, Relph, 2024) one would be misguided to think his relationships with Indigenous communities have historically been copasetic. Among many telling examples, one can think of this instance in 2017 where Charles and Camilla were seen visibly laughing as Inuit women performed a traditional song in the style of throat-singing during their visit to Iqaluit (Jancelewicz, 2017). Thorpe’s outcry not only represents a challenge to Western ignorance and dismissal of Indigenous lifeways and customs broadly, but also reiterates Indigenous peoples’ demands for much larger systemic change.
The rhetoric used by Thorpe during the scene at the parliamentary reception evokes pillars of critical decolonial and radical theory. In shouting “You are not my sovereign”, she asserted a dissent from the Western apparatuses which created the idea that a British sovereign can exist on Australian soil.
Of sovereignty and its paradoxes
The idea of a sovereign state as seen in modernity is recognized to have emerged from the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia – a European peace treaty that established the cornerstones of the nation-state. The treaty cemented the notion that a nation can hold sovereignty and unchallenged autonomy over its territory, thus constituting and specifying state ownership of land (Hassan, 2006). The formulation of these ideas (both paradoxically and non-paradoxically) would arise in line with Europe’s colonization of the ‘New World’ and eventually that of Australia and New Zealand (the conquests in Asia and Africa were already well underway in the 17th century). How then, can European nations form and uplift the notion of sovereignty when their national projects are fundamentally based on interference, in what – according to their own conceptualization – betrays the very foundations of sovereignty to begin with?
European nations built a set of justificatory, protective arguments, and apparatuses to their non-extension of sovereign values to prospective colonies. Beginning by establishing moral legitimacy through framing colonization as an inherently moral and necessary phenomenon, legislative legitimacy was established through a set of legal statements such as the Doctrine of Discovery. This set of principles, known through papal bulls and laid out by various Popes of the fifteenth century, justifies Western – or Christian – endeavours to “invade, search out, capture, vanquish and subdue all Saracens2 and pagans” (Pope Nicholas V, 1455). Allowing for the seizing of territory, displacement, and genocide of Indigenous peoples, the Doctrine of Discovery had the further effect of participating in the European construction of a position of superiority over other political organizations. Moreover, it held that ‘civilized’ Christian nations not only have the right to, but ought to, spread their religious and civilizational values, forcefully if need be (Pope Nicholas V, 1455). In chanting “You are not sovereign”, Thorpe denounces the illegitimacy of the theological and theoretical frameworks invented by Europe to enact mass calamity on her people.
On hierarchies of knowledge
The example of the Doctrine of Discovery is a single element within the gargantuan European scheme of colonization and the construction of its legitimacy. At its core, the doctrine accurately depicts the beating heart of coloniality3 – that of knowledge. The concept of a hierarchy of knowledge here suggests that those who possess it in its ‘highest form’ ought to bestow it upon ‘inferiors’. The aforementioned Doctrine provides a framework that valorizes territorial capture and expansion while cementing an essentializing perspective on knowing itself that uplifts European perspectives and destitutes Indigenous ones.
This takes place through a broader systematization of knowledge which finitely categorizes key ideals such as morality, justice, and proper political conduct through European ways of knowing. Regardless of the fact that the Western vantage point is, in reality, one of many perspectives within the ideological spectrum, Europe has imposed and globalized its attitudes and dispositions to the degree that they have become widely recognized as the truth. “Knowledge is legitimized by actors and institutions that are in a position to assert it” (Mignolo, Walsh, 2018), knowledge is here understood as an enunciation4 of certainty, not an objective certainty – it is about power and control of the narrative. Coloniality is the ideological apparatus that attempts to eliminate ideological diversity – the genocide of people’s lives being intrinsically tied to a more intangible genocide of ideas. Through her protest, Thorpe not only evokes the murder of her people but also the violent imposition of European constructions of knowledge onto them. Thorpe denies the legitimacy of these value systems and makes her own well-known. The parliamentary protest enacted by Thorpe ultimately asks people to question the unquestioned and interrogate long-standing traditions, systems, and institutions – the most obvious of all being the continued existence of the British monarchy altogether, especially in the context of its commonwealth reach. While there is certainly no ubiquitous consensus from any constitutional monarchies on whether the continued royal presence in governance should be overturned, what can be certain is that an act of curiosity must take place. That is, to question what has been enunciated by dominating forces and how such enunciations have become internalized within society. When Thorpe told the King he was not sovereign, she was not legally wrong – remember the lack of treaties. However, it is through the ever-prevalent and consistent British enunciation of colonial rule, combined with the maintenance of colonial state boundaries and designs in Australia that Charles’ sovereignty remains ‘strong’. The wider journey towards Indigenous reparation and the promotion of Indigenous self-determination and agency is a long and unclear one, but such a journey certainly ought to begin by giving true consideration to Indigenous enunciations of ontologies, epistemologies, and critiques. Thorpe’s staunch stance may not reflect her people entirely, but it surely demonstrates the pervasiveness of demands for radical change and decolonization in praxis.
- With varying degrees of success and support, that is. ↩︎
- A Saracren was a term used in Europe during the the Middle Ages to broadly define Arab people ↩︎
- Differentiated from colonization, which refers to the material processes of genocide, displacement, assimilation and disenfranchisement. Coloniality refers to the overarching ideological frameworks that govern white supremacy and justify acts of colonialism. ↩︎
- Enunciation here refers to the setting of the terms and conditions of the discussions that happen within the broader social and political landscape. It is an assertion of an ontological (objective) reality, here a European assertion, in a way that erases the inherent pluriversal and subjective nature of ‘knowing’ itself. ↩︎
Edited by Sofia V. Forlini
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and they do not reflect the position of the McGill Journal of Political Science or the Political Science Students’ Association.
Featured image by Reuters
References :
Nicholas V. “The Bull Romanus Pontifex” January 8, 1455 https://caid.ca/Bull_Romanus_Pontifex_1455.pdf.
The Economic Times. “Nightmare: Australian Senator Heckles King Charles and Says You Are Not My King.” The Economic Times, 23 Oct. 2024, economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/uk/nightmare-australian-senator-heckles-king-charles-and-says-you-are-not-my-king/articleshow/114478031.cms#google_vignette.
Guardian Australia. “‘You Are Not My King’: Lidia Thorpe Removed after Heckling King Charles on Australia Visit.” Guardian Australia, YouTube, 21 Oct. 2024, www.youtube.com/watch?v=18DCUS_ZNi4&ab_channel=GuardianAustralia.
Jancelewicz, Chris. “Prince Charles and Camilla Laugh during Inuit Throat-Singing Performance – National.” Global News, Global News, 10 July 2023, globalnews.ca/news/3573437/prince-charles-camilla-inuit-throat-singing-iqaluit/.
Mignolo, Walter, and Catherine E. Walsh. On Decoloniality: Concepts, Analytics, Praxis. Duke University Press, 2018.
Relph, Daniela, and Katy Watson. “Not My King, Australian Senator Lidia Thorpe Shouts at Charles.” BBC News, BBC, 21 Oct. 2024, www.bbc.com/news/articles/c79n20r750po. Shakhnazarova, Nika. “King Charles Heckled by Australian Senator Shouting ‘you Are Not My King’ during Speech to Parliament: ‘F–K the Colony.’” New York Post, New York Post, 21 Oct. 2024, nypost.com/2024/10/21/entertainment/king-charles-heckled-by-australian-senator-shouting-you-are-not-my-king-f-k-the-colony/.