Cocktails, Colonialism and the Symbols of Empire

I was sitting in the Q Bar. Inside the Empress Hotel. In British Columbia’s capital, Victoria. There were oversized paintings of Queen Victoria in the bar, and references to the British Crown throughout the hotel.

Someone at a neighbouring table was expounding upon the evils of Nazi Germany. An unusual topic for people gathered for a post-work drink in a posh bar.

But it set me wondering about an alternate universe. One in which I sat gazing at dozens of floor-to-ceiling murals of Hitler, not Queen Victoria. At the N Bar. Inside the Führer Hotel. In the capital city of Hitler, New Germania. Celebrating a different outcome of the Second World War, and a different empire.

In this alternative reality, I was joined by a local with a penchant for spontaneous history lectures. He began by explaining that if we fail to understand and learn from history, we are bound to repeat it.

Observing my obvious Indian heritage, this stranger informed me that at the beginning of the 18th century, and prior to British rule, India accounted for 25 per cent of global GDP — more than all of Europe combined. India was a leading exporter of spices, fine cloth, steel and ships, to name just a few products.

But, my new friend noted, over the next 200 years of British rule, India’s economy was systematically and ruthlessly “deconstructed” by the British to serve imperial interests. British industrialization was financed by the deindustrialization of India.

Within two centuries, India accounted for less than three per cent of global GDP. The ruthlessness of British colonial policy during these two centuries led to famines that killed approximately 35 million people.

This massacre was not the result of natural disasters or catastrophes. It was a direct result of official state policy. Then-prime minister Winston Churchill, for example, diverted Indian crops to stockpiles in Europe during the Second World War.

Conscience-stricken British diplomats begged Churchill to leave the crops in India in order to prevent widespread death. Churchill dismissed concerns about rampant food shortages by mockingly asking why Mahatma Gandhi, then on a hunger strike seeking Indian independence, hadn’t died yet? The Great Bengal Famine of 1943 claimed nearly three million lives as a direct result of Churchill’s policy.

Queen Victoria, the stranger continued, reigned as the self-proclaimed “Empress of India” for 64 years during the period that saw the majority of deaths due to famine. He said it was noteworthy that not a single widespread famine on such a scale occurred in India before or after British rule.

The reason is simple. In the absence of British policy dictating otherwise, India’s resources and crops were naturally first used to meet the needs of domestic consumption.

The stranger repeated. If we fail to understand and learn from history, we are bound to repeat it. He said nothing about Hitler whose images and iconography surrounded us.

I returned to our universe, and gazed upon the larger-than-life murals of the Empress of India, Queen Victoria, adorning the walls of the Q Bar. The queen who presided over the British Empire for over six decades.

I sat aghast at the fact that such a setting continues to exist in 2021. I can only imagine how much more aghast I would be if I were of Indigenous heritage.

While the events described above were occurring in India, ethnic cleansing and genocide on a massive scale was occurring right here on the unceded territories of the Lək̓ʷəŋən peoples.

It is unacceptable that the Empress Hotel, with its Q Bar and royal memorabilia, continues to stand as an icon of our city.

Indeed, I question why our city continues to bear the name of Queen Victoria. Adding insult to injury, I note that the British Empress was named after the Latin word for “conquest” or “victory,” personified in the ancient Roman goddess Victoria.

Multiple temples to Victoria were built in Rome. For centuries, Victoria was publicly worshipped by triumphant Roman generals and emperors returning from wars of conquest over “barbarians.” Slaves and plundered booty were paraded through the streets of Rome. This history is not so ancient after all.

Our city’s very name constitutes a perpetual celebration of disturbing and violent colonial conquests that cost millions of innocent lives. This dark legacy continues to have tragic and unacceptable consequences for colonized peoples and their descendants, both locally and globally.

How is it that we continue to celebrate colonialism’s victory? It is high time that we begin to dismantle it.

I vowed never to return to the Q Bar or to the Empress Hotel. No longer will I worship in this modern temple to colonialism. May I live to see the day when our city is renamed to reflect a true commitment to decolonization and reconciliation.