Professor who wished Queen ‘excruciating’ death explains defiant stance on podcast

A university professor who set off an uproar when she said she wished the Queen an “excruciating” death has doubled down on her remarks.

A US university professor who sparked a firestorm when she wished Queen Elizabeth II an “excruciating” death has doubled down on her comments, saying she was trying to teach America about the monarchy’s role in an African genocide.

And in fresh comments directed at the late monarch Uju Anya, a Nigerian American associate professor of second language acquisition at the prestigious Carnegie Mellon University, said the Queen sat on a “throne of blood”.

Talking to the hosts of the podcast This Week in White Supremacy on Wednesday Prof Anya was defiant about the outburst that propelled her onto the world stage, saying, “I said what I f***ing said.”

Pro Anya become globally known when in response to news that doctors were “concerned” about the Queen’s health, she tweeted: “I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating?”

Hours later, it was announced that Queen Elizabeth II had died age 96 at Balmoral Castle in Scotland.

Professor Uju Anya. Picture: Carnegie Mellon University.

Prof Anya’s tweet was later removed for violating Twitter’s rules. But she followed up with another twee, writing: “if anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star.”

During her podcast interview on Wednesday, Prof Anya said she did not regret her tweet, saying it was born out of her family’s difficult experience in Nigeria during the country’s civil war, reported the New York Post.

The comments directed at the Queen were taken down by Twitter. (Photo by Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)

In 1967 — seven years after Nigeria won independence from the UK — and 15 years into Queen Elizabeth’s reign, a conflict broke out between the Nigerian government and the Biafra separatists who fought for autonomy for the Igbo people, an ethnic minority facing persecution in parts of the country.

Britain, which has oil interests in the country, sided with the Nigerian government and sent vast amounts of arms to be used against the rebels.

Two years into the struggle, some 2 million Nigerians were dead, many of them from starvation, including children.

Prof Anya’s mother, who at the time had two young children and was pregnant with a third, fled the war zone with her in-laws as Nigerian soldiers were destroying villages.

Born six years after the war, she said she blamed the Queen for the slaughter of her people.

“People expected me to be calm … when the person who literally paid money for bombs and guns and military supplies to come and massacre your people is dying, you’re not supped to dance.

“I had an emotional reaction and an emotional outburst,” she told the podcast hosts.

“I was triggered by this news. It went deep into pain and trauma for me due to my family experience with the rule of this monarch.”

Refugees wait to receive food, on February 26 1969 in a camp in the Biafra region in southeastern Nigeria, where a civil war erupted. Picture: AFP PHOTO HO/STR

‘Throne of blood’

Prof Anya claimed her tweet was “not planned. It was very spontaneous,” and ultimately its aim was to educate her followers.

She added that the Queen’s crown, studied with jewels, signified the blood diamonds taken from Africa.

“The throne that she was sitting on is a throne of blood.

“So you cannot say that she’s just this little old lady or this figurehead that really had nothing to do with anything and it was just the British government without relating it directly to her because she was directly benefiting, her very position as a monarch, the palace she lived in … were all paid for by our blood,” said Prof Anya.

Before being deleted by Twitter, the professor’s missive drew the ire of numerous users, among them Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, who wrote: “This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don’t think so. Wow.”

Queen Elizabeth II and former Australian Prime Minister John Howard at the opening session of the Commonwealth Summit in Abuja, Nigeria in 2003. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das, POOL)

Prof Anya replied to the billionaire, writing, “May everyone you and your merciless greed have harmed in this world remember you as fondly as I remember my colonisers.”

Prof Anya’s employer, Pittsburgh based Carnegie Mellon University, distanced itself from her comments about the Queen but did not say whether she would be disciplined.

“We do not condone the offensive and objectionable messages posted by Uju Anya today on her personal social media account,” CMU said in a statement.

“Free expression is core to the mission of higher education, however, the views she shared absolutely do not represent the values of the institution, nor the standards of discourse we seek to foster,” the statement added.

Thousands of students and academics expressed support for the educator in a petition circulating this week, and Prof Anya wrote in a tweet on Monday that her job at CMU was not in jeopardy.

Parts of this story appeared in the New York Post and are reproduced with permission.

Originally published as Professor who wished Queen ‘excruciating’ death explains defiant stance on podcast