Why Michael B Jordans Killmonger Is The Real Hero of Black Panther

In 2015 an Indian campaign led by Bollywood stars and business figures calling for the return of the Koh-i-Noor, the world’s most famous diamond, reignited a global conversation around the impact and legacy of European colonisation.

The diamond sits atop the crown of the Queen consort and is currently locked up in the Tower of London. Like various other artefacts plundered by colonial powers that fill European museums, including the Parthenon Marbles and thousands of objects and artworks stolen from Indigenous Australians, the diamond’s contemporary location has led to countless calls for repatriation, with activists calling on the British government to “right the wrongs” of colonisation.

Part of the problem is the lack of consensus on whether colonisation was, in fact, detrimental for those colonised. British historian Andrew Roberts has said that Indians should be “grateful” to the British for “modernisation, development, protection, agrarian advance, linguistic unification and ultimately the democratisation of the subcontinent”.

To those who still live with the legacy of colonisation, and the slavery, theft and violence that came with it, those comments make for incredibly grating reading. But whether we like it or not those who continue benefit from it, from Europeans to white Australia and white America, are in denial about it’s consequences. We see it in polls and the lauding of films that pay tribute to colonialism’s staunchest modern defenders.

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