DiscMama: Exactly this! The fact that this stamp request has been reviewed and this has not come up is shocking. How can there be a stamp of a figure that is so controversial?

slowly admin, Miranda from Slowly, Shiro from Slowly please respond.

DiscMama: all political & historic figures have two side - they are hero to their people & not to others. Theres the term "National Interest" in history & diplomacy that says it all - Is your country leader attending her Funeral on 19th September - doesnt that says it all, she has done her job well. Open your mind, the world is made of 7billion people, 7billion opinions. Dont generalize ones thought to the rest, we dont subscribe to your emotions.

DiscMama: She was a historical figure, being on a throne for freaking 70 years. She devoted her whole life to the Kingdom and its people.

Exploited countries? Oh please. Please! Show me one country that doesn't have anything "ugly" in their history.

There are countries NOW that create horrible conditions for living. If you're at least little bit upto politics, you know which ones I'm talking about. There are countries NOW where people are denied basic human rights and the leaders are corrupted. There are countries that are attacking other ones in many ways.

Still we get flag and location stamps for those. By this logic, they should not be supported until they sort it out. History is there so we can learn from it and not repeat it.

Queen Elizabeth II was a Queen but she was not a figure with absolute powers.

On another note, I'm 99% sure nothing she or her country "did" has in no way any impact on your life whatsover. One should not be angry we have one tiny stamp to celebrate interesting and important figure.

And by the way, we already have a Mandela Day Stamp aka president aka political figure. Are you mad about it aswell?

Let people celebrate whatever they want.

YoungnDumb: That's very nicely said, I agree with you. I especially like the last sentence, gonna borrow it for later use lol have a great day!

YoungnDumb: Likewise, don't generalise your thought to mine, I do not subscribe to your emotions. If she has, as you put it, done her job well, then only her nation would commemorate her death. She had no political influence in the Commonwealth, she has even admitted in an interview that she has little political influence in the UK, why should there be a stamp in Commonwealth countries?

Debi: Of course all countries have something 'ugly' in their history. However, they are not the ones getting Slowly stamps of their rulers upon their death. It is not relevant to bring them up here.

Flag stamps and location stamps are different in that they celebrate the nation and its culture, not the nation's political stance.

Again, please do not speak for me. If you think she and her country had no impact on my or others' life, you should check your privilege. Many nations are still undoing the effects of the British empire's colonialism.

As for Mandela, slchld has put it very nicely down below. Please scroll down.

red bean mochi: i dont get why you are so dramatic about it, people will mourn or ignore as they see fit (your words) - let there be stamp available, if you choose not, no bodies stopping you. Its stamp in an online app, its not going to give QE2 any jurisdiction in your country obviously. Maybe exert your energy in getting other stamps rather than blocking one, just suggesting, take it or leave it.

Hello @redbeanmochi

Gandhi has one stamp and of course, depending on where are you from, you could gather different opinions. But who cares!

So in your words one monarch stamp is wrong but continuing stamps for country /supporting that is living hell for their people is none of our business, okay.

Oh my. Check my privilege? lol are you from the US?

You don't even know where I'm from. My country has a long history of suffering under the reign of other foreign entity. Do you think we go around and cry about it, about hard lives? No we don't. Do you think we scream how bad the entity is and it should be punished? No we don't as life goes on and noones gonna award you for your suffering.

And it's very rarely in history where blame can be put only on one person only. There are lot of people behind the scenes.

Noones gonna be traumatized because of one simple online stamp. Honestly, you actually seem quite privileged if this currently bothers you so much.

Have a nice day!

YoungnDumb: I don't get it either. They don't like the Queen - okay - noone cares, that's their right, absolutely! Good for them to have an opinion, to say they don't like it.

But how come they're stepping into our right to mourn the Queen and have her stamp?

If you don't want it, don't get it.

Debi: half baked people and their opinions. They think we are trying to argue and win them, for God-sakes, i dont give a fly. You don't want dont get it, im not saying you have to, am i.. pfft. Its just a stamp 😅

Debi: They forgot they still got the rights not to redeem the stamp.

Debi, YoungnDumb: I can see we are not going to agree so to continue this conversation would be a waste of my time. However, you have both accused me and others of 'stepping into your right to mourn the Queen' and 'blocking' you from getting the stamp. We have not done this. We have stated our opinion against this stamp issue, not you mourning the Queen. That is a personal choice. The Slowly team has also declined to comment, so we do not know if our comments even affected their decision. Where the stamp is issued is completely their choice.

Shiro from Slowly, I would love to hear your thoughts on this please.

slchld: Thanks for saying so! You make a great point about Commonwealth countries. It is a fact that she will be the first monarch to have a Slowly stamp. Whether intentional or not, the Slowly team will be reinforcing white supremacy by releasing a stamp of her.

I also agree with your point about the stamp issues. As someone pointed out, just because there are no stamps of monarchs does not mean they cannot 'get' a stamp in the future, but then who gets a stamp? Is it only those that are widely accepted by western media? All political figures can be controversial, even within their own countries. It's somewhat surprising to see that no one else has said anything against this stamp.

Shiro from Slowly, I would also like to hear your thoughts on this.

slchld: Queen Elizabeth II is widely known all around the world as is hugely confirmed by all the international news happening this week. For most of the average people who are not chronically online she's not controversial (hence the approximately 5 miles long queue in London of people to pay respect to her).

No offence but those two men you've mentioned are nowhere near her in international recognition. They're more local, maybe just known in their own continent mostly.

So that is one stamp for "west" as you say.

Even though we have a whole "Mandela Day", but okay.

Anyways if you want to do this, let's do this in a whole. Just a quick look at the number of stamps overall of several Asian countries, for example India or Japan. India has for example 13 free limited location based stamps only. Japan 11. And they still receive another ones.

Some countries hardly have one location stamp and a flag one.

Do you think they shout OMG look at India and Japan, getting all the stamps while we have like 2 tied to our country and that's it.

I don't think so.

If you want it even, sure, but then should everything be even, no?

However I suspect you're an adult so you understand life doesn't work like that.

The UK gets their Queen Elizabeth II and we all move on.

slchld: They don't have to explain themselves to you about the product of their own app. If they've already completed it, they've surely thought about it and agreed on it.

Debi: >

Even people who are not chronically online can admit that she is a controversial figure. Putting aside the argument of colonialism, she turned a blind eye to Prince Andrew's behaviour and association with Jeffrey Epstein. This is enough for most people to say that she is not a perfect person. Even some people in the UK (mainly Scotland and Ireland) celebrated, not mourned, her death.

>

Think about why that is exactly. If you grew up in the Middle East or Japan, you would know what they have done for their respective regions. Why is it she gets celebrated for things she did during her reign but they do not? Are their efforts in any way diminished just because they are less well-known by the international community?

Indeed there is a Mandela Day stamp. It was in celebration of him and his work as a human rights activist, which the Queen is not. He may have been a president, but his work to dismantle apartheid in South Africa is still held in high regard globally.

>

If you want more stamps for your country, just submit a request for them. There's no need to complain about not having stamps if there is a site for just that.

Hello @slchld again.

I think that it depends who you surround yourself with, what are your general views and what do you go for. You seem to be around those people, I have never met one single person saying she's controversial. I've on the other side seen people literally crying even though they've never met her. Mostly it's some ugly post on SM, where people can be anonymous which is horrible. Besides, there were literally no new colonies during her reign if I'm not mistaken.

I do agree with you that Andrew is disgusting human but what does it has to do with her? You have no idea what happened behind the scenes (meaning towards punishing him). He's no longer working royal and he's there simply because it's his mother who passed away.

Talking about controversial figures btw, we have Gandhi stamp in here aswell. Of course it hugely depends on where you are from but you cannot deny he fits into this category too.

Some people love him, adore him, thinks he's a saint, some think the opposite. Where do you draw the line? There will always be someone who is not satisfied. People differ.

I know those guys. And yes, I think it is what you're suspecting, they don't have their stamp because they don't seem to appeal to international audience.

There are famous, interesting, historical people in every country that would deserve to be on stamps. However that is reserved only for the biggest ones. How would you fit all of those people here?

For example: Poland, Marie Skłodowska–Curie. Only Poles will get it I guess (?) but majority of people knows her.

Well by your logic - why (only) Mandela? Why him exactly? Why is he more important than the other people who fought for whatever was not right in their countries?

I also think that it is the way you look at it.

He is surely very important in his country. However QEII is more important for some other people. You cannot measure importance of those figures as you cannot measure people's feelings. It's all an opinion.

I've never complained about lack of stamps?? I've only said it in contrast to your argument: "... it pushes the agenda that western public figures are more important than their own." Meaning that I don't think that by this logic Slowly pushes an agenda that Eastern Asian countries are more important than the others as they have much more stamps than other countries. It doesn't work like that. I don't think by giving one stamp in honor of deceased Queen means that everyone else is robbed.

Have a nice day.

slchld: Same logic, if you want a commemorative stamp for Sheikh Khalifa and Shinzo Abe, why don't you submit a request?

red bean mochi: That there isn't a stamp yet of any monarch shouldn't mean that it's not possible in the future for more monarchs to 'get' a stamp. 70 years of royalty is quite impressive to many of us. Same as the fact that she knew 4 of our monarchs (Netherlands) in her time of being the queen.

red bean mochi: https://www.postbeeld.nl/sbcp32202-queen-elizabeth-ii-platinum-jubilee-2v

Amigo97: I'm aware of this, and I admit that 70 years of royalty is indeed very impressive. If that is the case, why would Slowly release a new stamp for her death but not her Platinum Jubilee, which was marked with a re-release of the flag of the UK?

Releasing a new stamp for her death would also set the expectation that other monarchs and rulers be given a stamp upon their death. If that is the case, what criteria should they satisfy to be given a stamp? Are only those that are requested and are popular with the Slowly community given a stamp?

Perhaps I am overthinking this but I believe this can get quite political. Regardless, I didn't see when I was typing out my original comment but the Slowly team has already marked this stamp request as 'In Progress' so I doubt what I say will have any bearing.

red bean mochi: I get what you think and say but unfortunately I can't give you any answers on it.

I do agree on the first fact you mentioned but nobody proposed the idea by that time.. On the other hand, better late than never. I'm curious what kind of stamp it will be, since I voted for this idea.

Maybe Shiro from Slowly can give you some answers on their choice :)

Amigo97: That's okay. Thanks for tagging them, I still haven't figured out how the tags work here.

There was a stamp request proposed but it wasn't popular then.

red bean mochi: Just use an @ sign and you can tag someone :D Its unfortunate it didn't get that much attention back then... happens with several good ideas sometimes.

red bean mochi: Jubilee celebrates every decade ( or 25 years? ). A commemorative stamp is more about The Queen herself, I found it's quite appropriate?

Madmax: Jubilee is indeed celebrated regularly, but very few monarchs reach the Platinum Jubilee.

And yes, it is appropriate for to celebrate their monarchs, both past and current. My question is whether it is appropriate or necessary for Slowly to do it. To date, the Slowly team has not issued stamps of monarchs and rarely issued stamps for political figures. Off the top of my head, I can only think of Martin Luther King Jr (US), Kartini (ID) and Mahatma Gandhi (IN), all of which are human rights activists, which The Queen is not.

Of course, this does not mean that we will not have stamps of monarchs in the future, but like I said above, it sets a precedent and begs the question of who gets a Slowly stamp, which then becomes a political discussion.

red bean mochi: Almost every shops here in the UK are showing up the message for the Queen. Souvenirs are everywhere ( non-official ), coffee mugs, cards, you name it. I don't get your point why Slowly shouldn't release a commemorative stamp.

Madmax: Like I said, it is appropriate for the UK to commemorate her because she was their sovereign. Slowly is not a British company, and for reasons above, it would not be appropriate for them to make a stamp of her.

Also, the British monarchy is a sore subject for many people. She may be adored by many, but equally, some are not fond of her for historical reasons. Slowly releasing a stamp of her suggests their support of the British monarchy, which can be viewed as political.