This news rather eclipsed the installation of a new Prime Minister a few days earlier. That saga which started months ago had finally concluded with Liz Truss winning more votes from Conservative Party members - meaning that there was briefly a Monarch and a Prime Minister with the same first name. One of the Queen's last public appearances was welcoming the new Liz.
Events since the announcement of the Queen's death have unfolded quickly. The new king proclaimed at events around the country, a new Prince and Princess of Wales entitled, plans for a funeral procession and state funeral bank holiday announced. The "lucky unlucky" politics students I envied back in July have even more big political happenings to assimilate into their studies.
But I feel like I am out of step with a lot of people right now, in this period of mandatory mourning presented as a time of unstinting sorrow by the BBC without any 'balance' or dissenting voices. (It's not like climate change or Brexit, when the state broadcaster will leave no rock unturned to find a voice to present the other side.)
Maybe my dislocation from the mainstream narrative is because I don't like being told how I should be feeling about things. It's inescapable. Mournful music played in fast food restaurants. Messages of condolences on websites and in apps. Endless rolling coverage and talking heads on TV. The subtext is very clear - you must feel sad; sadness is the only acceptable emotion.
I have no doubt that the people who are posting about their sadness on social media, or are texting in their grief to radio stations, genuinely feel that way. While everyone knew the Queen was not going to live forever, this has been sudden, unexpected, a shock. It is a massive change to a key element of the societal background in an afternoon. For most of us - anyone under 70 - the Queen has been queen for all our lives. Change like that, beyond our control, provokes a sense of loss, which feels like grief.
There is a theory that our culture is still very much 'keep calm and carry on', bear your burdens in silence, maintain a stiff upper lip, recognise that 'it could be worse', and so on. Even if we don't feel that way on the inside, we might project that to the outside. Then along comes a moment when we have permission to actually feel things, and all that grief comes out. It may even be easier to grieve for a public figure like the Queen, instead of processing the private grief for family members and beloved friends that is harder to face and deal with.
That might explain some of the grief-talk. It's also true that lots of people admired and liked the Queen, or at least their projection of her. Because, really, nobody outside a very small circle of people actually knew her. What people like is a version of the Queen they carry in their own heads - a caring, decent human being who wanted to do the right thing, considered her regal duties as an act of service, and was friends with Paddington Bear. (And that seems to have been an image the Queen encouraged.)
People go as far as asserting that the Queen had a deep 'personal' Christian faith. The people claiming this seem certain, but it's impossible to know what anybody really believes about anything, let alone how deep their piety goes. Ultimately the only people who know the strength of a person's religious faith are the believer and their god, and I have doubts about how much the latter knows.
In the last couple of days I have been really struck by this image, which sums up where we are as a country. (Borrowed from the artist Dayvid. who posted it on Twitter)
However, now is apparently not the time for questioning privilege. People who have protested mildly at various ceremonies around the country have been arrested - one man in Oxford on his way home from church was arrested for just asking who elected the new king. He was later de-arrested because asking questions isn't actually a crime... yet. Other people have been threatened with arrest for holding up signs saying 'Not my king', or for holding blank pieces of card that they could write a protest sign on.
We are mandated to grieve, not question.
But now is the best time to ask questions - and that is precisely why things are moving so quickly. That's why King Charles was proclaimed in key cities in the United Kingdom within 72 hours. That's why Prince William had the title Prince of Wales conferred on him so rapidly.
This haste, while the rest of the country is pausing activities to mourn, is about acting fast to retain privilege. There can't be a gap in the accession, because if there was a brief window of time when we didn't have a monarch... people might get ideas that maybe we don't need a monarch at all.
When I was in the UK in 2016, it was her 90th birthday year, and one of the books that was commissioned (and then used as an outreach tool...) was this one: https://www.amazon.com/Servant-Queen-King-she-serves/dp/0957559828
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed it. I was already an atheist then, so I didn't necessarily understand her faith - but it did seem to motivate her and be an important part of her life. So yeah, I'd agree that you can't absolutely know what someone's faith is like, but it seems reasonable to me to say that it was important to her.
Also, as a side note: I know that her role in the UK, like in Australia, was largely symbolic and ceremonial. But particularly around London, visiting the castles and exploring the history and once actually seeing her, she did seem more relevant than she ever did in Australia. And the people in general seemed to have more connection with her and with the monarchy than in Australia (particularly younger generations in Australia). Not an argument for continuing the monarchy, but to me it does make more sense in the UK than here.
That said, I'm always amused by how many royals watchers there are in the US. Heading for 250 years since they threw the British out. So I guess we Australians could get by just fine without a monarch, but with anyone who wants able to follow royalty like following any other celebrity.