Long Lived the Queen
Knock imperialism and colonialism, sure, but there can be a moratorium at times like this.
My wife and I are in England as I write this, vising her brother and sister-in-law. News of the death of #QueenElizabethII was everywhere last Friday afternoon, and there seemed to be special editions of several newspapers to document the event. Regular programming on TV was cancelled on most stations that we could access on our hotel television (but crap imported shows such as “Bob’s Burgers,” as well as the now ubiquitous home shopping programs, continued in their endless banality on some of the secondary networks).
I’m not a fan of monarchy, nor should any American be. One of the founding principles of the American Revolution was that there would be no titles, no Kings or Queens, no royalty. That’s why the United States constitute a republic. We do seem to “love the Queen” more in America than in Britain, but that’s mostly for the pomp and ceremony, the gloss, and sometimes a longing for a world that never really was.
The reaction to the Queen’s death has been as predictable as it was surely scripted. Television presenters, all dressed in black now, or at least wearing black ties for the men, told viewers how beloved the Queen was; how committed she was to “her” people; and what a long and fruitful life she’d had. Controversies over the years concerning her children were glossed over, if mentioned at all. Video clips of past addresses she’d given were played, as were official pronouncements from her son, now King Charles III, the most intriguing of which include the following:
“I take this opportunity to confirm my willingness and intention to continue the tradition of surrendering the hereditary revenues, including the crown estate, to my government for the benefit of all, in return for the sovereign grant, which supports my official duties as head of state and head of nation.”
On Sunday, all the news programs showed both street views and aerial video of the Queen’s cortege that travelled with her corpse through small towns in Scotland on the way to a temporary stopover in Edinburgh, though I personally took note of the Mercedes S Class that served as the basis for the Queen’s hearse. It’s ironic – Elizabeth served in uniform in World War II in the great battle against fascism and Nazism, though I certainly don’t hold the current generation of any people responsible for the sins of their fathers and ancestors.
The reaction to the Queen’s death was not always reverential and sentimental, however. While at a grocery store late afternoon Friday in Cornwall, where we’d been staying at the time, I overheard a customer and a store clerk essentially mocking “the old lady,” noting that she’d “finally snuffed it” and more like that. I wanted to speak up – not to defend her or the monarchy or pretend that I had any stronger feelings for the woman than they had – but they were being indecent. A person had died, and while it’s true that people die every day, this was a very public death and one that required respect both for the dead as well as for others who might be alone with their own thoughts about her passing and the mortality of us all. These were two young men who clearly suffered from the arrogance of youth – it was just an “old lady” who had died but they didn’t have to worry about such things. I didn’t speak up, but my wife said I should have. Would I have been out of place? Would I have been listened to? After all, I’m just an “old man” myself.
Then there was the political opposition, whether a university professor in America who expressed her hope that Elizabeth had had an “excruciating” death (as many victims of imperialism and colonialism had had), while other commentators, including here in the UK, took the opportunity to expand upon the crimes of the British empire over the centuries.
I’m not going to defend imperialism and colonialism, but these days its critique is used as a wedge or hammer to extract concessions from various Western countries, including the United Kingdom. I wish such critics would be more concerned about China, North Korea and Russia, and more candid about generation after generation of corruption in various former colonies.
But all I really want to say here is that there is a time for political discourse and wrangling and even demands for retribution, and then there is a time for mourning, even if it is for a privileged woman who wasn’t royalty anyway because, really, there is no such thing as royalty.
Being a fellow car guy like you, my first thought was about the lineage of the hearse. They couldn’t find a stretched Land Rover? Apparently it was a vehicle built out as a hearse in Edinbugh. The German company is Binz (not benz) International and they’ve been around forever. Bad optics though.