Long may she reign… over us? – Part 2

(The Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II)

Britain is now recovering from a most impressive display of loyalty to, and admiration for Queen Elizabeth II, on the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee. The spontaneous outpouring of public affection over the past week is undoubtedly a manifestation of the esteem in which she is still held, no mean feat for a person at the head of such an undemocratic institution for so long.{{more}}

One can well understand why. Britain has endured much over those six decades, internally, and as a colonial and global military power, internationally as well. Elizabeth’s grace and dignity has no doubt served to be a sort of national anchor as her country was battered by numerous crises. Wars fought in Africa, Asia, and later in the Malvinas (insistently called the Falkland Islands by the British), and more latterly in Iraq and Afghanistan, added to the casualties from the undeclared war in Northern Ireland which cost the life of the uncle of her husband. There were the international storms occasioned by Britain’s support for apartheid South Africa and its double standard treatment of Ian Smith’s racist rebellion in Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), as contrasted with the heavy-handed manner in which it intervened in the Caribbean, Guyana in 1953 and Anguilla in 1969.

Through all of this, Queen Elizabeth remained steadfast. Even within her palatial surroundings, she rode out the controversy of an intruder in her bedroom, giving Sparrow subject matter for his classic “Phillip, my Dear”, (“a man in me bedroom and I take him for you”). That supreme calypso bard seemed to derive pleasure in singing about the fortunes of the British royal family, since he had commented in song on the marriage of Elizabeth’s younger sister, Margaret, to a so-called commoner, photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones. That sister, now deceased, must have tested that famed stiff upper lip of the monarch, given her indiscreet shenanigans, including in Mustique.

She bore all this, failed marriages within her family, and sometimes inappropriate behaviour, with fortitude. Perhaps the only public signs of stress may have come in her attitude to the wives of her heir, if not successor, her son Charles, the late Diana, and now Camilla. Maybe this accounts for the fact that an eighty-six-year-old woman remains in the saddle, with no indication of stepping down. Whatever the situation, the British people certainly showed their appreciation to their monarch.

But what of us? Why should we be celebrating? Well, at least in the case of St Vincent and the Grenadines, there is a clear mandate to do so, a mandate given by our electorate in November 2009, in a referendum, when even to talk soberly about moving away from the monarchy, was mischievously misconstrued as being “against the Queen”. Elizabeth II can proudly say that Vincentians VOTED FOR HER AS QUEEN, making her perhaps a unique elected monarch. Shouldn’t those proponents of monarchical rule in the referendum be waving their union jacks and enthusiastically singing, “Long may she reign over us”?

There is no doubt that the upholders of monarchical and elitist rule are attempting, with a fair degree of success I must admit, to capitalize on the personal affection for Queen Elizabeth to turn it into support for the monarchy. But Elizabeth, with all her charm, has nothing to do with the principle of a Head of State determined by accident of birth, with absolutely no bearing on merit. The octogenarian that she is, Elizabeth will not last forever, so what happens after her?

Remember, even the people we elected to Parliament are sworn to “bear allegiance” not just to “the Queen”, (as if there is only one queen in the world), but to her heirs and successors as well. What if her successor is gay, a male “queen”? Will we who so loudly use the Bible to preach homophobia, demand our Parliamentarians to withdraw their allegiances? These issues are far deeper than any professed admiration for the qualities of Elizabeth of Windsor. We are swearing to be subjects of a foreign being, over whose actions we have no control. Just think of it!

(Final installment, next Tuesday, June 12)