by Anonymous
Hamlet, Act I, Part V
“So the entire ear of Denmark
Is, by a forgèd means of my loss of life,
Rankly abused.”
Throughout her lengthy reign, the late Queen Elizabeth II was heralded as a logo of continuity, permanence, stoicism and unity. After all, what’s the level of a British monarch if to not be an ambulatory synecdoche? And if this synecdoche remained enigmatic and silent, all the higher for her to function a vessel crammed with no matter her individuals selected.
In her loss of life, a most curious factor could be noticed: the collective ritual of grief has had a curious private tone, as echoed within the King’s Speech. People recall their very own mother and father’ and grandparents’ loss of life in her passing, their very own expensive mamas and papas abruptly reeling out of the woodwork to each stain and balm the vessel’s demise. We unite as households, swelling in a tide of remembrance. Or will we?
What is that this household, this Britain, and the way is it represented in her loss of life? With all of the magical pomp from its diseased undertakers, the fierce slapping on of cloying thick layers of pageantry truss up the already rotting chook. People had been nonetheless apt to be bedazzled by the traditional methods, as if it had been ever thus and ever extra. But what lies behind all of this rigmarole, this malarkey, this dysentery of lamentation?
After we throw off our mourning blacks, we are going to get up to the identical issues as earlier than: an enormous price of dwelling disaster, with the upcoming prospect of households ravenous and freezing to loss of life within the coming months.
There is part of Britain that sees its rightful unity within the applicable show of grief, its black vestments, its sombre messaging, the strict unbending silence. The utter propriety of laying down a whole bunch of wreaths at metallic gates, the leaving of marmalade sandwiches within the rain in a metropolis that grows ever hungrier even because the rats develop fats – these are the right and true actions of a society that believes within the richness of its show as superseding the poverty of its constituents.
If the monarchy was critical – and we have to be critical for this can be a critical second, so we’re informed and reminded, consistently – if it had been critical about its individuals, it might recognise that the hundreds of thousands of {dollars} spent on flowers, journey, the paying of respects, the time taken off, the sandwiches (sandwiches! The fucking sandwiches!), the toys and the tchotchkes are a nationwide disgrace. After we throw off our mourning blacks, we are going to get up to the identical issues as earlier than: an enormous price of dwelling disaster, with the upcoming prospect of households ravenous and freezing to loss of life within the coming months.
What wouldn’t it have price them to say: as an alternative of leaving flowers, contemplate donating to charity. Instead of shopping for issues to be chucked out after every week, put money into materials help and welfare?
If the monarchy has any legitimacy (choking by myself phrases!), it’s in obligation, in service, to its individuals. This service can’t be as empty figureheads, however as examples of fine, of the beliefs we would like Britain to be. What wouldn’t it have price them to say: as an alternative of leaving flowers, contemplate donating to charity. Instead of shopping for issues to be chucked out after every week, put money into materials help and welfare? How exhausting wouldn’t it have been to say: ‘Please, contemplate giving to those that have much less.’ How exhausting wouldn’t it have been to say: ’If you cared for her, care in your buddies, your neighbours, and your neighborhood.’
The ghost of all of it will come again to hang-out us. By the forgery of this grief, what’s left of Britain is abused. This would be the winter of our discontent. And maybe lastly the hungry will see that we have now no use for symbols, no use for costume, once we gnaw at empty air.
Featured picture CC BY 2.0 Matt Brown
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