The Queen died. To most people who hear the words ‘The Queen’ the only queen that comes to mind is Queen Elizabeth II, the only queen most of us know and the queen who, according to a friend, managed to reinvent the monarchy, while making it look as if the reinvention was long lived tradition.
The British mourned the loss of their monarch and openly grieved her passing, as did people in many other countries. I really liked the Queen. She seemed genuine and kind and as she grew older, more and more of a sympathetic figure, with that charming smile and glint in her eye. To my mind, the older she became the more human she became, so that in her latter years she looked like a very posh, stately, kind grandma. She was dedicated and hard working and didn’t falter, right to the end of her life. She kept her promise and served diligently for seventy years, a very long time by any reckoning.
Her death stirred up many emotions around the world. For indigenous Australians, the Crown represents the start of many years of tyranny and untold horrors. The emotions felt by many Aboriginals was expressed strongly and passionately by Stan Grant in his article about deep-seated feelings of a displaced people. He states “For Indigenous people, our sorry business is without end.” https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-18/queen-death-indigenous-australia-colonisation-empire/101445508
When I first heard of the Queen’s passing I felt sadness. A couple of days prior I saw her on the news with the new Prime Minister and the thought that occurred to me, seeing her looking so frail, was that she couldn’t go on forever. The sadness was about the death of someone who had been part of my life, all my life. At school, I remember assembling in the hall and watching movies of the Queen’s coronation and wedding. It was several years after both these events, but they were deemed to be important enough for us to view them, as children of the Commonwealth.
Growing up in Sri Lanka and in all the years I have lived in Australia, the Royal Family had the same status as famous celebrities, appearing regularly on magazine covers and feature articles and in newspapers. In the Queen’s lifetime and in her own family there has been enough drama and scandal that could have torn apart both the family and the ‘family business’ if not for the stalwart, steady, unwavering leadership of Her Majesty.
The Queen’s funeral, which was watched by millions around the world was an amazingly well-choreographed spectacle, each detail carefully planned by the Queen herself. The pomp and pageantry, befitting the final farewell to the longest reigning and much-loved monarch, seemed also to be sending a loud message to all, that the monarchy was not going away anytime soon. The tears and sorrow amongst people who had stood for hours to watch the parade go by confirmed the love affair of the common people with their Queen and the royal family.
People of the Commonwealth worldwide will continue to seek recognition and reparation. Very little will change in the Royal family, except maybe little things, like a divorcé married to a divorcée becoming King, when it was not all that long ago that a king abdicated his throne to marry a divorcée and a princess was not allowed to marry her true love because he was a divorcé.
Some things change, some stay the same.