End of an era

EDITORIAL: Queen Elizabeth II who died on Thursday at age 96 was the longest serving monarch in British history, most of her subjects had known all their lives. She was also a familiar figure on the world stage. Elizabeth became queen when she was just 26 after her father died.

As she would say in documentary years later, “In a way I didn’t have an apprenticeship, my father died much too young and so it was all a very sudden kind of taking on, and making the best job you can.”

She stepped into that role with remarkable grace and dignity and as her subjects like put it, with a great sense of duty and service. She is credited for steering the institution of monarchy into the modern world during her seven-decade long reign, a period of great social change.

That caused considerable public grudging in 1992 over her untaxed enormous wealth and the royal family’s gigantic private holdings. She responded by volunteering to pay income tax and also cutting a number of her family members from the state payroll.

That a constitutional monarchy justified as a symbol of continuity and unity is a fact. Despite the pomp and ceremony surrounding her, the late queen’s position prevented her from articulating personal opinions. In fact, while she is being praised for her stoicism and resilience, little is known of what she thought of political and social issues or about the people she met.

What she said in public was never her own words. The prime minister’s office wrote the all-important Queen’s Speech to Parliament as well as her messages on different occasions. Yet monarchy is seen as relevant, apparently, because of the characteristic British reverence for tradition.

There are many anti-monarchists, too, like the former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. But during his 2019 bid for prime ministership, all he could say, for fear of a backlash, about the institution was that it needed “improvement”.

Now that the queen is gone, her eldest son has become King Charles III with his not so well-liked second wife Camilla by his side as Queen Consort. It may not be easy for him to come close to Elizabeth’s popularity. He is often criticised for his candid remarks on certain issues.

However, the concerns he has been expressing on some of the hot present-day issues, such as climate change, interfaith harmony, as well as his interest in architecture and charity work, which has helped more than a million unemployed and disadvantaged young people, are likely to win him his people’s hearts.

The British monarchy is in for a change, including change in the famous line in the country’s anthem from “God save the Queen” to “God save the King” for a long time to come as three male heirs stand in the succession line.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022