these are the things that kill me
I am going to take it as read that you have missed the news.
Not the news about the Queen, of course. Nobody has missed the news about the Queen. I am talking about Chris Kaba, who was murdered by a Metropolitan police officer earlier this month. I’m talking about the hospital appointments being cancelled for the Queen’s funeral – including some cancer treatments. I’m talking about the very quiet lifting of the ban on fracking in the UK, carried out under the cover of the Queen’s death. I guess ‘respect’ only applies to the memory of a dead woman who never wanted for anything, rather than the integrity of the world we all have to live in?
I am talking about the man who was arrested in the city I used to live in, simply for calling ‘who elected him?’ at the new King’s proclamation. He did this once; it wasn’t a recurring chant, and in any case, the people around him told him to shut up. More to the point, he had to push very hard to figure out why he had been arrested at all. I shouldn’t need to explain why that isn’t okay. I shouldn’t need to explain why it troubles me that the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act – which was widely protested before it came into law, and with clear reason – is now being used to silence peaceful, fundamentally harmless dissent.
I was able to pull an article on Chris Kaba from the front page of the BBC’s UK news site. That was the only one. Everything else has been shunted to one side in favour of more coverage about the Queen. Did you know she prayed for Northern Ireland? Did you know that she fucking loved Land Rovers? Did you know that Strictly Come Dancing is delaying its premiere episode out of respect?
I get it, to a point. An acquaintance mentioned not knowing how to engage with the sincere outpouring of royalist grief at their workplace, and the suggestions I gave for condolences to offer were all – at least to a point – things I think are true. She represented continuity and stability during a turbulent time. She was widely loved and many people will miss her. At the end of the day, death is a difficult thing, and it can be hard to face.
But death is everywhere. Mass death is everywhere: the pandemic, the migrants desperate in the Channel, the people starving alone in English cities. Watching the disparity in reaction from a continent away, I want to scream until my throat cracks open; I want to grab my home country firmly by the shoulders and shake it until something falls into place.
There were ceremonies here in Halifax. I didn’t go to any.
I watched the King’s first speech, and I listened to The Queen is Dead. It is aggravating to find that this is true, given that Morrissey took a hard right turn into fascism years ago; but the Smiths, to me, sound the way it feels to be in England. There’s a whimsy to their music, an inherited legacy of wry and knowing gallows humour. There’s also the pervading feeling of being swallowed whole by a dismal, relentless fog. Farewell to this land’s cheerless marches, indeed.
As far as I have seen, people’s reactions here in Canada have been intensely mixed. Of course there’s a contingent of serious-business royalists here, and they got their 21-gun salute from Citadel Hill; they get their flags at half mast until the mourning period is over. But the people I’ve talked to have been wondering whose face will appear next on Canadian currency. They’ve been wondering whether they’ll get a day off work for the funeral, or whether that’s just the Brits. There’s been a surprisingly public discussion about the Queen’s legacy in Indigenous communities – to be polite, let’s call it Mixed At Best.
It’s been a relief to be here. Even at one remove, the extended performance of pageantry and mourning in England has been hard to watch. Canada has been relatively cool about it, and I’ve felt better about my choices as a direct result. Don’t get me wrong: I’m going to Louisiana next week for a wedding, and I am braced for a much more intense interrogation. (I guess it’s all more exciting when it’s not actually your head of state who died?) But at least for the moment, that isn’t where I have to live.
I have tried, this whole week, to refrain from speaking too harshly on the actual death. I don’t believe that the death is the point. The point is what follows, and what doesn’t.
The UK specialises in highly ostentatious shows of ‘respect.’ Whether we are wheeling out sports mascots in tacky poppy costumes during remembrance season (just around the corner! likely to be that much more showy this year on account of the Queen!) or banging pots and pans together after dark to ‘honour the NHS’, we love doing the most while simultaneously doing the least. Meaningful care and assistance for military veterans? Structural and financial support for the National Health Service? Fuck all that – let’s make a lot of noise and berate anyone who doesn’t want to join in.
The performance wouldn’t vex me so strongly if it weren’t for the enforcement of the performance. Any public figure who doesn’t wear a poppy – essentially throughout the entire month of November – will be subject to tabloid invective and accusations of treason. Anyone with misgivings about clapping for the NHS, back during the early days of Covid, was a killjoy who hated both community spirit and nurses. And as we’ve already seen, anyone who publicly expresses reservations about the place of the British royal family in contemporary life is likely to face disproportionate repercussions. Because the law accommodates that now.
Insofar as I’m a republican, I’m a very casual one. Most of the time, I have limited cause to think about the royal family at all. This is not an issue that lives at the forefront of my mind. I can’t stress enough that this isn’t about hating the royals; I am ambivalent at best, and I will reiterate that I’ve made a point of remaining circumspect about the death of the erstwhile monarch.
But England is hard to watch right now. It’s embarrassing. For people in countries subject to British colonial violence in the past – the Republic of Ireland not least among them – I can only imagine it goes past embarrassment and into a kind of insult. And as long as the country continues to believe that ‘respect’ means perfect silence – that it means suspending not only all joy, but all conversation, and many of the practical functions on which the most vulnerable depend – I am going to continue to be embarrassed. Sorry.
I have read a lot of pieces eulogising the Queen this week. Many of them, naturally, have a number of good things to say about her. She was surprisingly well-informed; she cared deeply about her obligations to the country; she gave sound policy advice to generations of Prime Ministers over the years of her reign.
I don’t feel particularly strongly about any of that, myself. But I understand the impulse to respect a figurehead, even if I don’t share it. And what I am proposing is this:
If you want to respect the Queen – if you believe she has a legacy worth respecting – think about what she did, rather than what she meant. Consider how, in your own life, you can honour the more admirable choices she made. Could you stand to be better-informed about the way your country works? Could you take your social obligations more seriously? Could you advocate for better governance, whether locally or nationally, and hold your elected officials to account?
You deserve better than hollow pageantry. Everyone in the UK does.
Good things of note, because it’s been a while since I did this:
My dear friend Margaret is getting married next week, and I am making the trip to Baton Rouge to celebrate with her! Nervous about travel, nervous about Covid, genuinely excited to see friends and commemorate something important.
Some local friends and I are planning a weekend writers’ retreat in November, which will be a delight.
Isaac’s next visit is only about a month away!
The weather in Halifax is finally starting to cool off, albeit very slowly; I am beyond excited for Baby’s First Canadian Fall.
I have a short story appearing in Slumber Party, a charity zine intended to support the USA’s National Network of Abortion Funds. Preorders are open until October 1, and I would strongly encourage you to pick up a copy!
[insert heavily redacted but deeply promising publishing news here]