The golden jubilee of the UK’s Queen Elizabeth II has been a remarkable event in the history of a no less remarkable institution. If the British media were to be believed beforehand, the British monarch was becoming ever more unpopular and the celebrations to mark a half century of the queen’s reign were destined to be a flop. The four days of official celebrations in the UK have just ended; now that they have it is clear that the pundits got it so spectacularly wrong. Millions of Britons joined in the parties, the street fairs and all the other events to celebrate the jubilee, and in doing so confirmed both their loyalty and affection toward their queen and the massive popularity of the institution of the British monarchy.
There is republicanism in the UK; there always has been. It comes and goes in waves. Small waves. Ever since the English embarked on revolution three and a half centuries ago and cut off their king’s head, then decided that they did not like the republican alternative, it has been a philosophy with severely limited appeal. What there is today is a chattering republicanism, found mainly among politicians and journalists, who by coincidence are the least liked occupations according to a recent British opinion poll. Or perhaps it is not coincidence.
What is not open to doubt is that the merchants of British republicanism, particularly in the media and most noticeably in that erstwhile bastion of British tradition, the BBC, have discovered themselves to be very much out of tune with the public they claim to understand. It must be very galling for them to claim that democracy requires an elected head of state when the vast majority of the population clearly prefer a non-elected one, selected by the hereditary system. Many around the world (not just Britain’s whispering republicans) may find this puzzling. The British, after all, are also noted for their tremendous affection for representative democracy. Not for nothing is their Parliament called the "Mother of Parliaments". If any single nation can claim to have devised modern representative democracy, it is the British. Yet they also adore the monarchy with all its magic, its history, its charisma.
The crowds outside Buckingham palace on Tuesday cheering Queen Elizabeth were greater than any in her reign, including her coronation. For an institution that some would have us believe is dying, that is some endorsement. And it is not just the British who have been celebrating: beacons to mark the jubilee have been lit around the world, from the top of Mount Kenya to Antarctica, from Zambia to Nepal; in New York, the Empire State building was floodlit in gold and purple. That makes an amazing statement about the affection in which the British monarchy and Queen Elizabeth II in particular is held internationally.
Fifty years is a long time to rule a country. Few monarchs in any nation’s history achieve it. Inevitably, it has been a time of great change for the UK, possibly greater than at any other time in its history. Fifty years ago it still had an empire; today, its influence is a shadow of what it once was. Fifty years ago it was white, Anglo-Saxon-Celtic and Christian; today is it multiethnic, multicultural and multifaith. Not only has there been social change, there has been constitutional change — although there is nothing new about that in British history: Evolution is the glue that prevents Britain from falling apart. It is that very change that goes some way to explain the queen’s popularity.
For 50 years she had been the continuing point of reference for the British people. They look to the monarchy as the symbol of their identity. It is not something they do all the time, but when they do they have no doubt about its importance in their national life. The Golden Jubilee has proved such an occasion.
