A weekend in a foreign land
Having spent most of the last week telling people I work with to stop being so miserable, it's depressing to have been proved so spectacularly wrong. I'm a republican (in the UK sense) but couldn't really see any harm in the jubilee celebrations. So what if these people want to have a bit of a party? It's only a couple of days. We get some time off work. Might be nice to have a bit of atmosphere round the place.
By the fourth consecutive day of relentless BBC and press propaganda I began to realise that the "atmosphere" was that of near hysterical North Korean proportions. Radio Five was particularly bad. Every segment began with breathless folk from the shires declaring how "wonderful" it all was. How we were at last "united" as a nation.
I was on the southbank on Sunday to see the boats, having naively decided that I wanted to witness the fuss at first hand. There was a lady in our party who repeatedly declared that it was "brilliant to see everyone together. It really gives you a feeling of togetherness. All of us as one celebrating this wonderful woman."
Now. This uncritical nonsense has been rammed down our throats incessantly for the last four days, and it's bullshit for several reasons:
"Everyone" - Everyone was not there. Our nation is a tapestry of nuance and diversity. All different cultures and opinions are tolerated equally. I'll concede that there were a lot of people there. Many were excited. There was a poll suggesting majority support for the monarchy. Excellent. Well done them. It's not everyone. For the BBC to continually suggest it was is a lie.
"Unity" - The suggestion being that the nation is united in (and lets not under sell this) love for our ruler. This is plain fantasy. Some people love the queen, some people don't, some people don't care. I'm not sure what the purpose of restating this constantly was, but it felt like being smothered in a horrible union jack blanket. Most of the people I know, most of the reaction on Twitter, most of the reaction away from the echo-chamber of BBC news seemed to be apathy at best.
"Inclusion" - Perhaps the most pernicious part of the jubilee myth is it's narrative of inclusion. We are all one people. We all believe in whatever it is the Queen is supposed to represent about Britain. Well I've lived in London for ten years, and I can honestly say I have never felt more disconnected and isolated from the people in my city. This is a very special place. More than anywhere else in the country all sections of British society live (almost literally) shoulder to shoulder. And not just the impoverished or oppressed, but the well to do as well. The privileged and carefree. I don't know many British cities where the children of the elite row down the river, before partying in nightclubs up the road from the trendy media set bars, up the road from the traders, up the road from the newly arrived immigrants, up the road from the gay bar, round the corner from the junkies, the five star hotels and the broken hearted misanthropes. This is a very special place. But we've been buried by a wave of new and transient immigration. One that came down from the shires, with their sandwiches and flags and misplaced faith that their nation cares for them.
I guess they'll all be gone tomorrow. But the buffeting sense of drowning isolation may last a few days more. If the jubilee is to have any legacy let it be to remind Londoners of the reason why they abandoned merry England in the first place, and to allow all of their cloying inertia to be washed away by the evening rain.
Thank god it's all over.
G