Following her death, Elizabeth Oldfield reflects on the life and work of Queen Elizabeth II, especially in the area of reconciliation. 14/09/2022

Elizabeth

Hello, and welcome to this extra reflection from The Sacred Podcast. My name is Elizabeth Oldfield, and you might have been expecting the first episode of our new series to pop up in your feed today. That is with Paul Kingsnorth, and we’re really looking forward to sharing that with you, along with eight other fabulous conversations, but for reasons that most of you will understand, we have decided to slightly delay that launch. The tumultuous events in the United Kingdom with the death of Queen Elizabeth II have left many of us pondering full of thoughts and feelings, and often some very different, deep or even unexpected thoughts and feelings. So, we wanted to just take a minute to look at that event through the lens of reconciliation and our ability to live together, to work with, to encounter, to even build friendships with people who are very different from ourselves, who believe very different things, who might disagree with us on very fundamental things, and I think Queen Elizabeth II was an amazing example of this practice. She sort of had to be I don’t think she had a choice.  

I don’t know if it would have naturally temperamentally been her leaning. But from a very early age, she knew that she would have to, and then she actually had to, repeatedly sit in a room with politicians and prime ministers and leaders from so many different perspectives, and parties and temperaments. I’m sure she had to bite her tongue repeatedly. I’m sure that some of them she couldn’t stand. I’m sure some of them she felt strong affection for. But she had to repeatedly surrender and subdue her own instincts and her own opinions, in order to engage with the person in front of her. Internationally, she’s known for this extraordinary soft power that she had that those working in the Foreign Office, as it was known for most of her life have repeatedly spoken about the enormous asset she is in general in Britain’s global place in the world. But I think what’s maybe less known as what a particular talent she had for reconciliation, really, for engaging, using her role, using her power, using her charm and her ability to connect with people in moments of deep division and deep disagreement, even of conflict. 

Very early in her reign, she was instrumental in rebuilding relationships with Germany, I think the most common way she used that gift of hers was in holding together the Commonwealth, in helping to transition the British Empire into this aspiration to have a body of nations that could come out of that past – which was not a relationship of equals – into a body of nations that would engage as equals even though they have huge differences. And various points the Commonwealth could easily have fallen apart, except for Queen Elizabeth showing up and through the sheer power of friendship and commitment to a vision of a gathering of nations with a shared history who were equal. Even though they came from these very different parts of the world, very different makeups, religiously and racially and economically. Famously, in the 70s, she danced with the president of Ghana, a gathering of the Commonwealth, which threatened to see the Commonwealth break down, actually right down racial and economic lines, and I think we forget how powerful it was the moment of her dancing with the black president of Ghana, this statement to the world that we are friends, we are united, we can work together and be together despite these differences. You may have very different feelings about the Commonwealth, but her vision of it was of unity across difference. And obviously famously, her visit to the Republic of Ireland was this incredibly powerful symbolic representation of a different chapter in this painful history of relations between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom. And people often point to that as a real turning point in the path towards peace.  

So, I’m really thankful for this woman who none of us knew, mostly, but who navigated difference and disagreement really more regularly than perhaps anyone else. I’m also aware that her death, we could choose to use it as a moment to honour that in her, but is also a moment where the differences in our reactions to her death could drive us apart. And we’re seeing a lot of that I think. This sense that for many people honouring her life and being serious about her death is close to something sacred. And that those who don’t, aren’t reacting like that are somehow transgressing something sacred, and maybe vice versa. You know, we can see the spectrum of people who feel a strong connection with both the woman and the institution. And that’s a kind of vision of what a good society should look like is connected with the monarchy. We can see people who feel strongly connected to the woman but I’m more ambivalent on the institution. And then people who actually have really negative feelings about the institution do not think that that’s the way to build a good and healthy society, and particularly in the way that it has been woven into our history of empire and colonialism. And therefore, their reaction to the death of Queen Elizabeth II is really different. And some people are expressing all of that range of things well, and people are expressing themselves badly.  

But as a project that really is committed to continuing the attempt to see people who are different from us as fully human, people who might be reacting to the death of Queen Elizabeth differently from us as fully human, as people who we can still work alongside be alongside seek to build a flourishing society with that these differences don’t have to drive us apart, we can tolerate them, we can expect them, we can see them as part of a normal thing. We can notice in ourselves, the rising up of contempt, a dismissive tone to people reacting differently, our desire to roll our eyes or attack even, and maybe kind of take a breath and let that pass and just let it be. As families react differently to bereavement, so countries do and I think we can get through this if we are expecting that and are able to tolerate it.  

I hope however, you’re reacting and wherever you are, you’re doing okay. I really look forward to sharing our next series with you. I’m Elizabeth Oldfield, and this is a short reflection from The Sacred.  

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