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Britain’s Mourning Rituals – The New York Times


Britain’s mourning for Queen Elizabeth II combines a pomp that few living people have ever seen, given the time of her reign. Churches rang, and dozens of touted shots were fired. England’s top football league has postponed the weekend’s matches and most TV shows are about her. Her funeral, scheduled for September 19, will be a national day.

To get a feel for what’s happening in the UK, I spoke with Mark Landler, The Times’ London bureau chief.

Claire: Mark, you and I both live in London. When I stepped out of the Underground on Friday, the first thing I saw was a giant billboard for the queen. I could barely get a newspaper because they were almost sold out. Have you seen how people cry?

Mark: There are obvious examples of mourning. The queen’s face is now on every bus stop in London. She was looking down at Piccadilly Circus and countless other places. But the British tend to be stoic. You feel it more like this grieving stream than this obvious, dramatic expression of this grief. And none of the expressions of grief you’ve seen after Diana’s death in 1997.

This familiar number to almost everyone in this country is no more. You hear it in shops, in post offices and on pipes: What the British take for granted is no longer there.

We have seen differences in responses from people of different ages. The Times reported that many young Britons were more muted in their reactions and some so-called unrelated monarchy.

Part of that division is a function of time. If you are an older Englishman, you will remember the queen since she appeared more in public life. Over the years, the monarchy has become more famous for scandals than for the institution itself. If you’re a young person, you might be more inclined to think of Harry and Meghan than the queen when thinking about the royal family.

On the night the queen passed away, I was sitting in a taxi in Camden, London. The streets were packed with kids going in and out of pubs and clubs. They were laughing and joking, vaping and doing everything the kids do. It flashed through my mind: The fact that the queen had died a few hours earlier doesn’t seem to go all that well. And why would you expect it?

This kind of mourning process is unlike anything most of us have ever seen, even if it befits Britain’s longest-ruling monarch. What should we look for in the coming days?

Operation London Bridge, the name of the funeral planning, has been in the works for decades. It is based on the ancient traditions of how you mark the death of a king, some of which are hopeless. expired.

A highlight will be when the queen’s coffin returns to London. She will lie in state in Westminster Hall, where perhaps hundreds of thousands of people will see her. Then, a few days later, she will have a state funeral. This will be the first event since Winston Churchill of 1965. So it’s an almost once-in-a-century event.

You have been a reporter in Washington, Germany, Hong Kong and now the UK. I’m curious what you think of the argument that constitutional monarchies are a surprisingly efficient form of government. As American writer Matthew Yglesias said last week, “It is hard to defend a constitutional monarchy in terms of first principles, but the empirical track record looks good.”

Britain has experienced quite a tumultuous period. There have been four prime ministers in six years and the Brexit storm has not yet subsided. The role of the king in this period was very important. When Britain broke away from Europe, Britain really needed to regain its sense of national identity. The Queen provided that. The monarch is the stable anchor beneath the rotating array of prime ministers and the inevitable upheaval of a democratic system.

The Queen is not only the monarch of Great Britain, she is also the head of state of more than a dozen countries in the Commonwealth, including Canada, Australia and several islands in the Caribbean. How is the reaction in other parts of the world different?

The queen’s death raises questions about whether some countries have seized the moment to abandon the monarchy. Barbados replaced the queen as head of state last year and Jamaica is thinking of doing just that. That doesn’t happen overnight, but the overall direction is pretty clear: It’s a move away from acknowledging the monarchy.

What was your reaction when you first heard the news?

I never believed that the queen would die in my watch. I just assumed, like many, that she was the eternal kind. When it happened, I had a moment of disbelief. And it happened later a new prime minister. The combination of the news is kind of overwhelming. But that’s also what you live for as a journalist.

I wanted to be a fly on the wall during the first private meetings between King Charles III and Liz Truss, the new prime minister.

Traditionally, neither side talked about those meetings. But it was probably very different from when Elizabeth and Churchill had their first official meeting. He accompanied and guided her. You now have a 73-year-old king and a 47-year-old new prime minister. He’s new to the throne but he’s been publicly active for decades. It’s almost like a role reversal from what we saw when Elizabeth became queen.

Mark Landler has worked for the Obama and Trump White Houses and served as director of the Hong Kong office. He only met the queen once, at a NATO ceremony in Portsmouth, England, while he was reporting on Donald Trump. He’s from Vermont.

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Sunday Question: What will happen to the British monarchy now?

It is an outdated and corrupt feudal relic, and its removal would make England a more democratic society, The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee argued. George Will of the Washington Post argues that the monarchy remains a useful source of unity and national purpose.

Moralist: Is it okay to take a job at a law firm? protect climate villains?

Eat: Shrimp and green vegetables from a head chef Ottolenghi.

Read full problem.

  • Britain continues its mourning period for Queen Elizabeth II.

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  • The Labor Department will release the previous month’s inflation figures on Tuesday.

  • Delaware, New Hampshire and Rhode Island hold primaries on Tuesday.

  • The UN’s annual General Assembly begins on Tuesday.

  • London Fashion Week begins on Thursday. Some shows, such as Burberry, have been canceled because of periods of mourning for the queen.



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