One million people lined the banks of
the Thames last Sunday to watch the Diamond Jubilee river pageant. My wife and
I arrived at nine o‘clock in the morning, which gave us a good vantage point
from the front of a big crowd in Pimlico Gardens. We had six hours of rain
before the event started to get to know the people on either side of us, who
were from Australia and London. A thousand boats participated in a river procession
that was last staged more than three and a half centuries ago, for King Charles
II and the young Catholic Queen Catherine of Braganza in 1652.
The atmosphere was exactly one of
jubilation. Press coverage later informed us that a side-benefit of being there
was that we avoided the BBC commentary which was unable to explain the dancers’
semaphore on the roof of the Royal Festival Hall. This did not require the
ability to decode the messages so much as to have prepared properly, since a
cursory glance at the internet days before would have forewarned the
‘researchers’ that the message was going to begin, not surprisingly, ‘Happy
Diamond Jubilee…’. That said, watching the highlights later, the BBC did well
to convey pictures at all in extraordinarily difficult conditions, just as the
singers and the royal family were outstanding in standing out in such inclement
weather.
Still, if the BBC could not explain
the meaning of the most obvious semaphore, it might be thought that they were
unlikely to grasp the deeper significance of what we were experiencing. It is
not just the immediate impact of these events which matters but also their underlying
message.
Yet the BBC had already helped to
explain what was behind some of the symbolic and practical collaboration for
the jubilee. For example, ‘Sing’,
the song specially composed for the Jubilee by Gary Barlow and Andrew Lloyd
Webber, might not have stood out on the evening of the concert itself, amidst
so much pop and rock royalty. Yet its story has been well told by the media,
led by the BBC, so that we do know something about those contributing to this
‘Commonwealth Band’, beginning with the African Children’s Choir, including the
young girl who opened and closed the singing, Lydia Inzikura from Uganda, also
the blind Aborigine singer and guitarist Gurrumul, the All Saints church choir
from the Solomon Islands, part of the Anglican Church of Melanesia in Honiara
on the island of Guadalcanal, the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force Band and
Narasirito, a pan pipe band from a remote village of Oterama, also from the
Solomon Islands, in their case the island of Malaita, the Slum Drummers and
Ayub Ogada from Kenya, the Military Wives with Gareth Malone, plus five
different communities from Jamaica as well as Prince Harry on tambourine, since
he was visiting Jamaica when Gary Barlow was hearing the music of Rastafarians
from the Temple Mount Zion Hill community, the Jolly Boys, the Alpha Boys, Sly
Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, Ernest Ranglin, all backed by the Australian
Federal Police Pipes and Drums and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
This tells us a great deal about the
Commonwealth, about the values of the monarchy and especially the Queen as head
of the Commonwealth. It also sings out the joy of music and its abilities to
cross boundaries, to embrace diversity and to unite the powerful with those
perceived to be powerless. Moreover, like our places on the river-bank for the
greatest show on water, this music is in one sense free, and a fine example of
ResPublica’s emphasis on mutuality.
As the opening line of that song puts
it, ‘Some words they can’t be spoken, only sung’, by which is meant, I presume,
that music, like pageantry or the monarchy, can sometimes capture a deeper
truth than is possible with words alone. Nevertheless, a verse of this song
does speak not only of Queen Elizabeth II but also of the country and the Commonwealth
in this spectacular year of the Olympics, the Paralympics and the Diamond
Jubilee:‘You brought hope, you brought light / Conquered
fear, it wasn't always easy / Stood your ground, kept your faith / Don't you
see / Right now the world is listening to what we say.’
That is pretty much what was said in Catholic churches at Masses
over the Diamond Jubilee weekend in the prayer composed by the Bishops’ Conference
of England and Wales, asking Almighty God that ‘your servant Elizabeth, our
Queen, who, by your providence has received the governance of this realm, may
continue to grow in every virtue’. There were many hearty ‘Amens’ to that.
Nor were Catholics the only faith community expressing
admiration and gratitude. Ahmadiyya Muslims sponsored a message,
‘Congratulations Your Majesty!’, on 200 London buses. The same community, that
established the first mosque in London, had sent their congratulations to Queen
Victoria for her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Rafiq Hayat, national president of the UK Ahmadiyya Muslim
Community, said that, ‘As Muslims, we are duty bound to serve Queen and country
and we regard this as an important part of our religion as we were taught by
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) that loyalty to
one’s country is a part of faith.’
This puts in perspective questions about whether Catholics or
Muslims were or are loyal subjects. On more than one occasion, Pope Leo XIII
and Queen Victoria exchanged jubilee wishes, envoys and gifts, recognising each
other’s status and shared Christianity. As Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the President of the Bishops’
Conference of England & Wales, said in his loyal address earlier this year,
‘Your Majesty, we thank you for your steadfast insistence on the great
importance of our Christian faith, given in both word and example, alongside
your appreciation of the contribution made by other religions in our rich and
diverse society today. Our hope is that our society, enriched by the presence
of many beliefs and cultures, will always maintain respect for our Christian
heritage and the sure foundations it gives for a flourishing of true human
fulfilment.’
Like the song entitled Sing, like the million people on the
river-banks and like those of all faiths praying for the Queen, these messages
signal the spirit of our own Elizabethan era, celebrating a common wealth (res publica) of virtues.