Sometimes, I really enjoy reading Margaret Wente’s writing in The Globe and Mail. But sometimes, she’s just a cantakerous old bitch with her head up her ass.
In today’s screed, she joins the group of tiresome, bitter commentators who despise Canada’s continuing connection to the monarchy:
“We should have called it quits with the Windsors 50 years ago. The fact that we haven’t is a depressing reminder of our timidity and parochialism. Or maybe we hang on because the Queen reminds us that, whatever we are, we’re not, thank God, Americans. And so the monarchy lingers on, like an appendix, utterly superfluous and largely forgotten until it starts to irritate.”
This is the work of someone who (a) has no historical perspective, and (b) doesn’t have a CLUE what Canada is all about. Let me enlighten you, Ms Wente, regarding your inexcusable failure to comprehend…
Canada is a great contradiction: it is (quite probably) the most egalitarian society on the planet, yet it retains the millenia-long British monarchy as the head of state, and continues with the rituals, traditions and ceremonies that come with the package.
Why? Simply because, in Canada, we’ve accepted the fact that tradition is a good thing when it celebrates history and heritage without the by-products of oppression, discrimination, and hate. As opposed to people who argue for traditional marriage, who are just hatemongers using tradition as a beating stick of fear. But that’s another story…
The Queen, as the non-political head of state, does a wonderful job in this role — people fight simply to be in her presence, such as the Metis war veterans who wanted personal face time. She isn’t a rock star, or a vapid movie celebrity: she is the embodiment of an institution that has had a direct impact on Canada — one that has nurtured much mutual good will and enjoyment. There’s a reason Elizabeth and her family enjoy visiting Canada more than any other remnant of the British Empire: we treat the institution with respect, and we honour a woman who has steadfastly tried to preserve the characteristics that make it an institution worth keeping.
There’s a pertinent line from the film Elizabeth, when Sir Francis Walsingham states that “man must be able to touch the divine here on Earth.” We need something to unite us, to give us a reason to better ourselves, and strive to be more than what we are. In a day and age when we long for leadership — at a time when no more Trudeaus, Pearsons, or Douglases bestride the nation — the Queen tries valiantly to fill the gap
The monarchy isn’t the only institution that tries to embody the good things that rise above politics in government, but it’s one of the best things we have, and Elizabeth II has strived to make it worthy and relevant. We should thank her…and ignore the petty, rebublican sneers of people like Margaret Wente, who would prefer a world without a touch of royal magic, pomp and circumstance.
