‘‘Yes I’m a republican but I’ve developed a real soft spot for the Queen. With Prince Philip gone, she stands alone. She is the monarchy and the monarchy is her.’’
Three weeks after starting in the Beehive I lost my father to a brain aneurysm. He and Mum were in their 60th year of marriage, so Mum’s loss was profound. Four years later Mum soldiers on, keeps herself busy, but there is no getting away from the massive hole in her head, heart and body from losing the one person she shared every aspect of her life with. Loneliness is a constant companion. How could it be otherwise without her life partner?
Thinking about Mum’s loss made Queen Elizabeth’s standing alone at her husband’s funeral poignant for me. It is impossible not to feel deep empathy for someone who has just lost their partner of 73 years. Whatever one made of Prince Philip, he supported his wife’s unique role in British and Commonwealth life, for decade after dutiful decade.
That life, for all its trappings, is miserable. The Queen never experiences freedom in the ways her subjects do, being prisoner to duty, a constitution, and ancient mythology. Now she is alone and it’s impossible not to feel for her.
I say these things as someone who thinks New Zealand should already be a republic. It’s unnatural for New Zealand’s head of state to be anyone other than a New Zealander. Also, the old ‘‘mother country’’, albeit for fewer and fewer of us, abandoned us several decades ago, so it is well past time we simply recognised that fact.
Finally, a republic is not an end unto itself but a means to an end, which is a prosperous and vibrant New Zealand, self-confident in its multi-cultural identity. Our focus with one relationship, a bicultural one, is exclusionary.
I liken my country to a person. The bi-cultural relationship is our beating heart and has been so ever since 1840. That heart has enjoyed love and suffered heartbreak, yet it still beats strong.
However, the blood flowing through the nation’s veins is so much richer for the waves of immigrants from all over the world. Our multi-cultural reality is