Sep 17, 2022 3 min read

To a country that expelled British troops more than two centuries ago and has long touted its democratic values, some of the mourning for Queen Elizabeth II over the last week or so can seem, perhaps, a little bit overwrought.

She was, first of all, almost a century old, and had lived a life of luxury that few of us can imagine. Despite mention of the “sacrifices” the queen made throughout her long life, the monarch did not have to work three jobs to support her family, worry about whether she would be able to heat her many lavish residences in the winter or whether there would be enough money to last through retirement. Elizabeth was also a monarch in an age when the power of most kings and queens has – thankfully, it must be said – been whittled down. Except in a few places, they are now little more than figureheads.

Still, the mourning for Elizabeth is also quite understandable. For the British and all the nations within the Commonwealth – she was also the queen of Australia, Canada, Jamaica, and other countries – the monarchy has been a bedrock of stability and tradition. Consider that when Elizabeth came to the throne, Winston Churchill was Britain’s prime minister, Harry Truman was America’s president and Elvis Presley was still in high school. She was, to many, like a grandmother.

So, it can seem a little bit discordant right now for anyone to sound a dissenting note. But there have been scattered arrests in Britain of people holding up signs urging that the monarchy be abolished, or shouting their opposition to the crown. A 45-year-old man was arrested in Oxford, England, after he yelled “Who elected him?” at an announcement that King Charles III had ascended to the throne. A 22-year-old woman was arrested for holding up a placard denouncing imperialism and the monarchy.

Britain did bring the world Monty Python and the cheek of the Beatles, but, as the Associated Press reported, “In a country famed for its irreverence, some worry a new code of silence has taken hold.”

Certainly part of the problem is that the United Kingdom does not have a written constitution that would guarantee a right to free speech. The country has long operated instead on tradition and history. The British people would be wise to have their rights codified.

Closer to home, a Carnegie Mellon University linguistics professor who hails from Nigeria got into hot water when she identified the queen in a tweet as “the chief monarch of a thieving, raping genocidal empire” and wished that her death be “excruciating.”

The university called the tweet from Uju Anya “offensive and objectionable.” It was, if anything, pretty mean – in a culture where we are reluctant to speak ill of the dead, wishing an old woman a painful demise is harsh and nasty, no matter the misdeeds of the British Empire. Some people suggested Anya should be fired. She shouldn’t be. She was expressing her own views, no matter how disrespectful or tactless.

At a moment like this, we need to remember an observation by George Orwell, another great Briton: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people things they do not want to hear.”