Why I haven’t joined the Great British Queue!

Last night I drove to Brixton via Westminster. It was ten o’clock at night. The car thermometer read the outside temperature at five degrees, which, when one considers the wind chill factor, meant that was freezing. And yet along the embankment as far back as the Festival Hall, thousands of people were queuing to pay their last respects to a woman they never even remotely knew. I know most of us will never know a royal, but thanks to modern intrusive media at least we think we know royals' such as Prince Charles. And there wasn’t much we didn’t know about the emotional roller coaster life of Princess Diana - but the Queen Mother? I don’t think I ever heard her speak. So what is it that has caught the nation’s imagination, and unlike the emotional outpouring for Princess Diana, why are there so few Black people in the long queues? For most Black people the Queen Mother belonged to a bygone era - an era when Britain’s royalty and landed gentry either ruled one third of the globe and/or had substantial financial interest in it. The Queen Mother herself was the last Empress of India. As many Black British colonies revered everything about the ‘Mother Country’ our parents, and our parents, parents would have perhaps held this grand old lady in high esteem. Thankfully that deferential chapter is long gone. But what did the Queen mother think of us? Well according to the Woodrow Wyatt diaries not a lot. In them Wyatt claims that she admired very much the South African President Pic Botha, arguing that the 'BBC try to misrepresent everything he is trying to do’. When quizzed about Black commonwealth countries that threatened to leave if sanctions were not imposed she is reported to have said ‘well if that’s what they want let them go,’ adding that President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia is an ‘idiot’. I don’t know if anything of this is true. What I do know from my own experience and from the lack of Black people I saw in the queues is that this nation’s outpouring has generally passed Black Britain by. That doesn’t make us any less British nor patriotic. It just means that whether by design or fault the Queen Mother never connected with us. My own emotions over the last few weeks have been with the plight of the Palestinians under brutal siege from the dictatorial Israeli Prime Minster Ariel Sharon. If there is a connection, with the two occurrences it is that one is mourning the last symbol of the Great British Empire, whilst the other demonstrates a new world order. The new global super power the US unequivocally backs Israel and its right to unleash terror whilst paying scant regard to helpless Palestinians. I only wish that one tenth of those who queue to pay their respects to the Queen Mother would take a five minute detour from Westminster Abbey to Ten Downing St. There, they could demand that our Prime Minster denounce Israeli aggression and as a defender of justice, liberty and life, implore Blair and our European allies not to stand by and do nothing as more Israeli tanks roll into occupied territories. Come the funeral on Tuesday you will not find me lining the Capital's streets to bid farewell to the nations Grandmother. If however I am at a meeting or function and a minute silence is observed I will duly respect it. To be honest it will be done more out of duty than affection. Like many Black people here I’m British and proud. As such I demand my rights, my Black history and the chance for the UK’s Black communities to fulfil our great potential. I also accept my responsibilities, one of which is of course, respect.