by Vijaya Chandrasoma

The past fortnight featured some of the most momentous headline news of the century. Any one of these sensational stories would have monopolized the print media and TV screens of the world for several news cycles.

These included revelations of unprecedented bribery and corruption rampant within the most hallowed Court of Justice in the world, the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Provable accusations of bribery against at least three of the “Republican” Justices of the Court, including Chief Justice John Roberts, are rife. As are “Inducements” of cash and kind received from right wing billionaires, one of them a collector of Nazi memorabilia, his proudest possession being a painting signed by Hitler.

The first civil case in the continuing saga of sexual transgressions committed by the former President of the United States ended last Tuesday. Trump was found guilty of sexual battery and defamation of character, and a Manhattan jury ordered Trump to pay up to $5 million in punitive damages to Plaintiff, E. Jean Carroll.

Trump became the first former President of the USA to be found guilty in a civil case, in addition to being the first former President to be indicted and arrested by the Manhattan District Court in April 2023 for 34 felonies, presently awaiting trial. There are three other investigations against Trump; for the felony of obstruction of justice by the state of Georgia and the felonies of sedition and espionage by the Department of Justice, awaiting indictment and imminent arrest. With all this criminal baggage, Trump amazingly remains the front runner for the Republican nomination for the presidency in 2024.

Another potential big story was a Town Hall style meeting in New Hampshire on Wednesday, May 10, organized by CNN, with Trump open to questions from a captive MAGA audience. Just a couple of hours of Trump’s same old lies, reminding me of a few lines from Macbeth’s soliloquy, “A poor player, That struts and frets his hour on the stage…It is a tale, Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing”.

Finally, there were six mass shootings in the United States during the weekend of the coronation, including two in Texas which claimed 14 innocent lives and wounded 33. Mass shootings have now become so commonplace that they hardly qualify for any sensation value in the US media, and are usually dismissed with thoughts and prayers during a brief news cycle.

But the last shooting in Allen, Texas took a sinister turn, in that the killer wore a flak jacket adorned by the acronym RWDS (Right Wing Death Squad), the insignia of violent, far-right extremists. This same insignia was displayed by the Proud Boys, the Oathkeepers and other white supremacist Trumpers during their attempt to storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Indisputable proof that Trump’s traitorous dream of ending democracy in the USA, to be replaced by an illegal, white Christian dictatorship, is very much alive.

All these potentially sensational stories were relegated to second stage by the coronation of King Charles III and his wife, Queen Camilla on Saturday, May 6, at Westminster Abbey, London, when they ascended to the throne of the United Kingdom and 14 members of the Commonwealth of Nations. An occasion that was becoming increasingly remote in Charles’ eyes, as his mother, Queen Elizabeth II showed no signs of “shuffling off this mortal coil”. In fact, she seemed as healthy as the horses she loved to ride, till the end.

At long last, on September 8, 2022, Queen Elizabeth died at Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Charles was simultaneously grief-stricken/buoyed when he heard the ancient proclamation – The Queen is Dead, Long Live the King – that rang throughout the realm on the death of the monarch. His destiny had finally dawned, he was indeed the sole occupier of “This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise…..This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England”.

Charles was grieved at the death of her mother, but she was 97 years old and had lived her wonderful life. The realization that his lifelong dream of the monarchy had finally arrived.

King Charles III was crowned in Westminster Abbey on Saturday, May 6. For over 1,000 years, British monarchs have been crowned amid a spectacle of grandiose pomp and pageantry that no other nation can surpass, a ceremony that confirms the rightful monarch to rule. Three days of pageantry excitedly watched not only by Britishers, but millions living in countries who remain devoted to the monarchy of the country that had subjugated, pillaged and enslaved them for centuries.

The Crown Jewels sported by the Royal Couple were mainly stolen from the French and British colonies in Cambodia, the Indian subcontinent and South Africa. The most famous Royal Jewel stolen from Sri Lanka by the British is a 105 -carat Chrysoberyl of exceptional quality. Other jewels in the Royal Regalia were similarly stolen from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Cambodia. The golden carriage used for special Royal occasions was probably a “gift” from gold-rich South Africa. There are no gem and gold mines in the rugged terrain of the British Isles. Just a treasured conviction of ethnic superiority which empowered them to prey on the world’s weak with spectacular success.

Shashi Tharoor, Indian politician, diplomat and writer, speaks of the genius of the British in the three-card-trick they played on countries far larger and richer than themselves. A trick where the defeated believe they are winning, until the last moment when they realize they have been cleaned out of all their wealth.

He gives the example of India as an appropriate case study on the destruction that roots from colonialism. When the English East India Company arrived in India in 1606, the Indian economy was contributing around 23% to the global economy. By the time they left India, the contribution was down to 4%. During the years of the British Raj, Britain reduced the Indian economy to nothing; India and other colonies were used primarily for the development of the British Empire. Tharoor estimates that Britain stole $ 45 trillion in today’s dollars during the 300+ years of occupation. The European colonies in Africa and the South Asian subcontinent also missed out on the Industrial Revolution, while their economic and cultural development was stunted by the white colonizers.

But enough of these depressing facts of history. The deed has been done. We of the third world have been right royally and consensually screwed over the centuries. And many of us still harbor fond memories of that white incursion. Let us return to the subject at hand, the spectacular pageantry of the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla.

Over 2,200 guests were invited for the coronation, including the Royal family and over 100 world leaders. The seating arrangements for a crowd of this magnitude for functions spanning three days were carried out most professionally by the palace staff.

The only major glitches they could expect were the placement of Charles’ disgraced brother, Prince Andrew, who had to be kept away from young ladies, given his ill-reputed penchant for teenage girls, earned through his friendship with convicted sexual pervert, the late Jeffrey Epstein.

And the prominence demanded by Prince William, heir to the throne, who had to be kept as far away as possible from his rebellious brother, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex. Harry had broken away from the family when he married a biracial American actress, Meghan Markle, now Duchess of Sussex, in 2018. He was also guilty of the ultimate sin of publicly criticizing the Royal family, hinting at overtones of racism in the Palace.

King Charles III solved these problems with admirable diplomacy. He ordered Harry and Andrew to be seated far behind the “working royals”, and neither was invited to stand with the rest of the family for the traditional appearance on the Buckingham Palace balcony later in the day.

Prince Harry attended the coronation, while his wife Meghan remained in California with their two children. He spent a total of 28 hours in the country, did not meet or speak with his father, the King, or his brother, Prince William. Though a source close to the monarch claimed that Charles was “delighted” to see his youngest son there.

After their coronation at Westminster Abbey, Charles and Camilla rode back to Buckingham Palace in the Gold State Coach, a historic carriage weighing four tons, used at the coronation of every monarch since William IV in 1831. The chariot was drawn by a team of eight Windsor Grey steeds. The newly crowned Charles looked resplendent, though a little weary, in his Royal regalia. What a spectacular coronation this would have been had Unjust Fate allowed the beautiful People’s Princess Diana to be alive, to participate in a pageant tailored in heaven for her. Alas, “our wills and fates do so contrary run”.

The coronation was followed by the traditional homage to be paid to the newly crowned monarch by the senior officials of the United Kingdom, when they place their hands on the monarch’s knees, swear allegiance, touch the crown and kiss the monarch’s right hand. This ceremony is followed by the balcony appearance, a tradition for the royal family to wave to the public from the balcony of Buckingham Palace.

And so ended the pomp and pageantry of the coronation of the new monarch, King Charles III, though it hardly matched the majesty of the grief-stricken celebration of the life of his mother, the beloved Queen Elizabeth II, a few months ago,

The coronation of a modern British monarch only retains the historic pomp and pageantry, sans the substance and the power of the Kingdom of a bygone era. There has been, over the last century, a waning in the popularity of the monarchy, especially among the younger generation. As the London Observer puts it, “We need to think about how the monarchy institution sits in a modern and more secular Britain; our faith in these magical rituals won’t last forever…. It is one thing cheerfully to tune into the latest episode of royalty as spectacle, a slice of Elizabethan drama. It is another to be invited to stand up from your armchair to offer unquestioning loyalty to this particular winner of fate’s lottery and his offspring in perpetuity”.