Bury The Past

So, today's the day we bury a racist. One less in that vile institution. It will go on, of course, there's enough money and blood in the royal family to keep it going for decades still. Way past the point reform is required. It cannot be reformed; an affront to democracy and the lives of ordinary people. Everyone else, that is. Those not lucky enough to be born with blue blood.

The many will fawn over their television screens, abasing themselves before these gaudy clowns. Ready to forgive them their endless indiscretions and perverse dysfunction. They are not servants, we are. Yet somehow that is how they have been rehabilitated. The commoners led to believe they are serving us, with their untold privilege and wealth. Sure, they may have to greet a few dignitaries, but that's nothing compared to never having to worry about where your next meal is going to come from, or if the economy around you forces you into poverty.

What a sick society this is. Everywhere. All around us. The story about deaths in detention, home office persecution and institutional racism leading to fatality pales in comparison to the funerary arrangements of a wealthy old man who died at a ripe old age of natural causes. As if he was somehow taken from us, his immortal breath stolen by cruel father time. This is the most natural thing in the world, while state murder in the guise of xenophobia is relegated to a by line. Something is very wrong. There are even fears a new variant, the 'double mutant' virus from India, could wreak havoc with our recovery from covid, but that doesn't get top billing. Instead the press comments that the nation observed a minute's silence. I certainly didn't. Why should I? Ridiculous.

We should have used this period as an opportunity for change. While I certainly don't enjoy pandemics, I don't want to go back to normal either. What is that? Continued state oppression, corruption, toxic masculinity, divide and rule, strivers and skivers etc. All these toxic narratives that should be excised, like draining a boil. I suppose the nature of this crisis, precluding people meeting properly, makes that difficult. As things begin to open, people yearn for the comfort of familiarity, and the familiarity of comfort. Now we step into another period of enforced austerity, belt tightening, and all the commensurate misery. With even less of an opposition. It's down to us.