Today is the 127th birthday of King George The Sixth, the father of Queen Elisabeth The Second. My grandfather, Ralph Blanchard, attended her coronation in his capacity as Moderator-General of the Presbyterian Church.
In a D-Day address in 2019, with both her son, then Prince Charles, and President Donald Trump sitting behind her, Queen Elisabeth recalled with pride her father’s call to his people for a “revival of the spirit”.
The beginning of her life was a time of great hardship, The Great Depression and World War Two. This period of difficulty lead to one of the great documents of human history – The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights. (UDHR)
This declaration was the response to the Allied world’s triumph aver fascism. It was an attempt to see that fascist atrocities could never be repeated.
It was a time of hope. The young Princess Elisabeth and then Queen Elisabeth was a continuing symbol of that optimism.
Princess Elisabeth and her fiancé a few months before their wedding.
She stood for high ideals.
Lincoln’s formulation of “democracy of the people, by the people, for the people”.
“Congress and our Parliaments are the twin pillars of our civilisations.”
Faith “in the freedom of the individual and the rule of a fair and just law.”
“…. our societies rest on mutual agreement on contract and consensus”
(These 4 quotes come from the Queen’s address to the U.S. Congress in 1991.)
4 decades before that, in 1951, President Harry Truman was not the only one captivated by young Elisabeth’s beauty, grace and charm.
But what has happened to those ideals over the course of her lifetime?
The tragedy of Diana.
The intercontinental family feud that is Megxit.
The persistent allegations against the new King’s disgraced brother, Andrew.
The very recent trashing of the human rights of millions of people across the Western World.
And I personally was physically and sexually assaulted by police representing The Crown at the entrance of The Church of The Crown during a memorial service for Queen Elisabeth on 9/11 a little over three months ago.
I hope that George the Sixth and Elisabeth the Second rest in peace.
But I will not abandon my real human need for a spirit of revival and the fight for fairness and justice and universal human rights from modern government tyrants.
Freedom works.
To quote her own words, corruption of the best ideals espoused by Elisabeth “never grows well nor for very long. Force, in the end, is sterile.”
God Bless Freedom.
God save democracy and human rights.
Geoff Fox, 14th December, 2022, Down Under
FREEDOM, DEMOKRASI AND CIVILISED HUMANITY 