The most famous moment of opposition to the Queen's 'Silver Jubilee' in 1977 (to mark 25 years on the throne) was of course the success of The Sex Pistols' 'God Save the Queen' single which got to number 2 in the charts despite a lack of radio play and many shops refusing to sell it - and everyone knows it probably would have been number one without some rigging of the charts.
I still think this is the greatest of the first wave UK punk songs- 'God save the Queen, She ain't no human being, There is no future In England's dreaming...We're the flowers in the dustbin, We're the poison in the human machine. We're the future, we're the future'
Still there were other expressions of anti-monarchist feeling from the radical left in Britain and Ireland. Here's a few examples:
'I designed this badge with Neil McFarlane. It was my first badge design. When I ordered 4000 badges from the Universal button company in Bethnal Green, they sort of laughed at me. The same company had the order for hundreds of thousands of pro monarchy items. We advertised the badge mainly through a small advert in Private Eye and in Socialist Worker. the badge became a campaign. In the end we sold over 40,000 badges in less than three months. there were stickers too. and Stuff the Jubilee parties in a number of cities'
'ER Queen of Death 69-77- 1800 dead' - banner on demo somewhere in Ireland 1977 (from Ireland: The Class War and our tasks, Revolutionary Struggle. RS were a small Irish communist group influenced by the Italian radical left)
Lots more contemporary articles about the Jubilee if you follow the links to the SW, SC and Freedom full papers.
On the occasion of Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee, I am reminded of James Connolly's denunciation of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897:
'“The great appear great to us, only because we are on our knees: LET US RISE.”
Fellow Workers, The loyal subjects of Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India, etc., celebrate this year the longest reign on record. Already the air is laden with rumours of preparations for a wholesale manufacture of sham ‘popular rejoicings’ at this glorious (?) commemoration. Home Rule orators and Nationalist Lord Mayors, Whig politicians and Parnellite pressmen, have ere now lent their prestige and influence to the attempt to arouse public interest in the sickening details of this Feast of Flunkeyism...
During this glorious reign Ireland has seen 1,225,000 of her children die of famine, starved to death whilst the produce of her soil and their labour was eaten up by a vulture aristocracy, enforcing their rents by the bayonets of a hired assassin army in the pay of the –best of the English Queens’; the eviction of 3,668,000, a multitude greater than the entire population of Switzerland; and the reluctant emigration of 4,186,000 of our kindred, a greater host than the entire people of Greece. At the present moment 78 percent of our wage-earners receive less than £1 per week, our streets are thronged by starving crowds of the unemployed, cattle graze on our tenantless farms and around the ruins of our battered homesteads, our ports are crowded with departing emigrants, and our poorhouses are full of paupers. Such are the constituent elements out of which we are bade to construct a National Festival of rejoicing!'.
Connolly goes on: 'To you, workers of Ireland, we address ourselves. AGITATE in the workshop, in the field, in the factory, until you arouse your brothers to hatred of the slavery of which we are all the victims. EDUCATE, that the people may no longer be deluded by illusory hopes of prosperity under any system of society of which monarchs or noblemen, capitalists or landlords form an integral part. ORGANISE, that a solid, compact and intelligent force, conscious of your historic mission as a class, you may seize the reins of political power whenever possible and, by intelligent application of the working-class ballot, clear the field of action for the revolutionary forces of the future. Let the ‘canting, fed classes’ bow the knee as they may, be you true to your own manhood, and to the cause of freedom, whose hope is in you, and, pressing unweariedly onward in pursuit of the high destiny to which the Socialist Republic invites you' (full text here).
Agitate, Educate and Organise
I am intrigued by Connolly's use of the Agitate, Educate, Organise meme, a phrase that became common in 20th century radicalism. I wonder about its origins - the earliest reference I have found is from 1882, when the Knights of Labor (a trade union) held what was in effect the first Labor Day parade in New York: 'on Sep 15, 1882, a handful of laborers, organized by Peter McGuire, began a march uptown through lower Manhattan, carrying signs that read Agitate, Educate, Organize and Less Work, More Pay. Mocked by fashionable New Yorkers they continued their trek as more and more laboring men, women, and children joined them. By the time they reached what is now called Union Square, there were over 10,000 strong and cheered by thousands more in the Square. It was the first real Labor Day' (article here). Irish emigrants played a key role in the formation of the Knights of Labor, and later Connolly himself became involved in US radical politics in the 1900s.
Of course the phrase made its way on to 1980s dancefloors via 'How we gonna make the black nation rise' ('we're gonna agitate, educate and organize') by Brother D with The Collective Effort (1980) - one of the earliest explicitly political rap tracks.
In 1987, Irish band (with American singer) That Petrol Emotion used the phrase in their track 'Big Decision' with its rap section 'What you`ve gotta do In this day and age. You gotta agitate, educate, organize'. The track was no doubt influenced more by Brother D than Connolly, but its references to the use of plastic bullets in Ireland put the band in Connolly's republican tradition.
O gentlemen, the time of life is short!
To spend that shortness basely were too long,
If life did ride upon a dial's point,
Still ending at the arrival of an hour.
An if we live, we live to tread on kings
William Shakespeare - Henry IV, Part I (1597)
Charles Windsor, who's at the door?
At such an hour, who's at the door?
In the back of an old green cortina
You're on your way to the guillotine
Here the rabble comes
The kind you hoped were dead
They've come to chop, to chop off your head
Hundreds of bound big business men
Hacks from The Sun, military men
So many rich men weep in despair
On and on into Trafalgar Square
Here the rabble comes
The kind you hoped were dead
They've come to chop, to chop off your head
These once peaceful streets
The scenes of revenge you had not wished to see
Revenge is so sweet to those who have never known anything sweet
McCarthy - Charles Windsor (1987)
God save the Queen
the fascist regime,
they made you a moron
a potential H-bomb.
God save the Queen
she ain't no human being.
There is no future
in England's dreaming
Don't be told what you want
Don't be told what you need.
There's no future
there's no future
there's no future for you
God save the Queen
we mean it man
we love our queen
God saves
God save the Queen
'cos tourists are money
and our figurehead
is not what she seems
Oh God save history
God save your mad parade
Oh Lord God have mercy
all crimes are paid.
When there's no future
how can there be sin
we're the flowers
in the dustbin
we're the poison
in your human machine
we're the future
you're future
God save the Queen
we mean it man
we love our queen
God saves
God save the Queen
we mean it man
there is no future
in England's dreaming
No future
no future for you
no fufure for me
Sex Pistols - God Save the Queen (1977)
Tear me apart and boil my bones
I'll not rest till she's lost her throne
My aim is true my message is clear
It's curtains for you, Elizabeth my dear
The Stone Roses - Elizabeth my Dear (1989)
Jewels drip red and I don't sound proud
Treason is ambition, I want dead procession
All we got unholy left-overs of a compromise
Leaving us like butterflies trapped in frost
Ceremony rape machine
Love wont corrode you
Ceremony rape machine
Love wont corrode you
England's glory lives on in world wide genocide
So celebrate buchenwald as her majesty's heir
Now an obsolete face on a currency of illusion
No matter what we own we can't buy freedom
Throw myself against you cos you ain't frail
Underneath silk riches sixty six million giving slaves
This needle of religion's gonna rust my skin
Tear out and exit obeyance of created sin
Faces pressed at gates of anniversary torture
Without these fake images we'd never bow down
Don't need this history but we still accept
Conscripted into a past that invents our guilt
Manic Street Preachers - We Her Majesty's Prisoners (1992)
(see also the Manic Street Preachers' song song Repeat -'Repeat after me, f*ck Queen and Country... Death sentence heritage, Repeat after me, Death camp palace, Useless generations, Dumb flag scum')
Class War - Better Dead than Wed (1986)
A few suggestions for your anti-Royal wedding party - other suggestions welcome!
See also: Funk the Wedding 1981;Repeat After Me, F*ck Queen and Country. K-Punk has a great 1983 quote from William Burroughs: 'What hope for a country where people will camp out for three days to glimpse the Royal Couple? Where one store clerk refers another as his 'colleague'? ... God save the Queen and a fascist regime ... a flabby, toothless fascism to be sure. Never go too far in any direction is the basic law on which Limey-Land is built. The Queen stabilizes the whole stinking shithouse and keeps a small elite of wealth and privilege on top...' (more here)
The ill-fated wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer was announced in February 1981. Unemployment was high amidst cuts and austerity and the first of what were to be a wave of major riots had taken place - the Bristol uprising of April May 1980 setting the tone for the following year's events.
A lot happened between the announcement of that engagement and the wedding itself on 29th July 1981. The Hunger Strikes in the North of Ireland set off a huge wave of demonstrations and riots there and across the world - 6 prisoners had died by the time Chas'n'Di walked down the aisle.
Meanwhile on the streets of England, tensions between (mainly) young black people and the police erupted in Brixton in April 1981 and then in July in towns and cities across the country. On the night before the wedding, there was rioting in Toxteth, Liverpool. Chief Constable Kenneth Oxford authorised the police tactic of driving Land Rovers at high speed towards the crowd - a 23 year old disabled man, David Moore, could not get out of way and was run over and killed. Nobody can seriously maintain then that the 1981 Royal Wedding 'brought the nation together' in any meaningful way.
The following cartoon was published in socialist magazine The Leveller (no.61, 24 July 1981), showing the royal cake besieged by rioters. Prime Minister Thatcher watches from the tier beneath the royal couple, while below her a line of riot police keep guard. The bottom of the cake reads Brixton, Toxteth, Southall - scenes of major riots at the time.
Funk the Wedding
I was at school in Luton at the time and on the day of the Royal wedding went with my sister to the Funk the Wedding carnival in Clissold Park in North London, an anti-royalist event organised by Stoke Newington Rock Against Racism. From what I recall it was unexciting but hey it was some kind of statement, with a good few thousand people there. Headliners Tribesman were a UK reggae band, who incidentally made a record about another London green space - Finsbury Park. Joshua Hi -Fi was a north east London reggae sound system. Don't know anything about Movement or Monkey Business who also played that day.
'Funk the Wedding -recently formed, but very dynamic, Stoke Newington RAR have organised a mini carnival for you to dance away your wedding day blues. If you haven't been invited, or can't stomach the Chas & Di show, come and see Tribesman, Movement, Monkey Business and Joshua Hi-Fi in Clissold Park' (Temporary Hoarding, Rock Against Racism zine, August 1981)
Advert for event from Leveller no.61:
Funk the Wedding, Clissold Park (my photo):
'Guess who WASN'T at that wedding... Eight thousand turned up in Clissold Park London' for 'Stoke Newington Rock Against Racism's amazingly successful afternoon of Militant Entertainment' (Socialist Worker).
[post updated Sept 2022 with addition of Socialist Worker report; Temporary Hoarding notice added December 2022
30 years ago this week the Sex Pistols released God Save the Queen as royalists prepared to celebrate the Queen's Silver Jubilee. The anniversary has prompted some nostalgia for a period when a song could have such a power to shock. In an interesting interview, Simon Reynolds remarks "The myth of the song seems to be the truth about it. It was one of the last times, possibly the last time, that a song could send shockwaves through an entire society. It was an injection of energy and conviction that took almost a decade to dissipate. "
Some of the people involved in this fine act of cultural terrorism have been backtracking ever since - Vivienne Westwood becoming a Dame of the British Empire, Steve Jones hanging out with Cliff Richard... so it is important to recall what an outrageous gesture it was, and the reaction it provoked - including arrests on the river Thames during the Pistols' Silver Jubilee boat party. Les Back suggests that 'The thing that remains disruptive about God Save the Queen is that it insisted that England was/is in a state of soporific stupor. There could be no escape beyond the nostalgia in which the past is eternally replayed in the waking somnolence of nationalism'. The virulence of the lyrics have never been surpassed in a hit record in the UK: "God save the queen, She ain't no human being, There is no future In England's dreaming... When there's no future How can there be sin, We're the flowers in the dustbin, We're the poison in the human machine, We're the future Your future" (see the video here).
Subsequent anti-monarchist efforts have lacked the same impact only because the Pistols broke the taboo, in the process undermining the symbolic power of the royal brand. Still the final nail is yet to be banged in the feudal coffin, with Queen Elizabeth II 55 years on the throne next week. There's still space for some more republican efforts, so let's give an honorable mention to The Stone Roses' four line classic Elizabeth My Dear: 'Tear me apart and boil my bones, I'll not rest till she's lost her throne, My aim is true my message is clear, It's curtains for you, Elizabeth my dear'; to The Smiths' The Queen is Dead: 'Her very Lowness with a head in a sling, I'm truly sorry - but it sounds like a wonderful thing', and to The Manic Street Preachers' Repeat: 'Useless generation, Dumb flag scum, Repeat after me, Fuck queen and country". Or maybe even Shelley's England in 1819: "Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow Through public scorn, mud from a muddy spring, Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know, But leech-like to their fainting country cling".
Related posts: See also: Funk the Wedding 1981; We live to tread on Kings
