Translated by: Matilde São José

During our life journey, we are certain about only one thing: death. Eventually we all end up there, being the only entity that does not discriminate, even if the person to whom this misfortune arrives is Queen Elizabeth II, the one whose reign will be known in History as the longest one in British monarchy.

Recently, the international community has suffered devastating losses of figures that shaped the development of the 20^th century, such as Mikhail Gorbatchev, the last leader of the former Soviet Union, who contributed to the end of the tensions that marked the Cold War and is seen as a hero to millions of people. And, recently, we are suffering with the loss of a queen who was considered to be an unlikely one, Queen Elizabeth II, too young to assume a position with such responsibility which was suddenly left to her by the death of her father, King George VI. What is certain is that even with the existent doubts regarding her reign, Elizabeth II performed her duty with class, elegance, and pure ability, becoming, subsequently, an iconic figure to the British people and not only, assuming herself as a symbol of union, longevity and stability who projected a united front composed by the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth.

Contradicting this picture, her death is equally marked by the critics originated from the countries who were part of the British Empire in the past, who are still revolted by their old colonial relationship and for this cruel legacy left, the same legacy that is personified by the monarch and now, will transit to his son, the current King Charles III. In fact, some countries, among them Kenya, still vividly remember the suffering caused by the British domain in their territory. Another example transports us to the Middle East, where the leaders of the Hamas movement at the Gaza Strip demanded to the new king the implementation of measures to rectify the decisions taken during the term of the British mandate.

Before all the events that are occuring in this precise moment at the international level, the loss of an historical figure so predominant in the international community over seven decades, the transition to another monarch can, sometimes, reveal a tendency to revolt, a pretext to reach some government change through associativism. The idea that the monarchy is a concept that no longer has place in the contemporary world is something that many share, which means that the new monarch, King Charles III, needs to deliberate his upcoming decisions in a cautious way. Since his marriage to the late Princess Diana, an extremely loved figure around the world, Charles III saw his popularity go down in an astonishing manner, making his current task seem to be more difficult to preform, because without the people’s support, hardly anyone is able to remain in power, regardless of the regime type. This need for caution and discretion is something for which the new monarch has never been recognized, always having the whim of expressing in a very determined way his ideals, revealing to be several times something very grotesque for the royal family, the one known as “The Firm”, with its coexistence marked by a bureaucracy that extends from the throne to the family,  beside it being expressible inconvenient for a monarch to express its opinion, unless for diplomatic effects.

With the fall of monarchy support and the imminent threat of the English republicans’ rise, with the outbreak of war in Ukrainian soil, the galloping prices derived from inflation covering the whole globe, it becomes interesting, in a purely annalistic perspective, to see what the new United Kingdom has reserved for the rest of the world, as well for the media lens.
God save all of us.