Margaret Thatcher died yesterday.
Coming home from a (mediocre, except for a couple of singers) Nabucco at the Royal Opera House, at about 11pm, I passed through Brixton.
About 150 people had gathered in front of the Ritzy (a very nice, quite hipster but in a good way, cinema). The marquee read: "MARGARET THATCHER'S DEAD". The banner (yes, there was a banner too) read: "THE BITCH IS DEAD".
(By the way: why do you always have to resort to gendered insults when attacking a woman...?)
Now, on to a personal story. I had an old relative that had harmed me (something I can forgive, or try to) and others dear to me (something I am not so sure I can forgive, not being the interested party). She had a stroke, that took away the lively 70something years old lady that she was and left... someone else. I am sure that the person that had harmed me died with the stroke. The years between that and her death certificate were more of a P.S. on her life than her life.
I did not celebrate my relative's death. In some ways, I will even miss her! (Stockholm syndrome? Maybe.) But I will not deny her faults. Especially the ones that damaged (deeply) the lives of others.
Now, I am not a British citizen. I am not working class, even.
I did not celebrate Margaret Thatcher's death. I saw the celebrations, I recorded the facts, that's it. As I will not celebrate her funeral, but possibly be curious about it.
I know enough history to have a glimpse of why some people would celebrate. Or mourn. As I am trying not to judge her, I am trying not to judge them.
Can we go on living, now; if posible trying not to harm or desire harm to others?
And yes, I believe that that means partly not celebrating a death, but partly (mostly) also not cutting benefits to the poor and disabled.
A last note: I think that the idea that you cannot speak evil of a dead person definitely does not apply to public figures. And I love British satire, also because it dares to laugh even in the face of death, in a way that is like laughing in the face of anybody's inevitable death. But that is a long story...
P.S.: this tweet by Seaneen Molloy. Who is Northern Irish, working class, and has a disability. A class act.
