This was only the beginning of a series of remarkable transformations. The size and behavior of the crowd did not simply reflect the pre-existing condition of the nation. Rather, through these crowds we saw a transformation in our desire to participate in events, a transformation in the relationships between those in the crowd, and transformations in their relationship to the monarch, the monarchy, and the state. A week is a long time, it seems, and not just in politics. Two things immediately caught the public’s imagination. The first was the sheer size of the crowd in line. Some speculated it was the largest funeral crowd ever. Such a bold claim is difficult to assess, but the answer is that it probably wasn’t. Four million attended the funeral of Pope John Paul II, 5 million for Nasser, up to 10 million for Ayatollah Khomeini. And 16 million were there for CN Annadurai, the Chief Minister of Madras, after his death in 1969. Moreover, in 1980 the queue to pay tribute to Russian singer Vladimir Vysotsky stretched fully 10 km, from the Taganka Theater in Moscow to the cemetery where he was buried. But such details are beside the point. Just asking if this is the longest queue ever evokes a sense of awesomeness. “Those who stood in the silence of the room told our research team how their senses were transformed, how their emotions were heightened.” Photo: Reuters The second factor is also about exceptionality. Time and again, queues, and this one in particular, have been described as quintessentially and uniquely British: polite, restrained and neat, reflecting the timeless characteristics of our national identity. Like most supposedly “timeless” national phenomena, this is not actually accurate. The idea of the British as a nation of tails dates back to the second world war. The government feared that food shortages, rationing and long queues would lead to social unrest – so there was a concerted campaign to make queuing a national duty and a symbol of being British. Controlled crowds were not a reflection of ‘Britishness’. Rather “Britishness” was a device invoked to control the crowds. Just as the funeral and other ceremonies that people expected to witness are often described as a “return to yore” but were in fact invented in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the notion that the politeness of British crowds attending these ceremonies also extend back. through the mists of time is a powerful piece of mythmaking. But the relentless focus on the Queue as a historical event in itself made the simple act of queuing seem increasingly important. More and more people wanted to join just to be a part of it. Day by day, as we talked to people, this became more apparent as a motivation for attendance. Many who sat at home with no thought of participating began to fear losing some immortality. So the crowd grew bigger and bigger, becoming more and more important and thus attracting more people. The snowball rolled and grew faster and faster. Once the crowd was drawn in, another transformation occurred. The shared experience and common goals of those who waited together for many hours led to an emerging sense of shared identity. And this shared identity became the basis for the emergence of community. Strangers became friends. People started talking, sharing stories, sharing sandwiches, even developing intimacy. Such solidarity sustained the people in the long march. Whatever the reason people got in line, the joy of human connection became a reason to stay in the crowd. As the crowd moved on, as people approached Westminster Hall and then, as they came before the coffin and crown, another transformation took place. The jovial and even raucous relationship of the queues with each other gave way to each person’s relationship with rights. In the silence of the hall, each person stood alone, in the presence of the Queen’s coffin and the meticulously choreographed precision of her attendants. Those who were there told our research team how their senses were transformed, how their emotions were heightened. Greatness – hitherto an abstract concept – has become manifest. Such experiences reflect a prior identification with the monarchy. But collective experiences also create and intensify identification Most of the debate about the response to the Queen’s death has focused simply on what it tells us about ourselves as a society. But that misses the point of how these events actively change people. We are not exiting the last 10 days as we entered. But that is the whole point of such ceremonies. They are technologies for engineering souls. And by investigating them, we gain critical insights into how this process works.
