Royal wedding

The wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton last Friday was a great success. According to the BBC 24 million people in the UK alone tuned in to see the wedding on TV and another 10 million viewed at least part of the ceremony. The streets of London were busy too: it is estimated that a million people took the trouble to go out in the streets and catch a glimpse of the newly-wed couple and the royal family. It was great entertainment indeed.

Still these figures do not tell the whole story. It was obvious to me that in the Westminster Abbey most of the people present were white, with black and in particular Asian people being underrepresented. Perhaps this comes as no surprise: the elite of British society are still mostly the old ensconced classes, in spite of Kate herself being of middle class origin and further down the line of miners’ descent.

Changes are indeed taking place. Not just that one day a commoner may become the queen consort of the King, but also a shift is taking place in the ownership of economic enterprises. From steel makers (former Corus is now Tata Steel) to football clubs (Blackburn Rovers) investors from the Indian subcontinent have come in to make their economic clout felt in the home land of their former coloniser.

I wanted very much to estimate the Asian portion of the people lining the streets of London. It was simply not possible: the camera’s, not surprisingly, had another focus. My hunch, though, is that the Asians among them were very few and not only that but also that they did not watch the TV coverage of the event in great numbers.

My hunch is based on two small incidents which took place some months ago. During one of the English classes I’m assisting in the tutor asked the learners: who is the head of state of the UK? To my astonishment the learners, all Asian of long stay in England, did not come up with the answer. They only knew it was a woman, it was a queen, but even their combined effort did not provide the name of the queen!

The other incident involved primary school children of Asian descent. A few of them came into our house and right at that moment the queen was shown on TV walking towards her car to go back to Buckingham Palace. We asked the children: do you know that lady? Their faces showed it all; they had no clue whatsoever. They did not even know that they were watching the queen.

These incidents made me think that Asians seem to have their own media from which they get their news and entertainment. These are not in the English language and apparently their contents are far from the English scene as well.

Ton