INTERVIEW | Sumantra Maitra on Legacy of Queen Elizabeth II

The death of Queen Elizabeth II marked the passing of an era in British and world history. 

Elizabeth II, who first became queen when Winston Churchill was prime minister in 1952, carried the British monarchy through the turbulent twentieth and early twenty-first centuries until her death on Sept. 8. 

Not only that, Elizabeth II provided a critical link to the past with dignity and grace that was respected and admired, even by many outside the U.K. She provided the best example of what an “elite” can be. 

“A lot of elite in other societies, they are elites, when they dictate the polity of a country, but they don't really actively take part,” said Sumantra Maitra, a national security fellow at the Center for the National Interest and associate fellow at the Royal Historical Society in the U.K. “But the royals have to serve. The queen served in the Second World War. All her sons, our current king, essentially, he served as well in the Navy. William and Harry, they served.” 

It is notable that while so many pay their respects to Elizabeth II, there is a general trend in the West to reject its own history, its own traditions in the name of purifying the past. False narratives based on faulty history are now used to diminish what many in America, the U.K., and the West once paid tribute to in their history. Ultimately, Maitra said, this “breaks the love for the future generations to come and feel anything traditional or anything that's connected to their own past.” 

Maitra joins "The Daily Signal Podcast" to talk about the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, the war on history, and more. 

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