Technology has created “windows on the world” offering the chance to understand how others live across the globe, the Queen said yesterday.
...in spite of different circumstances and surroundings, there was a ‘great deal’ held in common because of our shared human experience
In her Commonwealth Day message, the Queen said there was a range of opportunities to enter into the experience of people in communities “far removed” from our own.
These “windows on the world” showed us that in spite of different circumstances and surroundings, there was a “great deal” held in common because of our shared human experience, the Queen added. “Our circumstances and surroundings may vary enormously, for example in the food we eat and the clothes we wear, but we share one humanity, and this draws us all together,” she said. “The joys of celebration and sympathy of sadness may be expressed differently but they are felt in the same way the world over.”
The Queen, who is head of the Commonwealth, added that the “creative genius” of artists helped express both the range of different cultures and a shared humanity. The Queen was speaking as she prepared to mark Commonwealth Day with the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall and the Countess of Wessex at a special event in Westminster Abbey attended by more than 1,000 children from schools and youth groups.
The observance will be attended by South African jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela, Canadian singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright and award-winning Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Scots Makar, or national poet, Liz Lochhead will read a poem commissioned for the event.
The Commonwealth theme this year Connecting Cultures marks the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee with a digital history project run by the Royal Common-wealth Society, the Jubilee Time Capsule (JTC) collecting memories from across the globe.
So far 28,000 entries have been received from people in 49 countries, with the capsule due to be sealed later in the year and presented to the Queen. The Commonwealth was first set up in 1949 with eight member countries. By last year, it had 54 members covering a population of nearly two billion.