Sixty Joyless De-Britished Uncrowned Commonpoor Years (1949-2009)

Elizabeth II Vice-Regal Saint: Remembering Paul Comtois (1895–1966), Lt.-Governor of Québec
Britannic Inheritance: Britain's proud legacy. What legacy will America leave?
English Debate: Daniel Hannan revels in making mince meat of Gordon Brown
Crazy Canucks: British MP banned from Canada on national security grounds
Happy St. Patrick's: Will Ireland ever return to the Commonwealth?
Voyage Through the Commonwealth: World cruise around the faded bits of pink.
No Queen for the Green: The Green Party of Canada votes to dispense with monarchy.
"Sir Edward Kennedy": The Queen has awarded the senator an honorary Knighthood.
President Obama: Hates Britain, but is keen to meet the Queen?
The Princess Royal: Princess Anne "outstanding" in Australia.
H.M.S. Victory: In 1744, 1000 sailors went down with a cargo of gold.
Queen's Commonwealth: Britain is letting the Commonwealth die.
Justice Kirby: His support for monarchy almost lost him appointment to High Court
Royal Military Academy: Sandhurst abolishes the Apostles' Creed.
Air Marshal Alec Maisner, R.I.P. Half Polish, half German and 100% British.
Cherie Blair: Not a vain, self regarding, shallow thinking viper after all.
Harry Potter: Celebrated rich kid thinks the Royals should not be celebrated
The Royal Jelly: A new king has been coronated, and his subjects are in a merry mood
Victoria Cross: Australian TROOPER MARK DONALDSON awarded the VC
Godless Buses: Royal Navy veteran, Ron Heather, refuses to drive his bus
Labour's Class War: To expunge those with the slightest pretensions to gentility
100 Top English Novels of All Time: The Essential Fictional Library
BIG BEN: Celebrating 150 Years of the Clock Tower

Tuesday 2 January 2007

Republican Movements

The New Zealand Republican Movement has elected a new President, Lewis
Holden (who has commented on this blog before), He replaces Dave Guerin, who was first elected president in 1996. On an international monarchist mailing list "Archbishop Boniface Grosvold", from "London, Ontario, Canada" had this to say:

I have just read your note concerning the election of a new president for the "republican movement of New Zealand", which strikes me as a very strange thing to even consider, a republican movement. It goes way beyond my understanding as to why or how it is even possible for a Country such as New Zealand, Australia, or Canada, countires which are by their very nature and foundation, Monarchies, who anointed and crowned head of State is Her most Gracious Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, by God's Grace now gloriously Reigning over us.

Could one ever imagine going into the United States, France, or any other "republican country", and setting up a "non republican movement", or one better than that, setting up a society whereby a return to Monarchy would be advocated? I think not, as delightful as the thought would be, I should imagine the chap who would set up such a group, would be ousted and quickly from that Country. Not sure what they would do with one of their own, but I can only imagine it would not be a very conciliatory reception that person or group of persons might be subject to.

It is far beyond my understand why any person, that is any sane and reasonable person, comparing the quiet and godly manner in which Monarchical societies are governed, as opposed to those which are Republics. Behold the United States of America, France, and any other former Monarchy, now become a republic; and just see what happens in those countries, at the drop of a hat, should their President or one of their high ranking ministers of state, run amuk, how quickly their economy is threatened, and in fact their governments, flimsy as they are almost collapse. Not so, not so indeed when you have got a Sovereign who never wavers with this and that wind of change and or scandal, but Sovereigns remain unshaken and are able to steer a steady course along the way, not so where republics are concerned.

11 comments:

The Monarchist said...

Well isn't that nice. Lewis Holden has gone all official on us has he. Congratulations I suppose. Unfortunately principle prevents me from wishing him the best of luck in his heretically misguided little too much free time on his hands endeavour Down Under.

Lewis Holden said...

Haha. Thanks I guess.

Anonymous said...

Funny how so many other countries that were "by their very nature and foundation, Monarchies" have ended up as republics. France, for one. Or Trindidad, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Fiji, and so on and so on. What's the explanation?

Lewis Holden said...

Yes indeed. And then there's the American Monarchist Party (I think). Funny they haven't been sent packing in these awful republics. Oh, and there's lots of monarchists in France too.

Unknown said...

When only 5% of Canadians know the Queen is Head of State you really have to wonder just what relevence she actually has.

Anonymous said...

When only 5% of Canadians know the QUeen is head of state, it shows the Liberals, heavily larded with French Quebec republic-believers, operating through educational providers who are overwhelmingly Liberal have done their work well. Seriously, how many teachers in the conservative movement? ANti monarchial operations are based almost entirely on an anti-English Canadian bias, because the Loyalists came here and the earlier treaty in which France ceded this land, is still something 400 years later, the French people who reside in Quebec and New Brunswick and their English sycophants will not accept ! For this, they'll continue their disloyalty and as we have seen, come close to breaking up the country. Under the Liberals The Queen was marginalized. THey have left very unfertile ground for the Conservatives to amend that I fear.

The Monarchist said...

You cannot compare ancient indigineous nations that had a civilisation and history before the British Crown came around, with the old settler nations of the Anglosphere. Apart from the United States, all of the nations that were settled by the British still retain the British Crown. Those countries that were not settled by the British, but were occupied as colonies, have largely not stuck with the Crown. That is the clear difference, gentlemen, so don't try and compare with a straight face, New Zealand with India. Unlike them, we were founded by the Mother Country.

For the republicans in the "Old Commonwealth", be advised that you are rejecting your very nature, your own heritage, your own founding fathers. For all your pathetic attempts at being relevant to the postmoderns, know that the fleeting modernist's time on this earth will be short compared to the ancient permanence of our monarchical civilisation. Do not, for your own good, go down the road to pompless squaresville. I beseech you.

Anonymous said...

Alright, well that's a fair enough comment. But it boils down to such: countries with a British ethnic majority and a firm sense of British nationalism will retain the British monarchy because it serves as a symbol of British ethnic-nationalist pride. Countries which were never fully "settled" and then controlled by an ethnically British majority have become republics, because there is little affinity for the crown (though this does not really explain the Caribbean nations, which tend to go largely ignored by both monarchist and republican alike).

Anyhow, the obvious question is such: can there be a future for the crown in increasingly multi-cultural countries like Canada and Australia? The historic trend seems to suggest that ethnic diversity threatens affinity for the crown, and thus the monarchy itself.

The Monarchist said...

As you must well know, unlike Anglo-Saxon England and the Celtic nations of the United Kingdom, Britishness is not mono-ethnic, and was historically a more global and imperial phenonoma than a strictly national one. The elites of Britain itself continuously stress the country as a multi-cultural one, and not a mono-ethnic nation. Understandably, immigrants are much more comfortable and more proudly attached to the UK as British subjects, than they would be as English nationals.

In terms of diversity affecting affinity for the Crown, that's a debatable point. I think there is no strong feelings for or against either way. I just don't think it's an issue for most people at all. It will become an issue at the next acclamation mind you, and it should be interesting to see how that all turns out. Republican chnaces will be greatest at that point more than any other, particularly in the Commonwealth realms, but get past it, and I think the whole non-movement will just fold for generations to come.

Anonymous said...

I'm getting some mixed messages from you here. If "Britishness" is an appealing, global force of unity that transcends ethnicity, then why have the "non settler" nations not retained the monarchy? How can there be a future for the monarchy in a multi-ethnic country (and let's be frank here, ‘multi-ethnic’ meaning ‘composed of ethnic groups that come from OUTSIDE the British Isles altogether.’ Scots and Welshmen living side-by-side is not my idea of a truly multi-cultural state) when all countries that have not been ruled by WASPs have moved to abolish it?

It’s interesting to me that Australia is now the only realm with a white Governor-General. It suggests that the governments of the “settler dominions” are now very pre-occupied with trying to actively downplay the British element of the crown, much more so than ever before. It’s not a matter of race per se, but it does reflect a fundamental shift in our understandings of what the “purpose” of the crown is, in regards to the nationalistic symbolism it is supposed to embody.

The Monarchist said...

I'm always happy to engage commenters who demonstrate a healthy commitment to the truth. Let me make the message more consistent then. Britishness will obviously resonate more closely with the citizens of the core settler nations who consider the UK their ancestral homeland, which is why the Crown survives. That doesn't mean it doesn't or can't resonate with others, when clearly many people in the greater Commonwealth still hold Great Britain in high esteem. But the colonial mentality and the cultural cringe will be most heavily felt in those societies where the ancestral connection is weaker, hence the Commonwealth Republics.

And yes you are absolutely right that the Commonwealth Realms do and have deliberately played down the British aspect of the Crown, and by consequence rendered it more foreign in the process. I lament this development, because you can never square the idea that the Crown is wholly Canadian or Australian when it so obviously resides outside the country.