Vice-Regal Saint: Do the young value the Commonwealth?
A poll this week reveals that more than one in ten people under 24 think that George Bush is leader of the Commonwealth. It doesn’t exactly knock my socks off with consternation - indeed as a paid-up boomer I don’t think I could name all the countries within it.
But older people really do know about the Commonwealth and value it - 87 per cent of the over 50s polled by Saga knew that the Queen heads it up. Unlike gilded youth, they probably know where it is too as, just as boomers take off for France and Spain, previous generations emigrated in huge numbers to Commonwealth countries.
Have we found a San Andreas generation fault line? Boomers like to think that there is so little difference between us and following generations but here’s one cultural difference that sticks out as much as that hideous building in Kensington proudly built for the Commonwealth when it Meant Something.
What will be the equivalent phenomenon when we are twenty years older? The UN? The monarchy?
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9 comments:
I am 17 and feel I am the only person who cares for or who has any respect for our country and monarchy. The majority of my fellow students are probably unaware of what the Commonwealth actually is let alone who heads it.
In my sixth form school I am regularly besieged with left-wing propaganda and socialist ideologies in subjects like "citizenship" and even history!
In my recent visit to a university I was appalled to witness the lecturer (a history lecturer) openly slate the Monarchy and Britain itself in what he felt was a balanced speech.
Looking around at the impressionable empty minded youth around me, I felt sure that this mans ignorant comments were to rub off on these already doomed individuals.
I'm 25 years old, and I value the Commonwealth and sure know who heads it. I think it should become a trade and military alliance as well. It would probably do a better job than the U.N.
I wrote the Premier of Ontario asking that the bloodless new "Family Day" holiday, which seems to be designed with the sole purpose of not offending anyone, be replaced with Commonwealth Day. No reply as yet. :)
For the commenter above, I received a diet of similar nonsense all through school. Persevere – you’re not alone.
Sad days are upon us, when children forget that, with the cry of "For King and Empire!" on their lips, the sons of the greatest Empire the world has ever seen forged a new world order that lasted a century.
Not for the first time, I curse the left-winged radicals who desire to strip away the last shred of good government from this world.
I am a proud monarchist, a 19 year-old, and a leftist. I for one am not terribly surprised about this, one need only look at how we educate our young people today. Of the hundreds of people who completed the Ontario Civics class at my high school, barely a one could tell you who the Queen is.
The way to keep the Commonwealth relevant, I think, is to increase its scope. Rather like Ken MacNeil suggested, expanding it into a trade and perhaps military alliance cannot be but a good idea. I also think that a little more self-promotion, executed with dignity of course, couldn't hurt.
It is one of those fantastic things which any other nation would kill for, but which - like everything from our finely evolved constitutional system, our unbeatable armed forces, to our railway infrastructure - we are far too happy to ignore and let die.
The real problem is a want of energy. The tools for our greatness are at hand; no-one picks them up.
We all get by happily without them - in times of plenty and security. But the fact is, such times are historically not at all normall. When danger - military or economic - comes knocking we know who and what we will have to turn to. It's a shame all such brotherhood lies fallow in the meantime.
I say - advance CANAUSUK! UKAUSCAN! AUSUKCAN! We'll need a better name...
Scott-You left out New Zealand!
Ken-Unfortunately, Family Day (originated here in God's Country, Alberta) is in February and Commonwealth Day is in March where the Easter holiday often falls. I don't think you'll get a positive response because of that. We ought to argue for a ne long weekend!
I compacted it in the AUS (either for Australasia, or Australia completed with NZ as a new state; which the constitution already provides for. I don't imagine that would please many kiwis, though!).
The issue is curriculum. In Australia we do not educate children at all about the Crown, or the Commonwealth, beyond whatever the spawnlings can glean from the commonwealth games coverage. We need to remedy this.
The issue is not the left wing ideology of lecturers and teachers, in my experience atleast. I had all fanatically left wing teachers, but above all else they taught me to think for myself, and not to accept their views on the world just because they are in a position of authority over me. I became a Monarchist, and have since converted a dozen others to the Cause with reasoned argument.
Education is the key, teach the spawnlings, teach them to think for themselves so they may become Men and Women, not just oversized children. Most will see the benefit of institions and be receptive to the Monarchy, because it is based on rationality above the hollow emotionalism of republicanism.
In my public school, we were not taught anything about the Crown/Monarchy, the Commonwealth or the mighty British Empire, and that was 20 years ago. I had to learn everything on my own. I was not even taught in public school that the British Empire ever existed; all we were told is that Britain conquered Canada in 1759 on the Plains of Abraham, and some mumbo-jumbo about the Seven Years War (no mention of Wolfe). it is appalling.
BTW, I am a liberaltarian/libertarian and a very proud supporter of our monarchy!
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