“Monarchy is pure, the sovereignty being entirely vested in the king, whose power is incapable of legal limitation. All law is a mere concession of his will, and all constitutional forms and assemblies exist entirely at his pleasure. …” (John Neville Figgis, “The Divine Right of Kings”)
When Queen Elizabeth died yesterday, I immediately said to myself: maybe this is the end, at last. No more of this fictitious monarchy.
Everyone on earth knows it is ceremonial in nature. There is nothing the King or Queen of England actually does really but yet, here we go again. Charles, the son of the Queen, is now King. God save us all.
We all know the age of monarchies is long over though human nature keeps it alive. Most European nations no longer have a king or queen that truly governs complex and sophisticated nation-states on a daily basis. Even if there is still a monarchy, it is a shell of its historical self and does little.
In Asia, this is also true though some monarchies still exist. But Japan is run by bureaucrats and politicians. China is governed by the Chinese Communist Party. Vietnam’s historical monarchy is over (though the country is run by the Communist Party). South Korea’s monarchy came to an end through Japanese imperialism. These countries, while flawed, are running on automatic pilot it seems.
Africa also still has monarchies but very few actually govern an entire country anymore. The Arab world is different as kings still rule nations and usually with an iron fist and authoritarian madness. But that is, as we all know, mostly about oil.
But bring it all to an end. It is a long time for the world, as a whole, to take another baby step towards world civilization. End the monarchies. All of them.
Of course, there are many kinds of monarchies that did exist and still do exist. All are not the same. But if the rule of a monarch does not involve people’s participation in choosing their leadership (without fraud and coercion), then it is just a dictatorship with little justification.
There is no real reason for Charles to be king of England. There is little reason for other nations to maintain their monarchies other than greed, tradition, power, and/or a combination of these three factors and others.
Photocredit iStockPhoto.com
Many justifications have been presented to the world for keeping these monarchial ideas afloat. Europe often says it was kings and queens who helped their continent flourish during difficult times. Yet, this is not necessarily true for the other parts of the world that were subject to violence and exploitation by the order of these kings.
The various monarchies of the earth, in Europe, are responsible for the senseless slaughter of millions of people for profit and domination. The King of England was instrumental in the early colonization of North America and the genocidal policy conducted there.
King Leopold of Belgium was a violent madman in the Congo. The country still has not recovered from his savagery (he killed 10 million people in the Congo).
Japan through their monarchy slaughtered thousands if not millions of people in Asia in other nations.
Russia, currently embracing authoritarian dictatorship again through Vladimir Putin, cannot put its destructive monarchial tradition in its rearview mirror.
The fact is the world has matured politically. “ Democracy,” though flawed, is an idea that is credible if implemented with fairness. The African concept of “consensus” is gaining credibility around the world as well as a path to true participatory governance.
Yes, today’s leaders are far from perfect. But, participatory democracy, politically and economically, is the future. It is the only path to human survival. If human beings are to reside in peace someday and share in the decisions that impact them all, it won’t be done by kings and queens who believe God gave them total power over everyone else.
Right now, an ex-President has hopes of being a king one day, in America. He believes in authoritarian rule. He tried to become king on January 6th but failed. This is just one example of the danger of authoritarianism and the monarchial system.
The age of absolute monarchs, dictators, emperors, and other such rulers and rule must come to an end. God gave no man or woman the right to rule over others and live in the lap of luxury at their expense.
This was a chance for England to close the door on their past and begin fresh. It looks like they will fail the test.
—
This post was previously published on briangilmore.medium.com
***
You Might Also Like These From The Good Men Project
—
Photo credit: iStockPhoto.com
The British monarchy serves a ceremonial role without pretense at actually governing. Theirs is instead a culturally important role; that of representing a continuity of tradition and culture. Of course the monarchy today bears little resemblance to what it was for most of its thousand year history but the monarch remains a living link to the past nonetheless. In an increasingly unsettled world in which the populace gets whipsawed from one election to the next, there is some comfort in the continuity that the monarchy represents. The monarch is as well a unifying symbol for what is otherwise a very… Read more »
What a simple, illogical, and shallow argument. Almost all monarchies in the modern world exist within democratic societies. The reason we still have kings and queens is because the people want their monarchy. If they didn’t, monarchies wouldn’t last long. People want a monarch with genunine institutional legitimacy to keep power out of the hands of greedy, grasping politicians.
The one advantage that monarchies and dictatorships have over democracies is that it’s much easier to funnel all the criticism directly to the top: It’s so hard to pinpoint everyone who’s to blame in a democracy, and in the proper proportions. So when the mob comes chanting ‘Down with the King!’ at least you know you can take that to the bank, because he’s the guy holding the bag. At the very least, it’s comforting to have one source to blame for the pain.