If for any reason you cannot find the paperback version of Playing the Indian Card at your favourite bookstore or online retailer, please ask them to carry it. Protest and picket the store entrance if necessary.
The CBC of course uses the death of Queen Elizabeth as an opportunity to slam the British and the monarchy. Just as Easter is always an occasion to question the divinity of Christ.
Both speakers simply assert without argument that empire was a matter of “looting and plundering” the colonies. ”Forty-five trillion dollars of wealth stolen just from the Asian subcontinent.” Even defenders of the monarchy and the British are inclined to argue only that the indecencies of the Empire were long ago.
Yet this is a point that needs to be established. Was government by the British more costly to the colonials than local government? There is no reason to assume so. In fact, historians often suggest that the reason the British, and other European, empires broke up after the Second World War was that the European countries could no longer afford them. They were being subsidized, then.
Were local industries suppressed? India commanded a larger portion of world GDP under the Raj than it did for many decades after independence. That does not sound like a suppression of local industry.
Of course, the issue of slavery is raised. Yet, as Don Lemon learned in a recent interview, if slavery is the premise, it is probably the British who deserve reparations. Slavery was universal. Britain was among the first nations to abolish it, they ended it in all their possessions, and they spent a great deal to end the practice everywhere.
The CBC interviewee actually blames Britain for ending the slave trade, on the grounds that they paid for the slaves’ freedom, instead of paying the slaves.
We have probably all had ancestors who were slaves, and ancestors who were slavers. Who pays whom? The one group who seem more deserving than the rest of us are the British, who ended slavery, fought the slave trade worldwide, and were still paying to end slavery as recently as 2015. That means most Britons still living today.
Surely it is they who deserve reparations.
The interviewer suggests the Koh-I-Noor diamond should be returned “either to India or to South Africa.” But a half-dozen countries in total claim the diamond. They all say it was stolen from them by one of the others. So whom to “give it back” to? England obtained it by a peace treaty, in return for other concessions. If it is returned to India, other elements of that treaty must properly also be renegotiated. In effect, then, it must be bought back. And what if some other country wants to offer Britain more for it?
The interviewee even blames the British Empire for the Caribbean’s sovereign debts, and for climate change.
I doubt any of that sovereign debt was racked up by the colonial authorities. I doubt the British Empire had much effect on greenhouse gases today.
It all reminds me of an old Yiddish joke. A couple of Nazis stop a Jew in the street, and challenge him.
“Who is responsible for Germany’s problems?”
The Jew knows they want an excuse for a beating.
“The Jews,” he answers. “And the bicycle riders.”
“Why the bicycle riders?”
“Why the Jews?”
The answer is simple: because, like the British, they are envied.
I am startled to discover that 2022 is Queen Elizabeth II’s Platinum Jubilee, marking 70 years on the throne. I had not been aware.
This is a big deal. No other monarch of Canada or of Britain or perhaps anywhere else has ever achieved a Platinum Jubilee. Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee was notable enough that they held a Festival of Empire in her honour.
And what has Canada planned to mark this epochal event? Apparently, an ice sculpture on Sparks Street Mall for Ottawa’s Winterlude.
That almost sounds like an insult. As though her reign was written on water.
We can do better. Moreover, if the spring and summer of 2022 marks the end of a dread pandemic, we could all use a big party.
The federal government may have no time for the Queen, but it she is popular in much of Canada―in large part because the monarchy is the one thing that, historically, distinguishes us from the USA.
Surely Ontario or Toronto can do something significant. Time may be short, but here’s a thought. The City of Toronto, in its wisdom or lack thereof, has decided that Dundas Street must be renamed. Why not rename it in honour of the Jubilee?
It’s a significant street, right downtown, so the gesture is more than trivial. But essentially costs nothing, since we were going to rename it anyway.
We can’t call it Elizabeth Street. We already have one. We can’t name it Queen Street; ditto. But we could call it Jubilee Street.
It’s a cheerful name. It should be especially popular in Chinatown, which centres on the street. The Chinese place value on names with happy connotations. But surely any business would be happy to say they are on “Jubilee Street.”
The official renaming could be done in a grand public ceremony in Dundas Square on the 24 of May holiday. We could have a weekend of live free performances by big-name artists; televised. We could have a parade down the length of the street, then close the street for a street party the rest of the long weekend.
Some will inevitably grumble that honouring the Queen is not properly multicultural. They are exactly wrong. The point of having a monarchy is that it provides a unifying symbol other than ethnicity. Nor is the Queen of any particular ethnicity. Royal families marry exogamously as a matter of course. Her husband is Greek, and she is German. At the outset of the First World War, the king of England, the Kaiser of Germany, and the Czar of Russia were first cousins. Except that she is purely European, Elizabeth Windsor is the perfect image of multiculturalism.
We could of course have attendees at the ceremony to represent all the nations of the Commonwealth. She is, after all, head of the Commonwealth. Canada’s First Nations also claim a special tie to the Crown, and would no doubt be happy to send representatives.
It could all make a great parade, a great concert, and a great street party.
Mohammed Zahir Shah, last king of Afghanistan, 1914-2007
The American war in Afghanistan is ending badly for the US; it looks like a debacle, evoking memories not just of the rise of ISS in Iraq, but of the fall of Saigon. A massive blow to American prestige.
Could it have ended differently? Was the US mad to go in at all? After all, Afghanistan had already proven too much for the soviets, and for the British Empire. Could they have improved matters by staying longer; or would this only have delayed the inevitable?
I thought in 2001 it made sense to go in; but only for a fast, surgical operation. My thinking was to they go in, overthrow the Taliban government, punish the ringleaders, and pull out. Then let the chips fall where they may. Rather on the model of how the British reacted to the Boxer Rebellion in China. I thought the same about Iraq. And I still think this could have worked.
If the Taliban then regrouped and retook government, as they now look about to do anyway, it would not have looked like a debacle for the Americans. A punishment would have been delivered, at relatively little cost to the US. Its power would have been asserted.
And there was a second easy and obvious step, that the US could have taken, which would have made this outcome much less likely.
The Americans cannot seem to understand that Afghanistan is not now, and has never been, a nation. It is geographically like the Balkans, each valley developing an independent culture, with purely local allegiances. There is no ethnic unity around which to build a national consciousness.
In Afghanistan, therefore, there are only two ways to unify the country: either around a shared religion or ideology, or around allegiance to a royal family. The latter exploits the instinctive attachment to family—the king becomes everyone’s father. That means, either the Taliban, or a king.
Convert the entire country to liberal democracy instead? Not a realistic goal; if possible, it would take generations, and in the meantime you, an alien, are attacking the one thing that holds everyone together, that everyone agrees on.
The US had available to them a candidate with legitimate historical claims to the throne. The former king was still alive. It could have quickly and easily been done, and they might have made an early exit.
They should have done the same thing, for roughly the same reasons, in Iraq.
Americans hear “king“ and think it means an oppressive, authoritarian government. This is obviously, objectively, wrong. Some of the least authoritarian governments on earth are monarchies: the UK, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Spain. The most stable, benevolent, and least authoritarian governments in the Middle East are monarchies: Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, Oman, Jordan, Morocco.
Indeed, under Zahir Shah, by the 1950s, Afghanistan was peaceful, developing economically, and becoming a modern constitutional monarchy.
Two Canadian YouTubers, JJ McCullough and Useful Charts, have recently put out competing videos for and against the proposition “Should monarchies still exist in the 21st Century/” I think neither mounts the proper case for monarchy. Although nominally in favour of their continued existence. Useful Charts condemns absolute monarchies as having no place, and rejects monarchy for Canada as unsuitable for a multicultural society. I disagree with both assertions.
The essential value of a monarchy, neither seem to understand, is that it puts a human face on the nation. Without something of that sort, people will not work for the mutual benefit, but will pursue self-interest. And it is not just an individual human face, but a family—it models the nation as a family, which is an ideal model. If we all think of one another as family, given normal human instincts, we will treat one another better.
Some states can feel familial without this, because the population is genetically related; they are in fact, in a sense, a very large family. Precisely because Canada does not have that, and because that alternative approach leads almost necessarily to racism and discrimination against ethnic minorities, a monarchy is especially valuable to Canada.
A monarchy is the almost necessary alternative to the nation state. And the nation state, emerging largely in the late 19th and early 20th century, has not had a great track record for human rights and social tranquility.
Aside from cases in which a monarchy might be needed to replace absent ethnic bonds, monarchies seem to work better than ethnic bonds themselves in maintaining good social order.
Think of nations most notable for general social tranquility, for social peace. What countries come to mind? Scandinavia, Britain, Canada, Japan, perhaps the Netherlands. Mostly monarchies. Now compare the major democratic republics: the US, France, Germany since 1918. Placid and prosperous most times, but undergoing periods of tumult, revolution or near-revolution, violence in the streets.
Turkey overthrew the monarchy after the First World War: a period of civil war and ethnic cleansing followed. Russia threw off its monarchy in 1917: a period of civil war and ethnic cleansing followed. Germany threw off its monarchy in 1918; a period of civil war and ethnic cleansing followed. France threw off its monarchy in 1789: a period of civil war and ethnic cleansing followed. Britain temporarily threw off its monarchy in 1649. Ask Ireland about ethnic cleansing under Cromwell.
Useful Charts objects that Queen Elizabeth represents only one Canadian ethnicity. Which ethnicity does he mean? Her recent ancestors are mostly from Germany; she is not ethnically English. Her husband is officially Greek, but raised in France. In 1914, the King of England, the Czar of Russia, and the German Kaiser were first cousins. To think of any royal as any given ethnicity or another is nonsensical.
A monarch is an ideal unifying figure for a multi-ethnic state.
Useful Charts worries that the monarchy is especially offensive to Canadian First Nations. This is the opposite of the truth on the ground. Canada’s First Nations prefer to deal with the monarchy, because it implies they have sovereignty; their treaties are with her. Canadian courts are obliged to give them the benefit of the doubt, because of a supposed need to uphold “the honour of the crown.” Compare, as a result, the peaceful relations between First Nations and the government in Canada to the frequent Indian Wars in US history.
JJ McCullough argues that the premise behind monarchy is offensive: that they hold their positon by divine right. This has never been an accepted concept. The Glorious Revolution established as a legal principle that the British, and so the Canadian, monarch holds her position at the sufferance of parliament, not God. Other royal families have similar checks, even supposedly absolute ones. The Saudi King is selected by a consensus of the ruling family, and the family must ultimately stay on the good side of the religious authorities.
Useful Charts argues that modern monarchs hold their position due to their popularity, which is not quite the same thing. McCullough seizes on this to argue that, if popularity is the basis, they should run for office to prove this; therefore, any monarchy should be replaced by an elected leader.
But there is an important and valuable difference. A politician must run for office. To reach the top of that greasy pole, or to want to, requires an entirely unnatural lust for power and fame. This means, necessarily, that his or her values are distorted, and in a dangerous direction. By making the titular leader hereditary, this is avoided, at least for this position. While the modern monarch may have few powers, they are at least one sane voice at the top of government, that the politicians will want to and feel some need to please.
Useful Charts, in condemning absolute monarchies absolutely, does not grasp another important factor. For some societies, democracy is not viable; there is not a sufficient cultural tradition of disagreeing with one another politely, keeping to set rules of engagement, retiring peacefully in defeat, and not exacting revenge on your rivals in victory. All of this goes against human instincts. In such a culture, the only possibilities are a self-appointed dictatorship or a monarchy. Then, monarchy is infinitely preferable. One rises to dictatorship in such a country by being more ruthless than the next guy, and having ta stronger lust for power. For a dictator, the temptation is also to loot the country for everything you can, for you might one day lose power to another just like you. Even if you do not, one day you die, and some stranger takes everything you built. Why build?
But for a monarchy, being a ruling family, the natural instinct is to keep the country intact and, ideally, improved, for the children. You know them personally, think of them fondly, and want them to remember you well.
Compare the monarchies with the republics of the Muslim world. Monarchies: Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, UAE, Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco, Malaysia. Republics: Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Libya. Who is more peaceful? Who has more human rights? Who is more prosperous?
A monarchy also allows for Plato’s ideal leadership. Knowing in childhood he or she is likely to inherit specific responsibilities, a child can be educated for the position. This is not practically possible for elected leaders in a republic, because their success is unpredictable and, individually, highly unlikely. Every one of them is going to be, at best, a talented amateur.
The two things that might be said against a monarchy is that it costs money for a relatively idle position, and it violates the spirit of human equality.
But in Canada’s case, it actually costs us nothing. In other cases, there is no rule or monarch’s union requiring any particular level of pay. And as for human equality, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it: philosophical concerns about modelling human equality aside, monarchies have a good track record. As Useful Charts points out, some of the countries with the highest level of actual income equality, not to mention the highest level of human rights, are monarchies. Historically, a strong monarchy has always meant a weaker upper class, and vice versa: in France, in the UK, in Japan, in China, everywhere. That may necessarily be true.
The death of Prince Philip, I expect, will kill any public sympathy for Megan Markle or Prince Harry.
It is reminiscent of the death of Princess Diana. I strongly suspected that she was the problem in that marriage, that she was being selfish and irresponsible. But her death evoked sympathy; the royal family had to come onside and celebrate her or look heartless. Charles’s reputation has never recovered.
Now it works the other way. Harry and Megan look pretty callous for stirring up scandal for the royal family while Prince Philip was, we now discover, terminally ill.
The royal family may forgive them. The public never will.
The Duke, who devoted his life to service of the monarchy, may have given his greatest service with his death.
The Duchess of Sussex. If you met her at a party, would it even occur to you to classify her as "black"? Would this be somehow significant?
I make a point of not following the private lives of celebrities. That’s generally calumny. I do not follow closely the life of the royal family either. But the royal family is a special case. Their private life has public importance. They are a unifying symbol of the nation. So what happens in their private lives is not private.
One reason why Meghan Markle may have found the life too trying.
I have heard a variety of explanations for what turns out to have been a dramatic royal split.
One is racism.
I cannot discount that possibility. But false charges of racism are as socially and personally damaging as racism itself. In fact, false charges of racism ARE racism itself, in an especially pernicious form. Such charges should be avoided, when there are obvious alternative explanations.
When Harry’s engagement to Meghan was announced, my spontaneous reaction was that it was a bad idea, and that they were bound for trouble. Not because she has some genetic coding that originated in Africa—it is hard to believe that is significant to anyone. Because she is a divorced actress.
While common enough nowadays, marrying a divorcee was once enough to force Edward VIII to abdicate. Our ancestors were not total idiots; there was reason for this concern. It implies problems in forming a stable relationship, surely.
Worse was her being an actress. Anyone can see that actors and actresses have a particularly terrible track record in maintaining stable relationships.
And so it seems to have turned out.
It is not, as some suppose, that they have inflated egos and require attention. Just the opposite. Anyone with a large ego is not going to make it as an actor, because their whole job is to pretend to be someone else.
Had Meghan desired attention, nothing could have suited her better than becoming royalty. But that is not what actors actually want. They want to be someone else, and not to be noticed as themselves.
The problem is that actors live in their imaginations. Again, they have to, to be able to play a role. So they can have too-grand expectations of a relationship, and crash into depression when it turns out not to be as fairy-wonderful as supposed.
Worse, playing a role is very different from living a life. The wonderful thing about a role is that you can stop being yourself for a while, and nothing counts. But when you then cannot take off the role—ever—you are going to feel trapped.
Meghan Markle was going to feel trapped in any settled life; but a royal life is more confining than almost any other. Now EVERYTHING counts.
I have to feel very sorry for Meghan, very sorry for Harry, and very sorry for Queen Elizabeth. I hope they can sort this out.
Canada and some acting jobs for Meghan may well be the solution. Perhaps she gravitated to returning to Canada because that was where she last acted.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are spending Christmas and New Years in Canada. This is a little surprising—not with the rest of the Royal Family at Sandringham.
And the matter seems to have been publicized, too.
This is not a matter of dividing time between the grandparents; Markle’s family is American. Meghan, of course, having lived in Toronto, has Canadian friends. But they are likely to be engaged with their own families. And the couple are not spending the holidays in Toronto.
I suspect this is a trial run for the idea of Harry and Meghan relocating permanently to Canada, to avoid butting heads with the senior royal couple, William and Catherine.
As it happens, Julie Payette, the current Governor-General, is not flourishing in the role. She is notably absent from many public functions.
This offers an opportunity for royals like Harry and Meghan to pick up the slack, if they are in-country anyway. And perhaps then, having established their role, once Payette has served her term, or perhaps resigned, to take over the post officially. With a member of the royal family already on site, it will seem odd to appoint someone else to the role.
In the old days, this might all have been managed from London. But nowadays, it is likely to take a bit of campaigning. Meghan already has Canadian connections. Perhaps if they play this up, and do some hand pumping…
Personally, as an out-of-the-closet royalist, I hope it happens. I am not particularly attached to the Windsors as incumbents, but I think monarchy works well as a way of giving a nation unity--especially a multi-ethnic nation.
There is something to be said for having a Canadian, and not a foreigner, as Governor-General, for the sake of Canadian independence. But the same argument would hold for Canada establishing its own independent royal line.
A friend in Japan wants to launch a letter writing campaign to urge the Japanese government to let in more Syrian refugees.
I think that is a bad idea, and have told him so. The Syrian civil war will one day end, and those who are refugees now will want to return home. And they should return home. Their country will need them to rebuild. Syrian Christians, Yazidis, Jews, and Kurds have a case to be taken in as permanent refugees; but not other Syrians.
Granted that there is a refugee problem in Syria right now. But the best thing is to keep the refugees as close as possible to their homes. Moving them halfway around the world complicates things.
If foreign governments want to help, right now, they can help fund the refugee settlements in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. My friend says there are too many people there to be supportable. I say there is no such thing as “too many people.” There are a heck of a lot of people living in downtown Tokyo, and they make out okay.
But the best help would be to go in with guns blazing, as part of an international force, and end the war. Then everyone could return home.
Understandably, everyone is trigger shy. Everyone always thinks of the last war. After Rwanda, the international community decided the best thing was to move in militarily to end local bloodbaths. That worked in Bosnia and Kosovo. Then it did not work in Iraq and Afghanistan. So everyone became afraid of “regime change.” But then, just going in and taking out the dictator failed to work in Libya.
So now the international community does not dare to do anything. And we are back to the situation of Rwanda.
Worse, the vacuum has enticed smaller powers to get involved on their own behalf, none of them strong enough to end the conflict, but each able to make it worse: Russia, Turkey, Iran.
We need the UN to go in; or, if the UN is too divided to do it, we need a coalition of NATO, basically representing the world’s democracies, and the Arab League. Failing that, NATO alone.
Easy enough for them to end the war. But, my friend counters, what chaos may ensue? How to avoid another Iraq, Afghanistan, or Libya?
The US’s error there, I believe, was naive belief in democracy. By its nature, democracy cannot be imposed. The objective should simply be to establish a stable government, able to reestablish order. And it might have fairly simply been done, in Iraq, by reestablishing the Iraqi monarchy. There was even an available candidate, the uncle of the present ruler of Jordan. He was in the royal line.
The same might be done, if a little less easily, for Syria. It has been done many times before, for many other countries: choose a member of a cadet branch of some other nation’s monarchy, and establish a new royal line.
Look around, at the rest of the Arab world. Who in MENA has good and stable government? The monarchies, all the monarchies, and only the monarchies: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, Jordan, Morocco, Kuwait. Republics are always disasters. Even Afghanistan, otherwise seemingly ungovernable, ticked away reasonably well for many years so long as it had a monarchy.
For reasons of historical prejudice, the US cannot accept monarchy. But it is the best government available in many cases, when a full democracy is not available, is perfectly compatible with democracy, and is he best government to segue peacefully into a full democracy. Working democracy usually requires an independent, prosperous middle class, and that requires a certain level of economic development.
There are fairly simple reasons for monarchy being successful. Firstly, because the nation is seen as a family possession, corruption is less likely. Each ruler wants to preserve and even improve the state of the nation in order to pass it down to his children, whom he normally cares about. A republic has no such checks on kleptocracy. Secondly, a monarchy has a human face. People can identify with the royal family, and this inspires them to pull together. Especially in a nation that is ethnically diverse, there may be no ready alternative unifying principle. Thirdly, in terms of temperament, a monarchy throws up average people randomly as rulers. A republic in which leadership is up for grabs, without strong rules and traditions, will instead tend to throw up those with the greatest thirst for power, and those most ruthless in obtaining it. It is, therefore, far more likely to end in oppressive totalitarian dictatorship. Fourthly, when civil structures are weak, a monarchy has the advantage of making the succession clear. In a republic, if democracy is not well established and respected, any change of power devolves into civil war. As, indeed, we see in Syria now.
First official Canadian citizenship ceremony, 1947
I am no big fan of the Canadian monarchy, given that by statute Canadian kings may not be Catholics. I am no big fan of oaths. As nobody seems to notice, Jesus opposed them. As he said in the Sermon on the Mount,
33 “Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’34 But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; 35 or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36 And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37 All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.[g] - Matthew 5.
I have no problem with the fact that half the current Liberal Cabinet took the option to “solemnly affirm” rather rather than the traditional oath to become members of Cabinet.
However, I am disturbed by the recent trend by new Canadian citizens to take the citizenship oath, then promptly disavow that part that requires allegiance to the Queen. Encouraged, it must be said, by the Supreme Court of Ontario.
To take an oath, then disavow it, is to render the oath meaningless. You were lying in taking it, and might just as easily disavow any other part of it. It is no longer an oath.
Moreover, allegiance to the monarchy is the heart of the oath. The Canadian citizenship oath in full, English version:
I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada and fulfill my duties as a Canadian citizen.
Omit allegiance to the Crown, and you are pledging allegiance to no one and nothing. Obeying the law and doing your duty as a citizen goes without saying; in any case, you risk going to prison if you do not. Remove the Crown, and the oath is meaningless.
There is a reason for the Monarchy to be so central to the oath. Legally, Canada exists not as a racial or ethnic entity, but as a possession of the Crown. This is a good thing, because Canada simply would not work as an ethnic state. It is as well that it is organized in this very different way, with allegiance not to an ethnic identity but to an individual and a family. The Crown, the monarch, is a personification of the state. To reject it is to reject something essential to Canada—in the end, as a legal matter, it is to reject Canada itself.
It is incumbent on immigrants, as well, to show their allegiance to a new country. In their case, divided loyalties are a natural and automatic concern. They ought not to feel they can pick and choose the bits of Canada they like. We ought not to be anyone's colony.
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