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TradCatKnight: Thoughts on Current Monarchy Types

Monday, December 19, 2016 12:08

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Thoughts on Current Monarchy Types

Thoughts on Current Monarchy Types

http://tradcatknight.blogspot.com/2016/12/thoughts-on-current-monarchy-types.html

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Many people with whom I am in sympathy on political, social, spiritual etc issues have been becoming increasingly critical of the institution of monarchy and, of course, look to me for a defense of the institution. Usually, this involves the Middle East but the European remnants of monarchy also come up from time to time. My response, I confess, may not be adequate. Overall, in terms of people I have direct contact with these days, I have some time ago stopped trying to persuade them of the merits of having monarchies in foreign lands or defending the current situation of the United States being allied to and pledged to defend practically all the remaining monarchies in the world (there is the odd exception such as Swaziland or Bhutan). I have not seen any benefit for the United States from this situation, nor any reciprocal support and, based on my interaction with monarchists online, it seems to retard their progress by making them think that the U.S.A. controls *everything* and thus they think they have no power and are reduced to an apathetic state of inaction and playing the blame game.

None of this, however, means that there is not a case to be made. It is just that it is one I think best suited to people in other countries. I think it makes sense for Americans as well but that would include the caveat that, at this point, it seems better for America to stop trying to be supportive of any monarchies, or, I should say for the benefit of those readers I most often hear from, simply end the current relationships as they stand because these people certainly do not believe the U.S. has been at all supportive. Fair enough, let them make their way without us. There are certainly those abroad, just as there are those among the few here, who question the value of monarchies they either see as in some way villainous at worst or completely useless at best. This is not, I assure you, a new question. Personally, as most know, I am a pan-monarchist who favors traditional authority in almost every part of the world (and in absolutely every part of the world were there time enough for sufficient change). Certainly, the different types of monarchy operating today are extremely different. You have faith-based absolute monarchies in the Muslim world, a few business-like Christian absolute monarchies among the micro-nations and you have the largely or completely ceremonial constitutional monarchies in which even the “Crown powers” are exercised by politicians.

These different types of monarchy may be vastly different but there is no fundamental reason why they should be antagonistic toward each other. Certainly, not being an Arab or a Muslim I would certainly not wish to live in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. However, as I am so far removed from it, what they do and how they order their society is none of my concern. The current situation with the absolute monarchies of the world, be they Saudi Arabia, Swaziland or Brunei, calls to mind some memorable lines from Bishop Jacques Bossuet’s book, “Politics Drawn from Holy Scripture”. In it the Bishop writes, while explaining the difference between absolute power (which he is for) and arbitrary power (which he is not) and laying out exactly what constitutes arbitrary power that,

“I do not wish to examine whether it is permissible or illicit. There are nations and great empires which are content with it; and it is not for us to awaken doubts in them about the form of their government. It suffices for us to say that it is barbarous and odious. These four characteristics are quite far from our own customs; and so among us there is no arbitrary government.”

As usual, I think Bossuet is absolutely correct here. As I said, I would not wish to live in Swaziland, Saudi Arabia or Brunei and, happily, I do not. What makes such states repellent to me is, to the Swazi, Arab or Bruneian people, perfectly normal. Bossuet also comes close to making a blatantly pan-monarchist statement here by saying that, “it is not for us to awaken doubts” in other peoples about their form of government. Just because it is not the way that we do things, does not mean it does not work perfectly well for them and to disrupt that would most likely cause chaos. According to our legal, cultural and moral standards, what goes on in these places would be considered, frankly, barbaric but it is the way these people have been doing this for many, many centuries and if they are to change it must come slowly, naturally and by their own accord. In the time of Bossuet, of course, he was most likely thinking of the Ottoman Empire, the Mughals of India or possibly the early Qing Empire in China but I would apply it just as well to Oman, Qatar or Swaziland.

Half of what defines “traditional authority” is, obviously, “tradition” and while it is not the tradition in western countries to have arbitrary authority, in others it is. We have also seen that, even by western standards, what may be a monarchy a Dutchman or an Englishman would have no desire to live in, can, and invariably does, become worse with the end of the traditional system rather than better. Has modern Turkey become better or worse since the fall of the Ottoman Sultan? Certainly China has not been better off without an emperor under the Communist Party. There is also the example of Iran. Look at it from the British perspective; the traditional Qajar dynasty was overthrown by the more modern-minded Pahlavi dynasty which came to power via an anti-British coup. Obviously, from the British perspective, this was not an improvement. Yet, the fall of the Pahlavi and the monarchy as a whole with the Islamic Revolution, did not mean a government more favorable to Britain but one that regularly chants, “Death to England” though this seems to attract less attention than their other chants of “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” but it is no less real. Things can always get worse.

For those western monarchies that have been reduced to a totally or almost totally ceremonial status, I find this situation less than ideal but still preferable to having no monarchy at all. That is the direction that the arc of history has, unfortunately, taken. Personally, I prefer the traditional absolute (but not arbitrary!) form of monarchy but just as I would prefer a monarch that shared power to a monarch with no power at all, so too do I prefer a monarch with no power to having no monarch at all. There is, however, the added difficulty that, for me and most in the circles that I move in, a rather different set of circumstances than what most other monarchies have to deal with that takes priority. This is that, alongside the problem of having fewer monarchs with increasingly less authority, you have an overall decline in the traditions, culture and even the populations themselves of these nations as a whole. Between the centralizing, secularist forces of the European Union, the “social justice” movement, the open borders obsession and so on, the cultural and even physical distinctiveness of western monarchies is under immense threat.

This, I can only attribute to a flaw in the European character since other peoples certainly do not have this problem or at least certainly not to the same extent. One cannot and, I think, should not be hermetically sealed off from the outside world but others have been able to be open to foreign ideas and fashions without allowing these to destroy the native culture. In the monarchies of Africa and Asia, the traditional cultures of these places is still going strong compared to Europe. It is, perhaps, no coincidence that these countries also tend to be much more if not entirely homogeneous compared to western monarchies. Read more »

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