Is The Monarchy Racist?

Peter Tatchell thinks so. He also thinks that it is possible to be
democratic and egalitarian while also "meritocratic", and that such is the "ethos of modern Britain". Poor soul. Thank goodness that the clear majority of his fellow-Australians disagrees.

For the monarchy binds together the 16 Commonwealth Realms (each of which, including Britain, remains so entirely by choice), the 10 British Overseas Territories with permanent populations (which remain British entirely by choice), the three Crown Dependencies (which remain so entirely by choice), the three inhabited territories (voluntarily) dependent on Australia, the one inhabited territory (voluntarily) dependent on New Zealand, and the two states in free association with New Zealand, as well as the Melanesian half of the people of Fiji (the other half being descended from Indian indentured labour), whose Great Council of Chiefs (which elects the President) continues to acknowledge the Queen as Paramount Chief even though Fiji became a republic following two coups in 1987 (and has not exactly had a happy history since).

That gives the minimum, if admittedly quaint, figure of thirty-five and a half countries (although Saint Helena's Dependencies of Ascension Island and, especially, Tristan da Cunha are also very distinct), every one of them now an elective democracy, with the only weak link in the country (Fiji) with the weakest link to the Crown. Not to mention that the Crown binds together the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom, of which inherent generosity of spirit all the rest is a natural and beautiful extension.

We are one family, even though any member is free to leave at any time; indeed, we are if anything even stronger by virtue of that freedom. What our unifying institution represents has never been more important than in today's world.

And we are, like so many these days, a thoroughly mixed-race family. The Crown Dependencies are very white places, it is true. So are Gibraltar (well ... I shall no doubt post again at some point on the Mediterranean world in general and the Iberian Peninsula in particular, source of the Royal Family's own black blood) and the Falkland Islands (although there are now a lot of Saint Helenians there at any given time). But the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have substantial non-white populations. And everywhere else in question is overwhelmingly or entirely non-white.

Furthermore, the most flagrant racists in the monarchy debate are on the anti-monarchist side, for ever banging on about the German and other foreign connections of the Royal Family in a way which would rightly have those same people foaming at the moth with anger if used against British Asians, Afro-Caribbeans, Jews and others, most of whose families have been in this country only since a very long time after the accession of George I.

The President of Britain (as of Australia) would always, always, always be a late-middle-aged, upper-middle-class white man, probably a middle-ranking Cabinet Minister from 10 or 15 years before who had pretended to renounce party in order to do the job, yet who had depended on it entirely in order to get the vote out.