The New Zealand Herald reports that HM Queen Elizabeth II was given a special victory from New Zealand when monarchists won a victory in that South Sea realm when the Parliament defeated a bill put forward to hold a referendum on the future of the New Zealand monarchy. More women favored keeping the monarchy than men but overall republican sympathy was way down from where it had been only a few years ago. The heads of the republican-traitor camp are giving the credit to the dashing young Prince William who recently visited New Zealand and caused quite a favorable impression. This reaffirms my belief (and I'm sure that of many others) that the Commonwealth realms need more royal visits! A great birthday present for Her Majesty, as this monarchist victory has been called, and reason for a cheerful shout of God Save the Queen of New Zealand! However, before monarchists get too comfortable, keep in mind that the ruling party has said that a republic is bound to happen sooner or later and the head republican tyrant has said that they expect to have their republic once the Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne. So, carry on the fight Kiwi loyalists!
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Monarchist Victory in New Zealand!
The New Zealand Herald reports that HM Queen Elizabeth II was given a special victory from New Zealand when monarchists won a victory in that South Sea realm when the Parliament defeated a bill put forward to hold a referendum on the future of the New Zealand monarchy. More women favored keeping the monarchy than men but overall republican sympathy was way down from where it had been only a few years ago. The heads of the republican-traitor camp are giving the credit to the dashing young Prince William who recently visited New Zealand and caused quite a favorable impression. This reaffirms my belief (and I'm sure that of many others) that the Commonwealth realms need more royal visits! A great birthday present for Her Majesty, as this monarchist victory has been called, and reason for a cheerful shout of God Save the Queen of New Zealand! However, before monarchists get too comfortable, keep in mind that the ruling party has said that a republic is bound to happen sooner or later and the head republican tyrant has said that they expect to have their republic once the Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne. So, carry on the fight Kiwi loyalists!
Not only was the bill defeated, but according to opinion polls the Monarchists are gaining ground as well:
ReplyDeleteA poll published hours before the debate in parliament showed that support for a republic had dropped from 47 per cent two years ago to just 37 per cent today, with 51 per cent in favour of the monarchy, since [Prince] William's visit [in January 2010].
New Zealand was always much more obviously Anglophile than Australia ever was, so it isn't surprising that New Zealanders' monarchist sentiment should still be pretty strong on the whole. The late David Lange (NZ Prime Minister during the 1980s) was, for all his foreign-policy leftism and economic radicalism, a convinced monarchist.
ReplyDeleteSir Walter Crocker, former Australian diplomat, deplored in his 1971 memoirs Australian Ambassador the "astonishing and revealing" fact that no member of the Netherlands' ruling house ever visited the Dutch East Indies, before the long and bloody process by which Tweedledum Sukarno and Tweedledee Suharto - after 1946 - wrapped themselves in the mantle of "independence".
Sukarno's role as wartime Japan's answer to Vidkun Quisling and Pierre Laval is too well known to be worth repeating here, but readers might like to search Google for accounts of Suharto's wartime doings in an outfit named "Defenders of the Fatherland". The so-called Defenders of the Fatherland were a bunch of Japanese-sponsored goons spewing hate for all things Dutch.
Later on, in the 1960s, Sukarno and Suharto fell out, and Suharto assured Washington that he was the only alternative to Sukarno inviting the Maoists into the front room of the presidential palace. Yet that was only a matter of thieves fighting over the spoils of victory. It had no ideological significance. The difference between Sukarno and Suharto was the difference between a toadying sleaze and a genocidal thug.
Perhaps if the house of Orange-Nassau had taken more trouble to keep abreast of affairs in Jakarta, political independence could have been achieved with some measure of decency and without the massacres that actually accompanied it. The latter being helped along, naturally, by John F. Kennedy's endless whining about "colonialism".
Maybe individual Dutch royals perceived something of the opportunities forfeited. Unfortunately any such perception, if it occurred, came too late.
We should never forget the dangers of blindly following America's government - or any government - into whatever foreign policy impasse it falls into. There's a certain biblical saying about the blind leading the blind, a saying that has particular reference to the disaster of JFK's South-East Asian obsession. I say this as a staunch admirer of all that is best in American life.
You're right on the royal tours MM. We do need more of them. The Crown is percieved as distant. I discussed it with my Baby Boomer mother (always pointing out that she was arguing against personal union as opposed to the monarchy), and if there were royal tours every few years, to coincide with important events (ANZAC Day, the Melbourne Cup, New Years Eve, etc), then the profile of the monarchy would skyrocket, the feeling of connection would increase, and they would cease being a distant royal family and become a group of, as it were, expats.
ReplyDeleteBut good news on the poll RR, and on the bill being kicked at the first reading.
I have recently begun wondering if some conspiracy is afoot concerning the royal visits. Prince Charles told the Canadians he would come more often if they would invite him more often and this got my damaged mind to thinking...what if political jefes hungry for a potential presidency *want* to keep the royals distant and purposely fail to invite them so that the people will not grow too attached to their royals?
ReplyDeleteAs to the example of the Dutch in Indonesia, I can't say much at the moment but I like the Dutch and am interested in that subject, on which I should do a post on its own.