Restoring Monarchy - What It Takes

I have been asked many times by many different people in various parts of the world, what exactly a frustrated monarchist can do to advance the cause, to restore a fallen monarchy or defend an existing one. The persistence of these questions gives me the impression that many find my answers unsatisfying. That is understandable. We live in a world which has fallen so far from traditional values that there are few satisfying answers to be had. Of course, as I have mentioned before, there are little things anyone can and should do in their daily lives to support the monarchist cause. Display your loyalty proudly, refute revolutionary lies with royalist truth, do not let a distortion go unanswered, point out the hypocrisy of the republican activists, mark important occasions and never allow anyone to cause you to think of yourself as the one with strange views (particularly if you are a subject of a monarch), start with your family and friends and stand together with like-minded individuals. In many cases, religious institutions can be a good focal point as well. However, the wider “war” is a more difficult matter and it is on that front that I fear too many have given up or simply fail to give battle because of a desire for someone else to do the hard work for them or on their behalf. This is what I want to address today.

On numerous occasions I have said that what is required is a conversion of the modern culture. That is a difficult task and requires a different sort of commitment than that of someone fighting for king and country in a military struggle. It calls for dedication, patience and resilience. It is a long, tiresome competition that rewards endurance more than decisive action. Sadly, far too many prefer not to try even attempting so daunting a task with a final goal that is so far out of sight. This causes not a few monarchists to, almost subconsciously, switch priorities and demand that their monarch (if they have one) stand as their champion rather than acting as the champion of their monarch. They look at society and wonder why the monarch does not do something to make it all better. This often leads to disenchantment and frustration and then anger. They begin to actively blame their monarch for the ills of modern society and effectively become republicans by either abandoning their allegiance outright or backing some ideal era from the past or a rival royal line from history that is not involved in modern society, has never been involved and so cannot be blamed for anything but upheld as a pristine, imaginary alternative. Although they could never bring themselves to call themselves republicans, they become effectively that by joining the side of those who wish to see the remaining monarchies of the world pulled down.

I have personally seen this pattern of behavior more often than I would like and some fly through the stages faster than others. Some have even ended up becoming republicans outright after they realize that their idealistic, imaginary sort of monarchism gets them nowhere and often involves a falling out with their handful of on-line confederates who each tend to think that their way is the only way. The real problem though, is the one they fail to address and shirked from in the first place; the conversion of the culture. A monarch cannot change society when that society does not even take their monarch seriously. They can do scarcely little for a people who have forgotten what true loyalty really is. Too many today have no conception of real loyalty, too many have no conception of what a monarch really is, their place in a country or nation and, increasingly, many have forgotten what even a nation is or why it is important. They have allowed themselves to become small, focused only on their whims and appetites, relativistic in their thinking and while patting themselves on the back for being so broad-minded they feel a false pride while they themselves, their society, even their nation willingly allows itself to shuffle toward extinction.

It is important to keep priorities in order and not to stand on the sinking deck of the Titanic arguing over whether the captain was properly certified or not. As stated at the outset, that does not mean letting everything else slide and just trying to wage some sort of a moral campaign but it does mean that the problem of the republican mindset is not simply a political one. This sort of thinking is, in itself, a product of the post-revolutionary, ideological world. We have been taught to think in ideological ways and that everything will be perfect if we can just find and implement that perfect political formula that always seems so elusive. The problem is that there is no one, rigid, ideology that would well serve everyone in the world. Peoples and cultures are too different for that, even in these modern, globalist times when it sounds like everyone is repeating the same talking points peppered with popular phrases like “equality”, “sustainability” and “social justice”. Some countries have different priorities than others, some are much more regulated than others, some are much more monolithic than others and what works in one place might not work in another. So, the arguments and the tactics for trying to restore the monarchy in a country like Portugal is going to be vastly different from the arguments for restoring the monarchy in a country like Russia. What might be the best approach in Italy may not be the best approach in Nepal.

What is common to all is the fact that each republic represents a people who have (often violently) cut themselves off from their own history. It is a fact that, rightly or wrongly, many European monarchies (and Commonwealth Realms like Australia and Canada) have tried to deemphasize their own history in an effort to encourage and facilitate multiculturalism. Some monarchists in these countries do not see that as a bad thing and are proud of the ability of their monarchs to unite various people from various religious and cultural backgrounds. However, even if one regards that as a positive thing, the same circumstances do not apply to republics. Where monarchies remain, their monarchs have presided over the change in their countries toward multiculturalism and so everything was done under the “umbrella” of the existing monarchy. In republics, on the other hand, this attitude would not be possible as the new populations of immigrants and the descendants of immigrants really have no connection with the former monarchy, most of which have not existed in the lifetime of anyone still above ground. For countries like this, it would be extremely difficult for the public to ever even open their mind to the idea of restoring the monarchy without getting in touch again with their own history, the unique story of their people in which monarchs invariably played a large part.

Every revolutionary republic is like a country cutting off its own head and expecting a new one to grow in its place. It doesn’t happen, so they flail around trying to find a replacement, constantly trying to reinvent themselves until they reach the point that they don’t know who they are because they have forgotten who they were in the first place. That is why I cover a great many historical subjects and figures (I’m also just interested in the subject on my own) because people must be awakened to their own history -and the TRUTH of history so that they begin to feel a real connection with the past. Even the largely ceremonial monarchs that are most common today are still historical figures in that, even while not impacting policy and world events as in the past, they are a living link with the history of their country and their people. They embody history and the history of themselves and their family is the history of their countries and peoples as a whole. If, for example, one is a citizen of the Czech Republic, the history of your country as it is today only goes back as far as 1993. Prior to that, it was a part of Czechoslovakia and even then, the Czechoslovakia of the post communist era was a totally different thing than the Czechoslovakia of the communist era which was totally different from the original Czechoslovakia which was still a very young country. Yet, if you are a Czech aware of your history, you know a land and a people that stretched back to the Moravian Empire and which had been part of the Austrian Empire which was a successor state of the Holy Roman Empire which was a revival or an attempted revival of the classic Roman Empire that goes back to the beginnings of western and European civilization under a monarchy that was, indirectly, a continuation, in some way at least, of those original Roman Emperors.

Far too many people are ignorant of their own history, their own national story. Even those which seem to be obsessed with the subject are often only fixated on holding on to past grudges rather than having a full understanding of where they come from. Not long ago I had a verbal altercation with a Korean woman who was, as usual, accusing the Japanese of denying history. Yet, she was totally unaware that the last Crown Princess of Korea was Japanese and left Japan to spend the rest of her life in Korea, caring for the most vulnerable of the population. She said she had never been taught this in school and I have no doubt that is true. She could detail every real or imagined injustice Korea ever suffered during the rather brief period of Japanese colonial rule but that is not a true understanding of Korean history, just a determination to hold a grudge against Japan and claim victim status. A true understanding would not reduce Korea to being known simply as a battlefield of the Cold War and a Japanese colony but would cover vast centuries of trials, triumphs and accomplishments from King Munmu of Silla to the grandest heights of Sejong the Great. That is also another byproduct of the “small thinking” of modern times that so many people today seem to want to be pitied rather than admired or respected. It is sadly not at all uncommon, particularly in formerly colonial countries that have been less than a roaring success.

No matter if one is from China, Turkey or Ethiopia, although they have very few similarities, a proper understanding of history will awaken people to the fact that the end of the era of monarchy was a break with the natural history of their land and people that included some bad times certainly but also their proudest moments of national greatness and achievement. Sure, modern mainland China may have shot some junk into space and have nuclear weapons, but they have never built anything to rival the Ming architecture of the Forbidden City or produced any philosophers anywhere close to being on the same level as Confucius nor had any national leader as revered as the KangXi Emperor. Modern Iran has a history limited to the life of the Ayatollah Khomeini while Imperial Iran had a lineage that went back to the likes of Cyrus the Great, and, I might add, the last Shah made a point of trying to acquaint his people with the entirety of their cultural legacy, not just on the post-Islamic period, but back to ancient times when Persia was a world super-power.

My point is that for monarchy to be revived, attitudes and values must be changed. People must be convinced of the truth of ancient wisdom, which some would call common sense because it has to be in order to last long enough to become ancient. They must be brought to a more traditional way of thinking, with a proper respect for tradition itself, for religion and things like national myths and folklore. They must also be made aware of their history. These are not easy things to accomplish, which is probably why so many ignore them and simply damn their constitutional monarchs for not snapping their fingers and changing the world by magic. However, we can influence them in a million different ways, often by things that seem inconsequential. It may seem like a little thing, but it makes a difference which can be seen by how the communist Chinese government has reacted to the hanfu movement (mentioned here not long ago) which simply seeks to revive traditional Han Chinese dress and customs. You can do it by doing something like that, wear something that attracts attention, fly a flag, wear a ribbon on your lapel, put a royal portrait in your cubicle at work -anything that will encourage someone to ask you a question and thus give you an opportunity to explain to them, first that monarchy is important to you, and later, in time, why it should be important to them. Most of all, remember that in a struggle such as this, the thing that pays off the most is simple persistence.