Tax Day Tea Parties

Today is income tax day in the United States and "Tea Parties" are being held all across the country in protest of the expanding power of the federal government, the unprecedented federal spending and the huge tax increases that are on the way. The protests are drawing inspiration from the (rather silly) Boston Tea Party which was one of the events leading up to the American Revolution. Although I am of the Tory persuasion (in terms of the American Revolution not the modern political parties) I am fully supportive of these tea parties. Many of the protestors are flying Revolutionary War flags, particularly the rattlesnake "Don't Tread on Me" design. Having nothing of the sort in my flag cabinet I graced my flag pole with the nearest thing I had; the Grand Union flag which was used by the Continental Army prior to the declaration of independence (hence the Union Jack in the canton).

The Obama administration has instructed the Department of Homeland Security to keep a close eye on the protests even though they are completely peaceful. However, in my home state anyway I have heard more than a few sane, normal people who have said that it might come to that for the ruling elites to pay attention and finally change their ways. At the same time, my home state of Texas is passing a resolution to reassert our sovereignty and to emphasize the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution which states that any power not specifically assigned to the federal government by the Constitution is reserved to the states -something the federal government seems to constantly forget. Every election the party out of power promises to remedy the mistakes of the previous administration only to do the same or worse as soon as they get into power. In the last election it was the Democrats who were crying about the rampant spending and power accumulation of the Bush administration. Now that Obama is in office he is spending even more than any administration in American history and keeping all of the powers Bush claimed for the executive branch.

To put the tax issue in terms monarchists might be able to identify with I will say that the current situation here is the opposite of what happened in the English Civil War. Then it was the Roundheads who were opposing taxation, however, the money King Charles I wanted was to fund the operation of the government and to pay for the military (due to the war in Scotland mostly). I can assure everyone that no one involved in these tea parties would protest paying taxes to support our military. In fact, the military budget is one thing that Obama has cut funding for. What these protests are about are the tax dollars going to bail out private companies and then expand government control over them or any of the myriad pork projects that tax dollars have been allocated for such as studying why pigs stink, paying for tattoo removal and looking into the uses of wood (I only wish I were joking). If things keep on as they are going, if the Obama administration continues to refer to its domestic opponants as "terrorists" while refusing to use that term to refer to the fanatics who have attacked us and killed thousands of people things are going to get worse and I would say that civil violence and even challenges to the Union itself would not be impossible. If things get worse I would say, in my own state, it would not be impossible for the state to hold a referendum on leaving the union and resuming our independence as the Republic of Texas.

Malta and King George VI

It was on April 15, 1942 that His Majesty King George VI awarded the island-fortress of Malta the George Cross for collective heroism in standing up to the constant pounding by Axis forces during World War II. Due to its strategic location the island of Malta has been the center of many battles throughout the centuries but the people as a whole did display great courage and determination during the constant bombings of World War II. They relied on the forces of the British Empire and the spiritual comfort of their devout Catholic faith. The Maltese children prayed for the Virgin Mary to spread her veil over the island, catch the bombs in it and throw them into the sea. The award of the George Cross was an unprecedented event, it had never been awarded to an entire population before and the Maltese were so justly proud of the accomplishment represented by the medal that the George Cross has been featured on the national flag of Malta ever since.

This is also a good occasion to remember the great man and monarch who was George VI, the last King-Emperor in British history. His reign was the end of an era in many ways but he was also a shining example. For me, George VI just had the "look" of what the ideal king should be. He had an immense sense of duty, he was hard working, always dignified, upright, courageous and a man of principle. He was inspirational for his calm example during the Blitz in World War II and for staying in London to endure the suffering of the city alongside his subjects. He had been under fire before having participated in the epic naval battle of Jutland during World War I. He was so devoted to the legal principles of his constitutional monarchy that he carried out his duties even when they worked against his Crown. If the Prince of Wales takes the expected course and decides to reign as "King George VII" he will certainly have immense shoes to fill.

Sad Day in Spanish History

It was on this day, April 14, in 1931 that His Catholic Majesty King Alfonso XIII of Spain was deposed by the liberal dominated Cortes. He did not abdicate his throne. Because of the traumatic events that followed it is easy to forget the King himself and what a difficult reign he had. At the start of his reign, when he was still a child, Spain lost the last vestiges of her once mighty empire due to an aggressive war by the United States. Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines were lost. Spain also had increasing political turmoil that Alfonso had to deal with as he got older. During World War I he was an invaluable intercessor for countless prisoners of war and he was a great promoter of industry, sports and tourism in Spain. Few monarchs have had to deal with so many troubles throughout their entire lives as Alfonso XIII. Even the happy occasion of his marriage to Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenburg was marred by an assassination attempt.

King Alfonso, even after being deposed, maintained his claim to the throne throughout his life. In the absence of the monarchy Spain became a nightmare of increasingly radical liberal revolutionary outrages. More innocent people, traditionalists, conservatives, clergy and so on were massacred in the first few months than were killed in hundreds of years of the supposedly "infamous" Spanish Inquisition. The Spanish republic became a communist satellite state and from his exile King Alfonso endorsed the nationalist rebels in the Civil War. Because of the large presence of Carlists in his ranks (Viva los Carlistos!) Franco would not have Alfonso back as king, none the less, Alfonso sent his son, Prince Juan Conde de Barcelona, to fight on the rebel side. In the end, it was his descendant, King Juan Carlos, who became sovereign of Spain when the monarchy was restored at the death of Generalissimo Franco. It is sad that so many today seem to have forgotten the absolute horror that was the Spanish Republic and it all started 78 years ago today with the overthrow of King Alfonso XIII.

Viva Juan Carlos! Viva el Rey! y Arriba Espana!

Consort Profile: Empress Nam Phuong

The last Vietnamese empress was born on December 4, 1914 in Saigon, the heart of what was then the French colony of Cochinchina. Her father was the Duke of Long My, a successful merchant and an old south Vietnamese Catholic family. She was educated in France and upon returning home became equally known for her beauty and intelligence. It was this that mostly impressed the last Vietnamese Emperor, Bao Dai, who could not find a woman among the Viet and Siamese noble women who could match his own education. The marriage discussions caused some problems due to her religion. Since any heirs would be expected to carry out the traditional duties of the Emperor in the native Confucian religion the Church would not grant a dispensation. Envoys were sent to the Vatican but even warnings of a repeat of the situation with Henry VIII of England would not make the Church budge and so the couple had to settle for a civil ceremony. That was done on March 20, 1934 and a short time later Nam Phuong was raised to the status of Empress which was quite unprecedented for a Vietnamese consort. In the years that followed Empress Nam Phuong gave her husband 5 children; 2 sons and 3 daughters.

Because of her religion Empress Nam Phuong was not immediately popular with the majority Buddhist population but soon won the love and admiration of the people. She worked as patroness of the Vietnamese Red Cross and was head of the Reconstruction Committee for Vietnam during World War II. Following the abdication of her husband in 1945 she moved to her family's home in France where she had her children converted to Catholicism. She would undoubtedly have been of even greater service to her country but her life was cut short by her sudden death on September 15, 1963.

Belgians Battle at Tacambaro

During the battle between republicans and monarchists in Mexico the native lands of the Austrian Emperor Maximilian and his Belgian bride Empress Carlota sent volunteers to help. The Belgian Legion consisted of a battalion of light infantry and a battalion of grenadiers under Lt. Col. Baron Alfred van der Smissen. After Carlota celebrated her guards in Mexico City the Belgians were sent to the state of Michoacan to reinforce the 81st French Regiment. When word came that the Mexican republican General Corona Regules was marching on the state capital of Morelia with 3,000 men Colonel van der Smissen was ordered to send 300 of his troops to hold the village of Tacambaro under Major Emile Tigdal. It would prove to be a grave mistake on the part of the French high command as Tigdal and his 300 Belgians would be right in the path of the Mexican republicans who outnumbered them 10 to 1.

Nonetheless, the Belgians entrenched themselves around Tacambaro and prepared to fight. On April 11, 1865 Regules attacked with vastly superior numbers and having the Belgians practically surrounded. Showing incredible courage and tenacity they threw back repeated republican attacks and on 3 occasions even launched counter-attacks by bayonet. After fierce fighting for four hours the republicans halted and the Belgians fell back to the main plaza in Tacambaro and barricaded themselves inside the church. Major Tigdal, Captain Chazal and 3 lieutenants were dead and all the officers had been killed or wounded but the Belgian troops stubbornly fought on. The republicans closed in and attacked again and again until the Belgians had been reduced from their original strength of 300 to only 190 men.

Finally, the Mexican republicans set fire to the church and the Belgian survivors were forced to surrender. At that point the republican General Jose Arteaga arrived to take over command. Against the protests of Regules he ordered the Belgian survivors to be stood up against the wall of the church and shot. The battle caused outrage across two continents and later Colonel van der Smissen and Mexican Imperial Army General Ramon Mendez returned to Tacambaro and avenged their earlier defeat. It had been a loss but it had also been a magnificent display of the courage, heroism and determination of the Belgian troops fighting in the service of their princess, the Empress of Mexico, in the war against republican revolutionaries.

Viva Carlota y recuerden Tacambaro!

The Guns Fire on Fort Sumter

It was on this day in 1861 that Confederate forces under Brigadier General Pierre G.T. Beauregard opened fire on the Union-held Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina; firing the first official shots of the War Between the States. Commanding the Union garrison was Major Robert Anderson who had once been Beauregard's artillery instructor at West Point. General Beauregard was a south Louisiana creole and the first Catholic American to reach the rank of full general. In the end, his forces were victorious and Fort Sumter was shelled into submission though without loss of life on either side. General Beauregard was gallant in victory, allowing his enemies to fire a last salute to their flag and evacuate the fort with honor. It was a chivalric start to what would be the costliest war in American history, the bloodiest war ever fought in the Western Hemisphere. Some 620,000 Americans lost their lives in the conflict which saw the destruction of southern independence, de-centralized government, slavery and the old aristocracy of the south. The northern Union viewed the war as a continuation of the American Revolution; a war against Old World institutions and a landed gentry. The north was crowded cities, factories, banks and new immigrants. It was secular and transcendentalist. The south was old families, vast plantations, well mannered gentlemen and colorful southern belles. It was religious, historical, traditional and a society where everyone knew one's place.

The War Between the States also had an impact beyond the shores of America. It aroused a great deal of republican nationalism in the United States, so much so in fact that Canadian leaders chose to name their country the "Dominion of Canada" rather than the "Kingdom of Canada" for fear of upsetting their southern neighbor. The Union victory and Confederate defeat also spelled the doom of the monarchy in Mexico and the French effort to create a Latin American Catholic empire. Relations between the USA and Britain and France were laid low and not fully repaired until the First World War. The war would devestate the south, lead to the loss of all political and civil rights for White southerners and lead to occupation by northern troops -the only time entire American states have been under martial law. However, all of that was still in the future on April 12, 1861. On that day southern hopes were still high for victory and the battle had just begun which would make the first battle of the war a Confederate success.

Deo Vindice

Anniversary of Orange Elevation

Today marks the anniversary of the enthronement of King William III and Queen Mary II following the Dutch invasion led by William of Orange, since called the "Glorious Revolution" which deposed the lawful monarch, his father-in-law, King James VII of Scotland and II of England. Of course, it was not as bad as most revolutions in that the British monarchy was not abolished altogether but it certainly saw its weakening and was a major triumph for the same faction that had murdered King Charles I and so hindered and harassed King Charles II; that is, the faction which wanted the absolute power in the country to be Parliament rather than the Crown. They had never really been defeated on the battlefield and so, even when forced to agree to the recall of Charles II, they never considered themselves beaten and still acted like the masters of the Crown. It was this spirit which caused them to so bedevil Charles II on the subject of the succession.
Of course, Charles II would have none of their intereference and insisted that the succession was in the hands of God alone and no one on earth could tamper with it. Because of that, James II became King after him and the Parliament plotted his overthrow and replacement by a pock-marked, asthmatic, hunchbacked Dutch republican simply on the grounds that he was a Protestant and would be content to let Parliament rule the British Isles so long as it served the interests of the United Provinces in their war against the Kingdom of France. The "Glorious Revolution" and the eventual coronation of William III and Mary II set another dangerous precedent and it is hard for me to determine how any monarchist can regard the affair as a totally good thing. Putting aside, for a moment, the villainy of treason against the legitimate, lawful monarch, what about the treason of a daughter against her father? For children to honor their parents is a Biblican command -not a suggestion.
Since that time Parliament has been the power in the British Isles (in fact if not name) and they know it and every monarch that has sat on the throne since have known it. Things might have been different had events at the Boyne or Culloden gone differently but it was not to be. The Stuarts were gone and the Oranges, later the Hanoverians, were the new Royal Family. Given the recent speculation over the possible amendment of the Act of Settlement, and all the uproar over that, I find it humorously ironic that it is the monarchists of the proud, Protestant Orange camp who most object to any change in the succession, to lifting the ban on Catholic marriages and to any changes that might effect the succession in the future. I wonder if they are aware that it was their own ideological forefathers who set the precedent of Parliament having control of the succession in the first place?

Another Prince President?

From the royal palace in Bucharest, HRH Prince Radu Duda, son-in-law of HM King Michael I, announced that he will be running for President of Romania this fall as an independent candidate. The King's daughter, HRH Crown Princess Margarita, was standing beside her husband when he made the announcement but one has to wonder what the King thinks about this. Considering the history of Prince Radu this is not that shocking of a development, except perhaps that it might be surprising for him to think he has the slightest chance of winning. Is it a publicity stunt? If so, it is a poor one. Although King Michael is well respected in Romania and has been given official recognition by the government as a former head-of-state, fewer than 20% of Romanians say they would be in favor of a restoration of the monarchy (which means 80%+ need to have their minds changed). Especially when Czar Simeon II of Bulgaria was in the news for running for Prime Minister some asked King Michael if he had any such plans. The King, unlike his fellow child-monarch in Bulgaria, said he had no desire to enter politics though if the Romanian public asked him to resume his throne he would be more than happy to do so.

It is unfortunate that the Romanian Royal Family has been the subject of so many controversies and public squabbles and so on. King Michael has been, from first to last, an exemplary monarch and a true example of royal leadership. However, as I have stated before, I cannot share any hope that IF Prince Radu wins the election (God knows how) it would somehow better the chances of a restoration of the monarchy. It certainly did not happen in Bulgaria and the only example that comes to mind of a president becoming a monarch is the rather unique case of Emperor Napoleon III. I cannot shake the feeling that any royal (and I use the term kindly with Radu Duda) is lowering their dignity by involvement in politics. That is not to say I want the monarchs out of government; I wish they had more power in government, but I don't like them involving themselves in the political fray. It makes me long for the days when monarchs would have considered such things as plucking a crown from the gutter.

Imperial Wedding Anniversary

Today marks the Golden wedding anniversary of Their Imperial Majesties Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko of Japan. Akihito, son of the last divine Emperor of Japan Hirohito or Showa married Michiko Shoda on April 10, 1959. It was the first time in the ancient history of the Yamato dynasty, the oldest in the world, that a member of the Imperial Family had married a commoner. The two have had, by all accounts, a very happy marriage in all the years since and have had three children; 2 sons and 1 daughter. Despite the advance of the age of the invasive media the Japanese Imperial Family has managed to maintain a degree of mystique, respectability and are generally very popular for their upright devotion to duty and care and concern for Japan. They are to be saluted for that and I hope they enjoy 5o more years of wedded bliss.

I will only take the occasion to add, without going into the Crown Princess Masako dynamic, the closest thing the media could come to a "scandal"; that I must count myself as one of those who would tend to oppose any effort to interfere with the operations of the Imperial Household Agency which is often accused of smothering members of the Imperial Family, keeping them in gilded confinement and so on. I would oppose it, not because I totally agree with everything the IHA does but because I have too much suspicion for words like "reform" or "modernize" and the like. I also find myself doubting the sincerity of those who claim to love their royals so much that they want to "save" them from the monarchy. They want to abolish monarchies because they want to set the royals free. I tend to doubt it. I also think that, despite the bad press the IHA has got over the years, they have done a good job of maintaining imperial traditions and perhaps most importantly maintaining the imperial mystery and majesty of the Emperor and his family. Some might prefer cordial familiarity to distant, regal mystery and in some cases it works as well or better. However, I see no reason why the Japanese should change the way they do things. If the Crown Princess has had a hard time adjusting I would say it only proves why traditionally it was considered necessary for royals to marry fellow royals who already knew the job and what the life of royalty would entail.

But enough of that, I congratulate the Emperor and Empress on their 50 years of marriage and wish them many more. Long live the Emperor!

King James' Chinese Friend

Michael Shen Fu-Tsung was a Catholic convert, born in China and who left via the Portuguese port of Macau in 1682. He visited many countries in Europe and accompanied a Belgian priest to Britain; the first Chinese person known to have visited Great Britain. He reportedly taught King Louis XIV how to eat with chopsticks while visiting Versailles and was presented to King James II of Great Britain. King James was so taken with the Chinese scholar that he had a full-length portrait of him painted which King James hung in his bedroom. He left England in 1688 (just in time you could say) and sailed to Lisbon, Portugal where he entered the Society of Jesus. He was evidently supposed to return to China to carry out missionary work with the other Jesuits there but, alas, he died during the voyage somewhere off the east coast of Africa. It would be well over a hundred years later before anyone from Great Britain visited China in an official capacity. That was Lord MacCartney who, unlike President Obama, caused outrage (in China at least) for his refusal to kotow to the Qienlong Emperor in the traditional fashion. I suppose it did not matter but, for the record, Qianlong is widely considered one of the greatest emperors of the Qing dynasty.

Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden

Groom-to-be Daniel Westling's debut. Notice the Swedish guards band plays a little "Dancing Queen". Presumably this was an homage to Abba performing the song (in 18th Century costume) to her parents the night before their wedding.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akpGEZrvGi0

Religious Monarchies

Monarchies of the World with State Religions

The Kingdom of Bahrain - Sunni Islam
The Kingdom of Bhutan - Tibetan Buddhism
The Sultanate of Brunei - Sunni Islam
The Kingdom of Cambodia - Theravada Buddhism
The Kingdom of Denmark - Church of Denmark (Lutheran)
The Kingdom of England - Church of England (Anglican)
The Kingdom of Jordan - Sunni Islam
The Emirate of Kuwait - Sunni Islam
The Principality of Liechtenstein - Roman Catholic
The Federation of Malaysia - Sunni Islam
The Principality of Monaco - Roman Catholic
The Kingdom of Morocco - Sunni Islam
The Kingdom of Norway - Church of Norway (Lutheran)
The Sultanate of Oman - Ibadi Islam
The Emirate of Qatar - Sunni Islam
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - Sunni Islam
The Kingdom of Thailand - Theravada Buddhism
The Kingdom of Tibet (in exile) - Tibetan Buddhism
The United Arab Emirates - Sunni Islam
The State of Vatican City - Roman Catholic

The Obamas Meet Royalty

In his first overseas trip as President and First Lady the Obamas have made some tongues wag over their interaction with royalty. Could it be the simple mistakes of the New World versus the Old World? Possibly, but taken altogether many people are wondering if there is not more to it than this. The two incidents which made the most headlines were Michelle Obama putting her arm around Queen Elizabeth II, thus violating the taboo of not touching royalty, and Barack Hussein Obama bowing very low to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Liberals of the "Obama can do no wrong" crowd are inclined to dismiss both the over-familiarity with the British Queen and the over-reverence to the Saudi King -as inconsistent as that is. Others, in the more critical camp, tend to be outraged for a number of reasons.
The Obamas have behaved oddly if not badly toward the British from day one. First there was the snubbing of Prime Minister Gordon Brown on his visit to the US, accompanied by a White House aid saying there was nothing "special" about our relationship with Britain and efforts to brush it off by saying that Obama (one of the youngest presidents in US history) was simply "tired". They also note that while Obama barely gave Queen Elizabeth II a nod he bowed nearly to the hip to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Family history has also caused some to question whether or not the two extremes were intentional. Obama's grandfather was put in prison for a couple years in Kenya for revolutionary activity against the British Crown and the family claims the British authorities tortured him. On the other hand Barack Hussein Obama Sr. was a Muslim, Obama Jr's step-father in Indonesia was a Muslim and he himself was listed as a Muslim on his school records in that country. Obama has since stated he is a Christian though since being elected president he has yet to attend any services.
There is also quite a vast gulf of difference between the Saudi and British monarchies. Whereas Great Britain is a constitutional monarchy with elected leaders, freedom of speech, assembly, religion and all the rest of it, Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy with none such freedoms where Bibles are shredded at the border and women are not even allowed out in public without a male escort. This has left many Americans wondering why, if Obama is going to bow to a monarch, would he bow to the King of Saudi Arabia instead of Queen Elizabeth? This is what puzzles me about the President's behavior. I really have no problem with Obama bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia; he is royalty and one would try to show all due respect for the customs and traditions of the people one is dealing with. However, why is the British monarch treated with such familiarity and the Saudi monarch with such obeisance?
The White House has denied that Obama bowed to the Saudi king but frankly that only seems to have made the situation worse because the video and the pictures speak for themselves. He did it. When taken in context with his other words and writings over the years and his family history it does seem that the Obamas have a certain disdain for Great Britain whom, Michelle Obama in particular it has been said, still associate the British with the British Empire and, let me just say she does not seem to view the British Empire as the glorious past organization that I do. Given Obama's politics and family history I would not expect his view to be very different.

Jacobins in the USA

Does the current economic crisis have anything to teach us about the long struggle between monarchy and republicanism? When ACORN is shuttling professional protestors to the homes of AIG execs to threaten them, when protestors in Britain are vandalizing RBS offices and when French workers are taking their bosses hostage I have to wonder if we are seeing the fruits of the romanticization of the French revolutionaries, English roundheads and their ilk. However, very few people pose the common sense question (other than at least one or two right-wing radio hosts I of heard) which should have been asked about the French Revolution or almost any other.

Did the death of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette fill the stomachs of any starving Frenchmen? No. The same is true over and over again. The wealthy members of society in the US and Europe who are being punished by their governments through socialism, taking what they have through taxes to give it to others; is making the wealthy poor going to make any poor people rich? This is the culmination of the revolutionary mentality that was seen so vividly in the French Revolution and the destruction of the monarchy as a 'necessary symbolic act'. I think about it every time I hear President Obama talking about "fairness" in the economy. Thinking of the world and society in terms of "fairness" is one of the major traps of the revolutionary agenda.

I am reminded often lately of the criminal "trial" and regicide of the great King Charles I of Britain. After remaining silent through most of the ordeal because, as a monarch, he refused to recognize any court as being competent to sit in judgement on him, King Charles I gave a very eloquent, honest, insightful and today politically incorrect statement about what it was he was fighting for. Parliament or rather the radical roundheads insisted that they were fighting for the "rights" of the people to have a voice in government (which they quickly forgot as soon as the King was dead) but King Charles stated very honestly that having a part in government was basically nothing to do with the people. A subject and a sovereign are two totally different things according to Charles. The great King said that he was fighting for by fighting for his own royal absolute rights was the absolute right of every person of his dominions to what was truly and legitimately their own. Be it a crown, be it property or be it a bonus it was about no one being able to take away what was rightfully yours.

With the demonic Bolshevik revolution, the march forward of socialism but all going back to the French Revolution in its roots, this is exactly what the enemies of civilization have been fighting against. They encourage jealousy, covetousness and envy so that one will want to tear down those who have in order to fight over the scraps while the revolutionaries rise to power on the bloody path the people clear for them. King Charles, defenders of property rights, the sanctity of vested rights, all of this which is often associated with monarchy is about making people, not free, not democratic but independent which is the surest form of freedom there is. The revolutionaries, on the other hand, the Bolsheviks and their compatriots of other names, might give all sorts of "freedoms" and talk about rights and fairness and democracy all they like but their ultimate goal is a massive political machine under their control which makes everyone dependent on government -robbing them of their independence and thus making everyone a slave just as surely as if they were all wearing shackles.

Whenever royal rights, royal powers and the like are taken away the revolutionary information services never ask the question about who is going to be taking over these powers or what independence we all lose when the monarch loses his or her independence to rule.

Soccer Coaches Can't Compete with The Real Thing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIbvzmAtQAc

Right Outta the Gate

According to the former Crown Prince Paras of Nepal, he would still like to be involved in politics and his father, the deposed King Gyanendra, is working for the restoration of the monarchy and a return to his throne. I can only hope that this is true. How many times have we seen exiled royals adjust to their comfortable lives as minor celebrities and make no real effort to restore their thrones? It might make some difference since the Nepali Royal Family was chased out such a relatively short time ago, but it is still good to see that they trying to remain in the public view and working to set right all that has gone terribly wrong in their country.
There are some problems though. Crown Prince Paras, from what I have heard, was never all that well respected an individual (I may be wrong -hope I am) and he does not live in Nepal, he lives in Singapore and has for some time. He also spoke of wanting to form his own political party. Let me state for the record that I am for royals getting back into government and am not particularly concerned with the path they take to accomplish this. However, princes forming political parties tends to make me a little uncomfortable. Confucius I think once said that a gentleman should have nothing to do with political parties and despite all the momentary press coverage the former Czar of Bulgaria, Simeon II, being elected Prime Minister as leader of his own party did not bring about a restoration of the monarchy. It seems to me that going the route of the political party will only make the royal in question a more divisive figure.
Nepal has been one the ground-zero areas for monarchy in our time. It was a loss to the history and culture of the world when the last Hindu monarchy was abolished thanks to an on-going war against communist guerillas. As usual, the communists did not exactly take over on their own, but were able to manipulate "moderates" in order to get their own way. King Gynanendra deserves everyone's respect for the awesome problems he has had to deal with as monarch. He came to the throne in 2001 (I remember sending out a special report for the RPA) after the former Crown Prince Dipendra massacred the Royal Family before taking his own life. The country was stunned, shaken, had lost a dearly beloved monarch and suddenly King Gyanendra was on the throne of a country in turmoil, unknown and mistrusted by many, forced to deal with Maoist revolutionaries and entrusted with securing the Shah dynasty. Regardless of what the outcome has been thus far, I give King Gyanendra credit for not simply giving up and running away to live the good life.
I would also add that the Himalayan region is one where monarchy and traditional authority has been under the most direct attack in recent decades, perhaps because their isolation meant that they were some of the last places on earth to be touched by the liberal revolutionaries. The Dalai Lama was forced out of Tibet 50 years ago this last week, the King of Bhutan has begun to introduce democracy into his country out of a misguided sense of modern benevolence (if it ain't broke don't fix it) and then we had the bloodbath in Nepal and the overthrow of the monarchy by communist revolutionaries. The west has ignored all of these dangers, God knows why, but in the future events may become too critical to ignore. I wish there was an international monarchist brigade to go fight for the King of Napal -Spanish Civil War style - but I know that will not happen. The former US administration did virtually nothing about it and when it comes to opposing the spread of communism I cannot imagine the current administration doing anything considering how they have, in their first months in power, assured China that no amount of cruelty on their part will damage our friendship with them (and their cheap labor), cast doubts on whether North Korea even has a nuclear program and have hinted at making nice with Castro's Cuba. So far, the current US administration seems to be snubbing our oldest monarchist ally and cuddling up to the communists of the world.