God Save the Queen - Long live the Queen

History of England

A History of England poster takes pride of place on the wall of my living room, a poster I bought from the museum shop of Arundel Castle, the seat of the Dukes of Norfolk, with title of Earl Marshall and one of the great offices of state in England.

This office organises coronations and the State Opening of Parliament, as a catholic family, their influence in a protestant monarchy makes interesting reading.

In general, I am a monarchist, a royalist and a keen supporter of constitutional monarchies. It is evident from the event that culminated in the First World War that our world of today has no place for absolute monarchies.

Where they seem to exist like in Nepal where the police have been ordered to “shoot to kill” protesters clamouring for real democracy or Swaziland where the king with his propensity for taking young wives squanders scarce resources on a luxury life they can ill afford.

Learning by visiting

Having spent my developing years in Nigeria, my returning to England left me bereft of the history and culture of a country to which I claim citizenship allegiance.

Rather than reach out for thousand-page books of England, I joined both the National Trust and used my visit to stately homes to piece together events of our history; supplementing that with visits to English Heritage sites all around the country.

Somehow, I like the lineage of reigns that help us document our history in lengths of time that speak of people, events, ideas and their relationships. Victorian values signify conservative outlooks to life, the House of Tudor hosts Henry VIII and the break-away from the Roman Catholic Church, the last of that lineage being Elizabeth I.

Times of the monarch

This follows the time honoured practice found in the Old Testament of the Bible where the Israelites document reigns in the Book of Kings and events in the Book of Chronicles.

It sounds grating to document times in the name of politicians, you never hear of the Lincolnian times related to Abraham Lincoln (Victorian) or the Churchillian times in relation to Winston Churchill (George VI and Elizabeth II from the House of Windsor).

Where there is no monarchy to maintain a human grip on our history and heritage you have to revert to dates and years.

Above the political fray

Beyond that, one can see how the jostling for political position in the presidencies of the United States and France creates a stop-start sense of leadership which can at times thrive on base populism and give rise to dictatorships in other places.

A monarchy subjects the inordinate quest for power to a lesser element of governance with the politicians ceremoniously answerable to a supposedly higher authority.

We would lose a lot to becoming a republic, as some people feel that we live in a time when people should not be born to positions of privilege.

More than value you can quantify

Also many complain about the cost of the monarchy, well, I would be hard pressed to find any other person or group of people who can market the brand of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and the Northern Ireland better than our monarchy. Even so, the head of the church cannot be a Prime Minister no matter how religious.

They are more than good value for money now, for our history past, for our heritage preserved and for our sense of belonging as we look to the future. That position would be wasted on a politician no matter how much of a statesman they may be.

This is not the most forceful piece about the monarchy, but the sentimentality of what they mean would have me supporting our constitutional monarchy without reservation.

God Save the Queen

As the Israelites said at the anointing of their first king – God Save the King – I say, God Save the Queen.

God Save the Queen makes more sense to me than God Save the President or the Prime Minister.

Even more importantly; at 80; Happy Birthday, Ma’am.

With guns are you parted from your goods

Gun shots and security

I just read that my blogging friend, the author of Naijablog was almost in a precarious situation of witnessing an armed robbery in Abuja, Nigeria. Fortunately, he only heard gun-shots and then the screeching of tires as they made away.

As I empathise, I relate my own experience with armed robbers in our home some 18 years ago.

Here goes …

I have my own skirmishes in Europe, but that for one, vindicates my having left Nigeria and not having returned; not for a day for a long time.

I am really sorry about that episode and I truly can empathise.

When I was in Lagos, I lived in ShaSha with nothing between our house and the wall of the International Airport.

The traffic on the runway revealed the political pulse of the country; we could say when a coup was in the offing by the type of traffic coming in.

Expecting armed visitors

Anyway, one week in 1988, armed robbers had selected our neighbourhood for operations having done the novel thing of drilling a hole through walls to gain access to property not too far away. That left the neighbourhood in a palpable sense of defencelessness.

That night, we more or less knew it was our turn; they had already gained access to the house and entered the building downstairs before asking my aunt - Madam to open the door.

We did, and we were escorted upstairs where we were made to lie down in the living room as they ransacked on the whole house and got ready to cart away everything of value but our lives.

Then sergeant asked the colonel to shoot one of us; reason prevailed, the colonel said we had co-operated so should come to no harm.

It was not till about 2 hours after that happened that we realised as we wandered between shock and realism what we had just been through.

We vacated the house for 2 weeks.

Bullet tennis with staves as racquets

The village community decided we should have a party of vigilantes go out every night to give the neighbourhood a sense of security.

I sniggered; we were to walk away around in groups of 8 or so with sticks and staves to upset a determined rampage of armed rogues.

It appeared we were preparing for a tennis match with bullets as balls only that we were not offering the first service.

Security trumps economic progress

So, when my father pontificated then about the possibility of ending up in a racist society by being in Europe, I did not mince my words in reply as to the fact that security of life and well-being is of greater importance going from my experience.

In fact, that is my major gripe about Nigeria and it makes the other news piece about being taken off the International Financial Action Task Force (FATF) blacklist hardly worthy of mention.

Without security of life and property what is the point of being off a blacklist, living in fortresses that rival Fort Knox and not being able to get around for the fear of car-jacking?

On the verge of greatness

Sometimes, viewing it from here, it looks like it is a lottery to win safety over the lack of it. It is not necessarily the norm but events like this colour ones view of a country that is on the verge of greatness; if only we could see what kind it is.

Abort this preschool finger-painting politics immediately

It was not a joke afterall

With the sound of the television in the background, I just heard that there was going to be a Labour Party Political broadcast. Prick up your ears, instinctively.

Then like the surreal morphing into the ethereal with so much to chuckle about, I remembered a scene in Just for Laughs where on three occasions; three unassuming men were accosted by a team of uniformed men who jumped out of van lifted up the unsuspecting victims and carried then back from crossing the road, that was a laugh.

The comical voice started about true blue, red, yellow and then something about being conservative to the core to being the heir of Blair and then a liberal conservative. [1]

Surely! A democratic campaign seeking the votes of intelligent Britons cannot have boiled down to this triviality, which would make Telly Tubbies seem a complete bore.

I see your true colours

However, the full import of this message did not dawn on me till I heard the Conservative Party Political broadcast, which ended with Vote Blue, Go Green.

Suddenly, the campaign for the local elections is looking like a Hindu Festival of Colours as another colour, white this time seems to be so turned off mainstream politics they are about to vote for a party that is extreme about colour – the British National Party.

They are hardly representative of the Britain today, there is nothing national about their outlook, but I agree, they are a party.

Disinterested misrepresentation

This does not augur well for anyone, if our politics have become so juvenile that apathy and lethargy would offer yet another low turnout record.

We have definitely reached a point where democracy is failing us, when majorities are not so much about the majority of the populace that are eligible to vote but a majority of the minority that care to exercise their civil duties.

Representative democracy too seems only to matter at elections beyond which the elected seem to ignore the need for representative accountability till the next polling day.

Party politics rules even if it is not the party and policies you espouse.

Enough of the finger-painting

Politicians debating can be a sequel to the Comedy of Errors, but when it comes to leadership, governance and policies that really do matter, we deserve better than reds, hitting on blues with yellows looking on and whites running off as the lack of green brings our aching world to an end.

Enough of the preschool finger-painting exercises and let us move on to the grand work of art. [2]

References

[1] Blair resorts to cartoon jibes at Dave the chameleon – probably biased

[2] Hebrews 6:1 paraphrased and culled from the Message Bible

In danger of becoming endangered species

Take my rage and give me peace

I have no rage, no, indeed I have no anger, if I had to curse; it would be the sound of clearing my throat to call to attention ears to my words.

I patently cannot stand people who have scant regard for road usage especially within traffic, this is even worse if this is also displayed on the cycle paths, many which traverse Amsterdam.

These cycle lanes are clearly marked especially those that allow two-way traffic, so it was with utter bewilderment bordering on panic that a man in oncoming traffic on a scooter came round the bend and much as I tried to avoid him, seeing that he was on my side of the cycle path ran straight into me.

It is by circumstance of good fortune that though he fell off his scooter, I came to no harm, but my front wheel was bent out of shape.

A drunk with a weapon

It was obvious for all to see that not only had he approached the snake bend at speed, he had not reflexive control of the scooter.

Evidently, the man was inebriated that when I mentioned police he was off at speed again, I only hope no one else got the brunt of this reckless behaviour.

I for one could not find an expletive to blurt out since they never feature in my expression. However, I noticed I had no concern for the fact that he having fallen might have come to harm.

Therein is the hardening of the libertarian, we speak up for people’s rights, but lose out when people exercise their rights without due consideration of the fact that they do not exist in a vacuum.

I had no presence of mind to take the registration number of the scooter, but then with the experiences I have had of the police, my subconscious could have intimated my intuition about ignoring the essential.

How a drunken man can be in control of a vehicle that could do 50 kilometres an hour and then get away from an accident he caused, with impunity, irks me no end.

Technically, I became a victim of a hit-and-run, I have no time for vengeance, I have time to get on with my life.

Ease my pain

Two nice ladies came to my aid, to soothe me, to calm me, to sympathise with me and encourage me, having witnessed the episode – like I did just about 16 months ago [1] – I was thankful, I walked away from this – the bicycle, I can repair, as long as I have spirit and body in wholeness and wellness to do so [2].

It is just annoying that I have to pay for damage caused by a run-away drunken twerp. That grates, I’ll get over it.

I put my bike in the bike-shed, got advice about how to get it repaired and then walked 6 kilometres back home – that was my healing, the cure that allowed me get home and not have trembling fingers, breaking out in sweat and hyper-ventilating because of another chance encounter with a cretin.

Far be it from me that I begin to develop the feeling of being an endangered species in the Netherlands. As I get home, scooters whizz past with that horrible whining sound just after 4am. Sometimes!

Related blogs

[1] Couscous from a bicycle

[2] Bottling anger

The unjust condemnation of Palestinian choice

A Democratic exasperation

You can imagine my exasperation with the whole concept of the exercise of democratic privilege when people are empowered to govern but emasculated by the lack of financial and moral support.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Palestinian situation. The world or the West in particular having clamoured for ages incessantly for the people of Palestine to be given a voice in the deciding who leads them finally got that wish fulfilled.

Unfortunately, as the new Knesset was being sworn in, the Islamic Jihad found another martyr to blow up a Tel Aviv restaurant and Hamas gets abraded for not doing anything about it.

Now, let us juxtapose this situation against the motion that was about to be slated at the Knesset yesterday for its dissolution of the 17^th Knesset before commencement.

MK (Member of Knesset) Zevulun Orlev of the National Union-National Religious Party is of the opinion that Kadima lacks an ideology having been the brainchild of Ariel Sharon who fell into a coma literally in the conception stages of that party.

His words, “Kadima is creating a patchwork government devoid of ideology that is already tottering and won't last long”

The choices were stark

With that said, one wonders if the Palestinians did study the political choices before them before voting. It would be insulting to their intelligence to suggest that all parties in the Palestinian elections did not have their ideologies, ideas, programmes, promises and faults.

To the Palestinian people the corrupt and ineffective Fatah movement of which Yasser Arafat was leader did little to assuage the sufferings and problems of their people.

Hamas demonstrates the conscience of its people

It is however, on record and visible to all concerned that the Hamas movement though labelled terrorist in the West has done more than many other organisation to address socio-economic issues; these being very much in line with what the Palestinian majority requires.

There also no doubt in anybody’s mind that the Hamas ideology did not recognise Israel as a nation and they use tools of dissent albeit suicide bombers at certain times to highlight their message.

Israel over the years tired to decimate the leadership of Hamas through targeted assassinations, which included a blind old man in a wheelchair, but we could not find it in our hearts to condemn such measures.

Hamas is now the political force in Palestine, who along with their ideologies has considered reneging or ignoring the agreements made by previous governments on behalf of the Palestinians – I think that is also their prerogative.

Subverting ideology through blackmail

Having now clearly seen and heard the will and voice of the Palestinians, I find it unconscionable that leading democracies in the world can ask Hamas to change the ideology on which they won elections.

This would be tantamount to asking the American Republican Party to change from conservative values to liberal, if not communist values having just won an election. We all know that that would never happen in the West, so why demand it of Hamas?

We are now left in a very sorry situation where the self-same leading democracies have withheld funding to the Hamas-led government in order to force a change in the principles and platform on which Hamas was elected. That is patently not fair and definitely anti-democratic.

It begs the question that Kadima a party with no clear ideology assumes power in that sense of obscurity and Hamas with a well-documented ideology assumes power and they are assessed from different perspectives.

The poorer democracies speaking up

I would hope that the Arab states would step up to the challenge and ensure that the fledgling democracy in Palestine survives despite the animosity of the West. This would do well to slow down the democratic crusade marching into the Middle East, as many would see this as typical double standards.

As for dealing with the suicide bombers; if you want Hamas to be effective, you will have to put your money where your mouth is – It is to the shame of Europe, American and Japan that it is Russia, Qatar and Iran that is stepping forward to honour the decisions of a long-oppressed people.

Related Blogs

The martyrdom of the cartoon

Living with the results of true democracy

Iraq is far away from a Gettysburg Address

The address of great import

Four months after a battle in which 7,500 soldiers perished, an afternoon was chosen for the dedication of the soldiers’ cemetery.

The program, elaborate as it was included an oration that last two hours after which the president was to give dedicatory remarks.

In 10 sentences of 272 words, his words were few but its message was loud and clear, if not laden with meaning beyond the reading of the message.

Those remarks are now referred to as the Gettysburg Address and it ended with the following words …

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honoured dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” – Abraham Lincoln

Knowing the cause

From these closing remarks, Abraham Lincoln drew some specific inferences that matter in terms of history, occasion, politics, governance, freedom, liberty and civic duty.

They matter in that they establish in clarity the context in which our democracies must operate and how those who exercise authority should defer to the magnitude of their responsibility.

First, that we should recognise those that went before us in creating the society in which we now live and engage in fervent promotion of those values they espoused for the future in which we now live.

Second, that the cause of freedom for which life has been lost must never be derogated to goals that deprive us of those hard-earned liberties.

Third, that the things that make us united and the things that underpin our moral tenets offer opportunities of greater freedom.

And lastly, these are the things that give meaning to our democracy.

Not ready for a Gettysburg address

When I review these inferences, it begins to make sense why Iraq after four months of elections a leader has not emerged for the government for the people.

The country is in so much tumult, people are still dying that the “cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion” cannot materialise for adequate reflection.

Whilst we are still counting the dead, one cannot get to the point where “these dead shall not have died in vain”.

The nation of Iraq is an amalgam of disparate tribal and religious entities in conflict and far from agreement, the expected “new birth of freedom” looks patently stillborn.

So, even though the people have spoken, they have not yet been heard such that “that government of the people, by the people, for the people” has not taken root to allow for it to endure.

However, it is the earnest desire of many, especially now, the people of Iraq to see that their dreams and desires for peace, freedom, liberty, justice and good governance does “not perish from the earth”.

Looking for a Gettysburg moment

Whilst Iraq has exceeded in numbers the count of the dead and injured in battle as compared Gettysburg, they are far from a Gettysburg moment.

The closing remarks of the orator (Edward Everett) clearly indicate that Iraq is seriously unfinished business in need of a greater appreciation of what has past, what is now and where we are headed for the future.

“But they, I am sure, will join us in saying, as we bid farewell to the dust of these martyr-heroes, that where so ever throughout the civilized world the accounts of this great warfare are read, and down to the latest period of recorded time, in the glorious annals of our common country, there will be no brighter page than that which relates the Battles of Gettysburg”

The battles of Iraq for now have no particular end in sight; tectonic plates of opinion and process need to shift for that sight to be acquired.

References

Powerpoints on the Gettysburg Address

I had to run for the train

Got to get out

My itchy feet get the better of me every now and then. The emotion and reaction can be so rash, well more determined, I’ll say, the planning and execution sometimes leaves me enough time to end up in disappointment.

Luckily, that has never really been the case, but my fuse gets shorter and my awareness is heightened and intuition sharpened.

Too alert for my liking

I miss nothing in context and occasion; it has not helped a developing but annoying side of me that I see as aggressive, intemperate, impatient and grumpy all as a result of some of these issues.

For instance, I really cannot afford to get angry because it has a horrible physiological effect on me; I begin to shake, my voice rises into a falsetto and it is suddenly lost, not helping my coherence – now, that is anger management as an evolutionary enhancement to my makeup.

I note that this rarely happens in company of friends, their contributions, interjections or conversation generally offers palliative respite in times of dire human frailty.

Tram 26 again

So, I decided, I would be off to Antwerp for the night. Having decided to catch the last train from the Amsterdam Central Station, I had 25 minutes to spare and the wretched Tram 26 was to arrive in 5 minutes, with a 6 minute ride to the station, I should have 14 minutes to get a ticket and get on the train. All planned down to a T.

Tram 26 came on time and we only have 2 stops before the Central Station and so everyone gets on and we proceed according to plan.

We reach the next stop and a crowd of young ones gets on, the conductor and driver both check tickets or collect fares on entry at any of the 2 entrance doors.

However, some of those adolescents used one of the exit doors and got on, which is fine if you then walk up to either the driver or conductor to confirm your fare.

Conductor misconduct

Some did not, so the conductor announces that the tram would not leave till everyone who got on has been checked.

Nothing happens; I have a train to catch and it is looking like my 14 minute leeway is cut in half and swiftly moving to a quarter.

Wait a minute! I have a season ticket, I have pre-paid for my travel as many season ticket holders have done and then we are denied the service we paid for because some “black riders” - as fare dodgers are called in the Netherlands – got on the tram.

I ran for the train

I am getting exasperated, the conductor could easily have walked through the tram and checked, but no, the protection of the cage and the need to do obeisance at that temple had me literally running for the train, one big leap as a cheetah catching prey, I am on, but panting in the most unsightly way.

Now, I remember, I once had a ride on a cabriolet [1] – not a car, but horse-drawn – (Philistines) as I gracefully got on and looked rather majestic in full African garb, well, as if one looks any less on a bad day.

http://www.museudoscoches-ipmuseus.pt/en/img/coleccao/carrinhos2.jpg

Courtesy of the Museu Nacional dos Coches, Lisboa

Running except for when one is on a cross-trainer is just not the done thing, but that is how well-laid out plans get messed up because others are in being utterly inconsiderate.

My journey to Antwerp is another episode.

References

[1] The National Coach Museum, Lisbon, you should consider visiting in person, like I did in June 2005.