Police on The Mall ahead of the ceremonial procession of the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Hall, London, where it will lie in state ahead of her funeral on Monday. (Photo by Dominic Lipinski/PA Images via Getty Images)
A lot has been written about how the colonies shouldn’t celebrate the British royals. Quite right, they shouldn’t. Though, defying logic, many appear to do exactly that. But others have covered that well enough so let me address the other obvious constituency who aren’t giving this a thought.
The British.
We have several reasons given for how wonderful the institution of royalty is. The queen had tremendous wisdom. Prime ministers could talk to her about anything in complete confidence. And the constant spectacle of pageantry was a great tourist draw, so it was worth the cost.
If the late queen truly imparted such great wisdom of the ages, explain Blair and Iraq, Brexit, partying during lockdowns … And if there is so much value in having a reliable confidante to whom they can say anything, heads of government should have a budget for a therapist. The tourism value of all that pageantry? That’s a theme park: at least you can fire anyone who turns out to be a sexual predator, or who’s racist towards one of the other performers. All those wonderful old buildings? Museums!
Royalty is such an anachronism. The original purpose, a way of finding a head of government without all that bother of elections, revolutions and so on is way out of date. The Tibetans had a somewhat better system, a kind of aptitude test that was supposed to reveal a reincarnated Dalai Lama, who was taken away from home and educated up to do the job. But even so, any sort of ruler-for-life system has the inherent flaw that if you get a dud, you’re stuck.
So turning the system into one that has no actual purpose other than a nod to tradition isn’t a terrible idea. But why stop there? If you want one good reason to end the whole fiasco: Prince Andrew. He doesn’t have an actual job (Duke of York? What does a duke do?). Oh, wait: he and his wife were appointed the keepers of the Queen’s corgis and dorgi. Dorgi? A cross dachshund-corgi. There was I thinking he is an absolutely useless person, only good for having embarrassing friends accused of trafficking young women and girls for sex.
The problem with a “business” that is about nothing but being family is you can’t fire family.
Then there’s the whole Meghan Markle fiasco. If the family turns out to be a bunch of racist dicks, maybe you do want to fire the family. But if the entire business is based on being family, what do you do?
To the British: you could save a fortune, the embarrassment of misbehaving royals and have a more rational government if you took my advice. Get your prime minister a permanent therapist, replace all that pageantry with a theme park and relegate your mediaeval institution of monarchy to a museum where it belongs.
Once you’re done with that, apply to rejoin the European Union. A prime minister who has regular access to a therapist ought to be able to make that work.
Philip Machanick is an associate professor of computer science at Rhodes University
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.