‘You are not my king,’ Indigenous Australian senator yells at visiting King Charles
'You are not my king,' Indigenous Australian senator yells at visiting King Charles
"I am your king." "Well, I didn't vote for you." "You don't vote for kings." "Well, how'd you become king, then?"
[Angelic music plays... ]
King Charles: "The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that my ancestor, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king."
Peasant: "Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony."
“I had more swords than the other guy”
Mummy gave me the crown and we have too much money for anyone to object.
Forgive the Reddit link, the artist has only posted it there that I can tell.
For real, though..
I think everyone knows it's ridiculous.
For some the monarchy is a living museum, they don't have to like it, they just find it interesting.
The most expensive museum ever. Just what he's wearing in that pic has a monetary value of more than the combined wealth of your extended family.
Imagine how much better the world would be if the wealth and land holdings (a sixth of the surface of the entire planet) belonged to the people in stead of the most privileged family in existence.
You have a man who's spray painted himself bright orange... Badly running for the premiership of your country.
We elected Boris Johnson to PMship. We aren't better.
I've only ever seen the Queen in this regalia and I can't not see it as crossdressing when Charles does it.
Lidia Thorpe is not wrong when Briitish colonialism fucked the world. The British should be held accountable for that. However, this arguement can be made to absolve the Australian government of their fuckery with indigenous people.
Sure, Australia didn't become federate until the early 1900s. However, I would imagine sometime prior to that Australia was acting more or less as an independent country.
What do you mean by "The British should be held accountable"?
Who, exactly? And how, exactly?
The monarch, the government, the entire population?
Reparations? If you sell everything - crown estates, crown jewels, all the art, everything - are you going to deliver $7.28 to every single person in a former colony?
How about we look forwards, instead? There's little to be gained in trying to make current-day nations pay reparations for things that their ancestors did.
Interesting take. Let's not hold anybody to account by that logic. So what if the car I drive is stolen, I didn't steal it. So what if the lady that I paid to have sex with was coerced, I didn't force her. So what if the wealth that I stole from others is used to persecute the rest of the world...
There’s little to be gained in trying to make current-day nations pay reparations for things that their ancestors did.
"We will not blame [King George] for the crimes of his ancestors if he relinquishes the royal rights of his ancestors; but as long as he claims their rights, by virtue of descent, then, by virtue of descent, he must shoulder the responsibility for their crimes.".
-James Connolly
How about we look forwards, instead?
How about we look at the present? Because colonialism isn't over. People are still suffering from it right now. The global south is still actively being colonized and exploited right now.
You can't drive a knife into someone's ribs then say "what's in the past is in the past, we need to look forward instead" when your hand is still holding the blade. How can you hope to start the process of healing if you haven't even taken the knife out all the way?
Now, I don't have all the answers for how that healing process is going to work for the world, but I'm pretty sure a billionaire dancing around in a golden hat and velvet robes with a title that says "God made my bloodline special so I can stab whoever I want" isn't a part of it.
Better for whom exactly?
This is why we need a proper, fact based education about empire and the damage it caused the world, even if it gets dismissed as "woke" by ignorant flag shaggers.
Sure that's true for half of Africa /s
Colonization is never good.
I don't think any colonised people were uplifted by the process. To think that colonisation was a good process is to literally whitewash history
she was removed for speaking up against colonial criminals as an indigenous person. fucking boot lickers. probably literally too; wouldn't be surprised.
Is anyone gonna talk about the article or just virtue signal about hating monarchy?
I hadn't heard albo wanted to become a republic, that's pretty interesting, but unlikely to materialise into anything because the Australia public almost certainly won't vote for it.
This is par for the course of Lidia Thorpe, she's been very hard to work with, even for other Aboriginal activists. She's a contrarian that's doesn't seem to do much besides complain, just like the commenters on Lemmy.
Yeah, if we can't even manage to enshrine a bloody advisory body to parliament with no powers into the constitution, then good luck getting a republic with the conservative media grip over this country.
I'm actually astonished how left-leaning we are in general, given the situation. But yeah, the Voice to Parliament referendum gives me very little hope in people voting to become a republic.
SUBJECTS WILL ALWAYS SUPPORT OR PROTEST AGAINST THE RULER... It was, is and will be the norm for monarchy.
This ultra privileged section of society do nothing really nothing and just use tax payers money to showcase their immense wealth.
Let that indigenous LADY SENATOR go berserk against the RULER OF THE COMMONWEALTH who is much more energised and privileged to focus on courting with his newly „announced wife“ rather than providing advice to the problems normal people.
AT LEAST LEND AN EAR TO THE VOICE OF THE GENERAL PUBLIC.
...well he's not...
Oh boy, wait til you learn about the Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth isn't the countries with the British Monarch as head of state.
But yeah, the British Monarch is the head of state in Australia. Annoyingly
I was in favour of mummifying HRH so that her preserved corpse could continue to be our figurehead leader. Honestly, as stupid as it sounds, I don't think anyone can argue that it's more stupid than the status quo.
i guess they have their own gods from the dreamtime
Then you look at the USA where a large part of the population really wants there to be a King Donald the First.
King D1 would like to confirm all 17 year old female subjects please.
Right? "Here's a family of inbred, pedophile, do nothings. Worship them peasant, and give them your money, for they are better than you. Because reasons."
It's so stupid that we still do this in 2024. I'm a Canadian citizen for 20 years now, and when I took the oath I straight up refused to recite the pledge to the monarchy. The judge actually let it slide.
To be fair, this specific royal family serves in the military and does not shy from front line duty. Although they kicked the last one out for marrying a divorced mixed race woman. So there's that too...
A long time ago his clan beat out some other clans so that makes him king.
I'm pretty sure anyone is welcome to challenge his assertion of authority at any time by the same means.
Not really - the current British royal house is german-descended. There are noble families in the UK with longer english/british pedigrees than the ~~Saxe-Coburg Gotha ~~ Windsor/Mountbatten family. But the current situation suits them better than rocking the boat.
No no, they dont call them kings. They call them wealth creators and, despite worshipping them in much the same way, them ruling their offices in much the same way and literally just being a financial aristocracy, I'm told its a totally different thing.
Because it makes money and is entertaining.
Without the celebrity status and novelty there would be a lot less tourism in Britain. It's not like people go there for the food or the weather.
If they got rid of the royal family, that wouldn't mean they'd need to get rid of all the castles and other historically relevant places and architecture, too...
Why do British people think King Charles is the reason people go to Britain to visit? Nobody gives a shit about your existing monarchy outside of your country. We go there to see castles n shit.
It’s just a ceremonial thing, they don’t have any actual power. Plus it makes money for the country. There’s not really any reason to get rid of them and King Charles is always pushing anti-climate change stuff so he’s actually using his influence to try and help.
I call bullshit. The Louvre makes more tourism money than Buckingham Palace even without some rich assholes living there.
They're actually given full legal immunity to anything, meaning they're allowed to commit crimes if they so choose (which we wouldn't know anything about as there is no transparency concerning these types of things). There have also been cases of violent repression against unarmed dissidents who were protesting against the monarchy (mostly when the queen had died), with disproportionate punishments handed out.
Is this really necessary, having one family be pretty much above the law and having their lifestyle be funded via public funds? Sure, there's an argument to be made that it drives the tourism, but it's unknown how much does the royal family contribute to it, as there's definitely tourists who would still visit the monuments and buy merch without the family.
We dont know how much power they have, it's illegal to know:
| Due to secrecy laws, it is extremely hard to find documentary evidence of the queen’s exercise of influence. In the United Kingdom, government documents that “relate to” communications with the sovereign or the next two persons in line to the throne, as well as palace officials acting on their behalf, are subject to an absolute exemption from release under freedom of information or by government archives.
| But The Guardian has managed to expose a chink in this armour of secrecy. In the UK’s National Archives, it discovered documents from 1973 showing the queen’s personal solicitor lobbied public servants to change a proposed law so that it would not allow companies, or the public, to learn of the queen’s shareholdings in Britain. The gambit succeeded, and the draft bill was changed to suit the queen’s wishes. Perhaps these documents escaped the secrecy embargo because they involved communications with a private solicitor, rather than palace officials
https://theconversation.com/the-queens-gambit-new-evidence-shows-how-her-majesty-wields-influence-on-legislation-154818