This is the third in a sequence of posts about why I’m not ready to exit Twitter or secede from Meta Platforms just yet -- a second example of how a Facebook exchange has helped me sort out my thoughts on a current civic issue.
Harold Russell, retired history teacher, Canadian militia veteran, local/regional heritage stalwart, and child of Kitchener’s Victoria Park, started the ball rolling with a response to an opinion piece from Waterloo Region Record columnist Luisa D’Amato that had appeared under this headline:
Harold Russell: Yes, Luisa it’s interesting that Canadian governments have chosen to not celebrate the Coronation in any significant way. Media surveys tell us a majority of Canadians don’t care. I wonder why? Perhaps because of the media reporting?
Yes I care; I’m a quiet monarchist, I don’t wear it on my sleeve or shout it out loud. But I believe in the benefits and links of our connection to the historic crown based in Britain but evolved to Canada. Our history is inevitably linked to the United Kingdom and its institutions; crown, parliament and judicial system. We evolved peacefully from colony to Dominion to the Nation of Canada in which we live. The head of state is vested in the Monarch, above politics. We’ve been fortunate to avoid the excesses of the republican system in the United States in the last half decade. I believe our system moderates the partisanship which tears apart the great American Republic.
We in Canada have one of the strongest democracies in the world, tempered by time, adversity and smoothly functioning—why subject it to the stress of constitutional revision when there are infinitely more important issues at hand! Like it or not our tradition as part of the once British Empire includes the tradition of monarchical succession; it’s something to be proud of, to revel in our deep history of centuries!
In the matter of leadership, the long view is important. As a youth I recall the alliance against the evil of Hitler’s Europe when King George VI, a figurehead above the government led by Churchill. Later we were thrilled to watch through the technology of the time the coronation of a young Queen Elizabeth II and celebrated it at Kitchener-Waterloo Collegiate Institute (yes, we went all out seventy years ago). As a young man I was proud to accept the Queen’s commission in the Canadian Army Militia and served for twenty-four years. We wear badges topped with the crown and serve in units prefixed with the “Royal” title. Through seventy years we took pride in the example of service shown by our late queen. I’m proud to raise a glass to Charles III, and proclaim God Save the King of Canada! And yes, I’ll be watching one of the great pageants of our lifetime on May 6th, the Coronation of our king.
Marinus de Groot: I'm also an undemonstrative, but thoroughly convinced supporter of parliamentary monarchy in Canada. It is mostly symbolic, but we can be grateful for anything that helps set us apart from the revolutionary presidential republicanism dominant throughout the hemisphere, and in most of the rest of the world.
There are only a few ceremonial constitutional monarchies in the world; anyone who can claim citizenship in any one of them can consider themselves fortunate. Look at any top ten or twenty countries list -- happiest, best places to live, healthiest, most prosperous -- it is likely that more than half will be democratic monarchies. No other political form can come close to this kind of success rate.
For me, the crown is a symbol of peaceful transition, progressive continuity, and an infinitely complex range of inter-continental, intergenerational, intercultural and multi-ethnic connections, of which England and Scotland are just two among many. Oaths and loyalties are optional. Understanding, appreciation and respect cannot be forced on anyone, individually or collectively. With regard to the leavers -- the separatist American states, Ireland, Nigeria, Pakistan, India, South Africa, Barbados to name just a few -- that's their prerogative. As long as there's no more killing, it’s fine with me.
It is not surprising, nor particularly disturbing, that there is no public celebration. This is a community where only 20% of the residents cared enough to come out to vote in the last municipal election. This is a city where, given the choice between that magnificent City Hall decked out for the last coronation in your photo and some new retail options, they voted for a shopping centre. This is a city where, when it reached the 150th anniversary of incorporation, people either forgot or couldn’t be bothered to plan any kind of celebration. I don't mind; I love my city all the same.
There are also some personal associations: The new King is just six days younger than I am. He’s the oldest of four; I’m the first born among eight. Both our fathers were tall and handsome; his lived almost 40 years longer than mine was able to. Charles lost his mother recently, while mine is still alive and well. Long may he live; God save us all.
Harold: Thanks … . We've come to the same place, slightly different route.
Marinus: Mine has been a long, winding road. I almost got expelled from high school for refusing, in solidarity with my Québécois best friend from the air force base, to stand up for God Save the Queen. How we rejoiced when the Union Jack came down and the new Canadian flag went up the pole. He was also an air cadet and ended up joining the armed forces, while I was one of the first kids in Trenton High School to grow my hair long and become a "freak," as we called ourselves.
I started doubting the wisdom of following the U.S. path to self-determination during the patriation of the Constitution process. But it was Mike Harris and his Common Sense Revolution that turned me around completely. I’ve become what I like to call a neo-loyalist, or a conservatory progressive, which can be defined as the total opposite of what masquerades as conservatism nowadays, here in Canada, in the separatist republic down below, and even in neo-separatist England, the once mighty imperial metropole. I stay loyal, not out of any lingering reverence for British ways and means, but because I think Canada, with Ontario leading, still has a chance to rise above all that, and we may end up having to take care of those two doddering empires we're so intimately connected with.
Harold: Growing up in the war years the patriotism then was incomprehensible to what we know today, I was an Anglophile as most of us were. I remember as a youth writing my first letter to the editor on how God Save the King should be preserved as the National Anthem. As I matured, studied history and current events (Suez, for example) I realized that the imperial connection was not without fault and that we Canadians offered something mature and different from our United Kingdom brethren. So when PM Pearson unveiled the new Canadian flag in 1965 I welcomed it fully. My family were a mix of long-time resident Canadians, Pennsylvania-Deutsch Mennonites originally, on one side and Scots-English on the other. As a history teacher I loved teaching British history and even more visiting the United Kingdom, meeting my wife’s cousins and enriching our experience in the process. So I appreciate our national growth, I studied and taught the historic evolution of our independence (Statute of Westminster/WLM King and all that). But I deeply embrace our British heritage, and honour its role in what we’ve become today. The parliamentary monarchy is central to that.
Marinus: Interesting. For complicated reasons, I ended up studying and teaching the origins and evolution of the United States of America, but from a Canadian perspective, and always fully aware of how important knowledge of British heritage is for a mature understanding of anglophone culture and society continent-wide.
That note of Canadian bravado in my last paragraph about doddering empires and how we may, as the 21st century unfolds, end up coming to their rescue, is a recent development. I’m not interested in settling scores or stirring up conflicts that have been dormant for centuries. On the contrary; I’m looking for peace, real peace, the kind that comes through reconciliation rather than victory.
As the first quarter of the 21st century draws to a close, it is clear that some adjustments are needed in how human beings relate to one another, and how we relate to our earthly home. And it is obvious to me that peaceful transition, progressive continuity and global interconnectedness are far more promising than anger, violence, revolution and separation.
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The last two segments in this exchange are actually a postscript, added by email, not to the social media thread, which ended with this request:
Marinus: Harold, Would it be OK if I posted our exchange on monarchy on my "Evening Muse" substack newsletter? I might clean up the text here and there, and I can send you a draft so you can do the same.
Harold: I'd be delighted if you would Martin!
Marinus: Wonderful.