MARCH 30, 1983

THE OTHER Press ) (OTHER EDITORIAL) * PAGE s

 

 

 

Alice in LizLand

Dear Sir:

‘“‘Hold your tongue! said the Queen turning
pus: “I won’t’’ said Alice. ‘‘Off with her
ead’’ the Queen shouted at the top of her
voice. Nobody moved. ‘‘Who cares for you?”’
said Alice (she had grown to her full size by
yoo time). ‘‘You’re nothing but a pack of
cards...”

According to expert bio and psychological
opinion there is usually a moment of great
awareness preceding complete wakefulness
from dream or Soaked sleep. This then was
that mement for Alice. Suddenly she was con-
scious, free from the fantasies of Wonderland.
With a few short words she had dismissed from
her real world the comique regal caricatures
with their zany entourage of funny timorous
beasties. What a simply perfect conclusion to a
truly bizarre experience. ‘‘You’re nothing but a
pack of cards.’’ ’in drawing this analogy to
certain events which took place just recently in
B.C. one must agree that although purple is
supposed to be the Royal colour of England’s
first family, Queen Elizabeth would not liter-
ally have turned that colour, nor would she
S ecially at the top of her voice) have deman-

ed Alice’s head. Furthermore it would also be

incorrect to say as Alice did ‘‘Who cares for.

you?’’ because obviously there were in fact
some people who did care. Apart from that
however the analogy is pre-eminently apros.
It only there had been a truly Canadian Alice to
have uttered those profoundly poignant words
during those extremely bizarre happenings of
this last while in B.C. But then, incomprehen-
sible as it is, the republic of both Mexico and
the good old U.S. of A. were also enveloped in

the same extraordinary perambulating; phant- —

asmagoria as was B.C. The rest of the world
must have gazed with stunned dismay as it
watched to what lowly degree of supine gulla-
billity the peoples of North America were re-
duced by the awful persuasiveness of a con-
sumately artful but totally slavish media con-
trolled completely by a small unscrupulously
powerful clique and its sleezy minions.

What the world also saw was Canada once
again suffer the humiliation of being brought
down to the demenaing status of a puppet
nation, merely to placate and satisfy the miser-
able schemes of blackmailer; masquerading
under the sullied title of ‘‘Loyalists’’. But that
was not all. It saw as well what can only be
described as the most blatantly ostentatious
flaunting of unbridled privilege and vulgar
panoply by Royal untouchables since Henry the
Kight’s ‘‘Field of the clothe of gold’’. This was
not merely ill-disguised vanity. It was in the
light of suffering millions in Britain, Canada,
the U.S.A. and elsewhere, nothing short of
inconscionable provation. Haughty indiffer-
ence to the sensibilities of others, a cold act of
opportunism on a truly ‘‘Majestic’’ scale and
calcd to take advantage of all the pervad-
ing demands laid upon ordinary people by the
stresses of today’s world. How can the harass-
ed and worried pause to consider if they are
being robbed or totally dispossessed when
what was mundane has now become so all
consuming of their senses. Never in the history
of territorial agrandisement and aquisition was
such a sizeable piece of real estate so blandly
or more easily annexed and handed over with
such docile servility; As witnessed by an un-
believing world during this time of Canada’s
national shame. If all this was not hideous
enough, we must still needs listen to the pra-
ting of certain so-called news commentators
and columnists, who are actually agents prov-
ocateurs and the avant garde of the ee
tell us that a monarchy is some kind of special
heavenly blessing bestowed on us in human
guise, and that it will cost us nothing; because

m ve

 

voluntarily and out of sheer goodness of heart
agreed to pay the shot. What an unutterably
rotten and base appeal to rank national par-
simony; and what a danmable baretaced lie. If
sustained it will cost us everything; not the
least of which will be our self esteem and
estes in the eyes of every other nation on
earth,

Henceforth no one in the presence of honour-
able people could boast of being a Canadian for
there would be no merit in such a claim. Only
embarrassment, mockery and derision.Fortun-
ately in all this there is a consoling thought that
despite human frailty, cowardice or even self-
abasement, nature herself will right what is
contrary to natural design.

History is eloquent with this truism. the an-
cient Roman who advised Caesar to ‘‘give the
restive populous circuses’ would look with
amazement on the scale and extravagence of
this latter day royal circus and proclaim it to be
the circus of all circuses.’ He would also smile
knowingly, understanding full well that what
lurked behind the reason for such circuses was
a pulsating fear and deep insecurity.
‘“‘Tempori prarvendum’’ he would try to warn
‘‘One must yield to the times’’. He would recall
that even in his day of transitory glory and
power this artifice failed dismally to alter what
nature had already decreed. If one may use
another anology, Queen Elizabeth the second
of England etc. will no more succeed with a
smile, be it never so charming, to turn the tide
of change than did the silly vanglorious King
Canute with his whip in bygone days. If there
was a choice involved, and perhaps there
wasn’t, Queen Elizabeth ehaild never have

allowed herself to become the cat’s-paw of a

misrepresentative cabal of detractors from
Canada’s national identity and self determin-
ation by declaiming herself Queen of Canada.

Especially in a sport arena of all places! Paid
for incidentally with the nickels and dimes of
ordinary Canadians. Without a single penny
being subscribed to it from her own consider-
able personal fortune. It was neither sporting
or dignified of her to do so, and presumptious
in the extreme to add insult to injury by then
inviting all nations to visit our 1986 Expo. By so
doing she implied in a way which didn’t broach
of any misunderstanding that though Cana-
dians can be depended upon to pay for things,
they didn’t really have the ability to run a show
or communicate their ideas to the rest of the
world. It must now be assumed that regardless
of whatever financial sacrifices demanded or
how prodigious the efforts made by local yokels
to make the enterprise a success, it will, if
successful, be ascribed to her personal involve-
ment. Just suppose however that ‘‘Divine in-
tervention’’ or whatever should intervene and
put a ‘‘Damper on things as it seemed to have
done during the earlier stages of her recent

grande-tour-What then? Should we not now be -

looking around tor a scape-goat, just in case?

Most everyone seems to agree that Queen
Elizabeth is a very proper and well intended
lady, which leads one to believe she was un-
wittingly manipulated into these invidious and
trouble primed situations by people with baser
intentions. She is also, we are given to under-
stand, a very intelligent person; and another
that she has not allowed herself to be deluded
into thinking that those who came out to wave
and cheer or merely gawk constituted to any
appreciable degree a true reflection of Cana-
dian desire for a permanent monarchist status
in this part of the North American hemisphere.
She is of course not so much to blame for trying
to frustrate the inevitable as are the faceless
behind the scene manipulators. Neither can:
she really be censured for not wishing to look a
gift horse in the face. In this case the dullard

 

faces of a small maverick herd of braying
Canadian jackasses. She knows, probably bet-
ter than most, the British Monarchyset up is
not in any way suitable or applicable to Canada
and is infact hardly applicable to Britain any
more. That is if that nation wants to retain any
credibility in what is left of the 20th century.
She knows that the British Monarchy set up is
an outmoded anacronism. It is in essence a sort
of inflated tribal cultism with an indemic weak-
ness which must bring about its demise. It is
based on a myth. A myth which no doubt has
seen better days, and at times even great and
glorious days. But when a myth is perceived to
be just that and nothing else, its days are
numbered. The only other mileage it’s going to
get is by coasting down hill. That really is what
all this elaborate superbly orchestrated, un-
iversally publicized contenental extravaganza
was all about. It was put on primarily to con the
justifiably cynical and much tried British
people into believing that the Monarchy with
its huge assemblage of Princes, Princesses,
Dukes, Earls, Lords, Barons, Knights, Squires,
etc. and so forth, are still an essential element
or ingredient in the British composition. That
they are seen by the world as imperative to
Briain’s survival as a nation.

What is not so greatly trumpeted, indeed it is
more greatly muted, is the cost in much more
than money to the ordinary Briton, to sustain
this illusion. Another hushed up related sub-
ject is the number of this gentry who have over
the years been assiduously working their vast
fortunes (which their titles alone have man-
aged to amass for them) into land purchases
and business enterprises in the republic of the
U.S.A. and other non-monarchist area, not to
mention Canada and Australia, in anticipation
of that proverbial ‘“‘Rainy Day’’. The question
can be asked ‘‘But why did the Americans lean
over backwards in accomodating this ‘‘Great-
est show on earth’’. The answer is simple. It
was partly Reagan’s vanity and partly because
they, the Americans bought the big lie of
‘‘Love me, love my dog’’. That British alliance
is dependent on the status quo. That the Mon-
archy set up is inextricably synonymous with
Britain per se. This misconception might well
prove to the Achilles Heel of all Ronald
Regan’s most important policies. There are
also other convuluting considerations in the
U.S.A’s eagerness to be “‘nice’’ to Britain,
even at the expense of insulting the very
principles on which the U.S.A. was founded, or
alienating the whole of the South Americas by
helping Britain against Argentina on the mat-
ter of a few small almost barren rocks off the
Argentinian coast. There is a deep waryness of
‘British Diplomatic’’ ‘‘Political and other
types of games’’ in the international relation
sphere, this, despite all the apostulations to the
contrary on ‘either side. Indeed some very
important U.S. Government authorities act-
ually think they see a design and purpose to the
continued military and defense leaks from Brit-
ain to the Soviet Union over a longer period
than 30 years. They do not see it as regretably
poor security. But because of the timing and
seriousness of these spy disclosures it suggests
to them a historical relationship with England’s
old and skillful balancing of international power
Which, if so, is utter insanity and would add a
new and more anathemtized dimension to the
old Scottish phrase ‘‘Perfidios Albion’. It
could of course be only just paranoia on their
part. Like singing ‘‘God Save the Queen”’ is on
the part of some other people.

From Tom Phillips

ae