I happened to stumble on an article about the tragic fate of Sophie Chotek.
The beautiful daughter of an impoverished aristocratic family attracts the attention and later becomes romantically involved with the heir of one of the most important European thrones of the time. Looks like a prequel for ‘Love Story’, right? … only worse, unfortunately. The reigning Monarch wasn’t happy about the whole thing and, to make things worse, ‘the law’ wouldn’t allow their union.
After huge complications that involved the intervention of Kaiser Wilhelm II, Tsar Nicholas II and Pope Leo XIII in favour of the ‘young lovers’ Emperor Franz Joseph gave in and yielded to the marriage, on condition that the children of the couple will not be able to inherit the throne and that the bride will never be treated as a queen or attend official functions at the side of her future husband.
And the worse was yet to come. After 14 years, to a day, of happy marriage both she and Franz Ferdinand, her husband, were assassinated together in Sarajevo.
Reading about the treatment she had to endure cannot but make me wonder about why would modern democracies still ‘entertain’ royal courts? Specially after what happened to Lady Di…
So?
Well… It’s not so easy to dismiss the fact that some of the most successful nations, by any standards, are exactly those that have managed to balance the survival of the monarchy with ‘full blown’ democratic government. Not only in Europe.
Great Britain, Sweden, The Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Thailand, Japan … There must be something here!
Two things constitute the common denominator between these countries, besides being run as constitutional monarchies. They have all found their own road to democracy/rule of law and they had traveled this road in a relatively peaceful manner. Don’t be fooled by the fact that Japan had been ‘opened’ up by Matthew Perry and then defeated in the WWII. The Japanese emperor had been powerless since long before Perry and the ‘fathers’ of the Meiji Constitution might have been inspired by the German Imperial one but the transformation was instrumented by the Japanese politicians themselves, not by nor after being prodded by a ‘foreign power’. Furthermore by 1915 the Japanese Constitution was modified to include universal male suffrage.
Meanwhile the XX-th century has witnessed a very mixed performance by the rest of the democracies, with the notable exception of the US. No, I haven’t forgotten Canada, Australia or New Zealand. They are constitutional monarchies too.
Latin America. I don’t think you’re going to dispute the fact that there is no single nation inhabiting this part of the world which hasn’t ‘enjoyed’ at least a few years of dictatorship that has started with ‘free elections’.
Africa. Until very recently there wasn’t a single functional democracy on this continent.
Asia. With the notable exception of India – which has inherited strong democratic values from her imperial power and enjoys special circumstances – no other real democracy besides Thailand and Japan until very recently.
Europe, the birth place of democracy. Hitler and Mussolini were democratically elected before becoming two of the most horrendous dictators in the history of humankind. Eastern Europe countries, including Russia, were governed for many decades as ‘popular democracies’. In reality they were ruled by oligarchies which were hiding their criminal nature behind ideological smoke screens.
Any explanation for this?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/28/1310194/–Franzi-and-Soph-the-personal-tragedy-that-sparked-WWI#
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/373298/Meiji-Constitution
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This film (The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II) offers, even if in a heavily veiled manner, some explanation.
What I made of it is that as long as the reigning monarch understands that his/hers role is simply to make sure that nobody becomes so powerful as to be able so single-handedly rock the boat than everything is OK. And if this doesn’t happen then the other two powers must step in to remind him/her of the duty that must be performed.
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Check out the last picture.
When was the last time when you saw a president or a PM having his picture taken in the middle of those who served him at an official function?
And no, I’m not a royalist. I just respect what the institution (constitutional monarchy) has done for us all.
http://www.romaniaregala.ro/jurnal/dineu-regal-cu-ocazia-zilei-de-10-mai/
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[…] este exercitata de fapt de catre parlamente, chiar si acolo unde nominal este reprezentata de monarhi constitutionali. Daca ar fi sa ne luam dupa principiul care functionase pana atunci ar trebui ca toate guvernele sa […]
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