Skip to main content

Modern monarchy.

To any monarchist reading this, I want to tell you that monarchy is not dead. Monarchy, I believe, is still the most natural & most tried & tested forms of governance. 

Many people seem to think the concept of monarchy is just one man ordering everyone around, while that is the case, it is not the full picture. I believe that MONARCHY IS AN INSTITUTION. While the king can remove & replace anyone from their political positions, there are still norms in a land & depending on how advanced the written law of the land is; these norms are usually a collective, unwritten agreement with the national community or written down in legislature. 
Now, before a king is born & even during when he is a prince - there are known laws in the land & depending on how useful they are to the greater public, the king can choose to alter, do away with or add new laws. Remember, the king governs a nation & his well-being depends how well-governed the land & nation are. A king that alienates the masses & leaves the masses dissatisfied, is doomed. So while people think monarchy is just some arrogant guy having his way with everything, he only commands everything to ensure the land is well & satisfied thus ensuring his comfort & stable life. You will notice that eccentric, arrogant & obnoxious kings are disliked in history yet sensible, reasonable kings are the subject of admiration & high praises. This is because the while the king is the "natural ruler", he is not the only person in the land. 

Therefore, a monarchy - at best - needs to be an institution with laws surrounding it & enforcers of such laws. This is to prevent a self-destructive king who seeks to destroy the nation & land from succeeding. While the king should be immune from legal punishment in general, it should not be to the mass-scale downfall of the people & nation he governs. A king's privileges cannot come at the price of the destruction of the nation or land he governs & most sensible king's know that. The king's privileges & laws surrounding the monarchy ensure that a king's role is stable & seldom out of place. 


KINGS & WAR

In antiquity, the king led the army into important wars as a requirement. A force defying the law of the land defied the king himself & the king would have to address the problem personally. If he is defeated & the country he created is defeated - he dies for & with the land he created rather than a king who sends an army & the army loses morale without the king's leadership. And if the kings forces are defeated, he is left without a part of his army, vulnerable in his home rather than if he were at the frontline of battle commanding his forces. 

Now, a king could lose a war & not die falling unto the rule of another foreign entity. In this case, he may as well no longer be a king at all but an object of contempt & ridicule for the rest of his days. This is why conquered or defeated kings were killed or they fled their former land. If they did not flee, they are renamed "pretenders" of a no longer existing kingdom in the English language or relegated to a regional chief in a greater kingdom/empire.

Of course, kings have trusted generals who they send to command the army & it is only if the country is under threat of genuine invasion or collapse that the king would need to take himself to the frontline of the battle himself. Today, leaders (presidents, prime ministers etc.) send militaries but never go to fight the war themselves & while it's the norm because of how disconnected leadership has become to the people in cosmopolitan lands, it still leaves room for the question of cowardice & sending young men to die while you live in comfort. Not the qualities that earned admiration in antiquity. 


P. S. African kings do not wear Eurocentric golden crowns with encrusted gems & diamonds.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The problem with a single African currency.

Preword: It's funny because one of the main reasons I found the courage to blog on African matters was due to a West African(?) gentleman who proposed the concept of a said "swal" & "zul" as a continental African currency in a blog. His boldness & conviction in his idea just captivated me & today I have to debunk this idea of his. But, hopefully, Africa sees why. African technologies & financial solutions Oh, Africa. We are so romantic; "United States of Africa", "Single African currency", "African unity", "Ubuntu"... all these fluffy, lovey-dovey concepts that will be ripped to shreds in the globalised world.  I debunked why a United States of Africa would likely collapse as soon as it sees the light of day. Today, I will debunk the concept of a "Single African currency" & explain why it would leave our enemies salivating.  I can't blame people who like stuff like United States of Africa...
Post a Comment
Read more

A viable single African currency concept.

The original reason why I believe a single African currency would not work. Below is how we could attempt to make it work.  The many currencies of Africa. To prevent destabilization of the continent's economy, there could be two currencies: The Lami  for countries lying mostly north of the equator & the Ng'ombe  for countries mostly south of the equator. Both currencies would be independent with the Lami having it's bank & headquarters in Addis Ababa while the Ng'ombe could have it's bank & headquarters in Nairobi.  N.B.: Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville, DRC & Kenya would use the Ng'ombe currency while Uganda & Somalia would use the Lami currency.  North of equator = Lami  South of equator = Ng'ombe   More stable countries with higher GDP per capita could be first to use the new currencies i.e. Seychelles, Mauritius, Gabon, Botswana, Libya, Equatorial Guinea, South Africa, Algeria, Na...
Post a Comment
Read more

What did King Shaka look like?

I've heard some people quoting from King Shaka's praises claiming that he was "like the sun" therefore light-skinned. But I'd like to ask how comparisons with the sun equate with being light-skinned? If anything, if King Shaka was light-skinned, they'd compare him to something terrestrial like the colour of a cow hide, wood or other object because very few extraterrestrial objects have the colour of any human skin. Even white people are called "ondlebe zikhanya ilanga" ('those who have translucent ears") & not  "abakhanya okwelanga" ("those who shine like the sun"). King Shaka's mother was from Elangeni & there is the Langa clan in KZN, all of them are black with many being exceptionally dark-skinned so I don't think the comparisons comparing King Shaka with the sun have anything to do with his complexion. Even the whites who first saw him & drew him wrote that he was dark & fairly tall. I also don...
Post a Comment
Read more