The Windsor Monarchy within an independent Scotland II - from Scotia 20/08/00
George Kerevan in The Scotsman this week suggested that the monarchy has an impact on the self-image of people in run down schemes in central Scotland and should be eliminated for that reason in an independent Scotland. There is no reason why that has to be the case. In Canada, a commonwealth state with a nominal RC majority, the monarchy is still technically alive and kicking. The change in my pocket has her Brittanic majesty's profile on the back, the stamps from the post office and even many government offices have her portrait. Unlike in Australia however there is not much interest in or pressure for change as nobody is really particularly bothered about it as no Prime Minister has ever been removed from power Gough Whittlam style. Canada basically functions as a republic in all but name by simply ignoring the Royal Family as a quaint faintly ridiculous anachronism that people obsess about in the UK as they are basically all still living in the past to a certain extent. In Canada people see clearly that the Royal Family soap opera is just a smokescreen for the powers that be in the UK which serves to divert people's attentions from more important political matters that actually influence their daily lives. This only works in a UK context because the media is willing to play along with the establishment in sustaining it with TV news coverage of all the Royal tours and visits both around the UK and overseas along with the latest pontificating by the Duke of Edinbugh, Prince Charles or Princess Anne. In Canada the media usually barely mentions the Windsors at all as the powers that be basically want to ignore them and build a Canada in which they are not a key factor in Canadian identity. After you've lived in Canada for a few years it all starts to appear a bit comical watching the occassional news clip of all the outdated pomp and ceremony from back home but all that no doubt still seems normal when you live in the UK and you are bombarded with it constantly from all the major media outlets.
In an independent Scotland I'm sure it would eventually be much the same as in Canada even if after a referendum the Windsors were retained as the whole process of building a new state would entail a new sense of identity in which they could no longer be the centre of obsessive media attention. At that point people would finally realise that in the current scenario the only thing that is of any real importance is that Tony Blair is allowed to be and actually is married to an RC, is able to regularly attend mass with her and raise his children as RC's. He actually does something which in practical terms is important. His government controls the state through parliament which determines the state budget, the entire legal system of England, Wales and NI and parts of Scotland's, determines the nature of the UK constitution and its relationship with the rest of the European Union and world community. The fact that the reigning monarch possibly couldn't do those things because of the situation in the rump UK wouldn't matter much to anybody (as is the case currently in Canada) once people in Scotland were able to get their heads around the fact that the whole institution in practical terms is a meaningless anachronism which doesn't actually do anything practical, has no genuinely meaningful powers and therefore doesn't deserve to be taken all that seriously. People in the UK are basically brainwashed by the powers that be through the media into seeing the monarchy as being something of actual important just as it genuinely was back before 1688. It isn't now but all the people who showed up at Buckingham Palace for Princess Di's funeral or in the past for Royal Weddings obviously see these events as pivotal moments in UK history. If/when Scotland becomes like Canada in its approach to the monarchy and ceases to see things in those terms it will have mentally freed itself from one of the most negative and retrograde aspects of current British society by becoming (unlike the UK which is very much the only major hold-over from pre-national Europe) a normal modern state in which the major public focus and scrutiny is on the politicians not on royalty.
Tom Nairn was spot on in his book The Enchanted Glass (?) about what was wrong with the UK but I think he overemphasised the importance of becoming a republic to remedy it. There are still clan chiefs in Scotland but it is of no great cultural importance or political relevance as their power through the clan system has gone and their clansmen pay no attention to them unless they are North American wannabes. In the UK the monarch has lost his/her real power but is still important as the subjects are still socialized from a young age into paying obsessive attention to him/her. Canada OTOH is a normal modern state because that attention is now also almost absent. In Canada it would be regarded as slightly eccentric to kick up a huge fuss over the discrimination in the Act of Succession as the monarchy is basically an irrelevance. Roll on the days that Scotland is like that and the elected polticians are the main focus of intense public scrutiny as it should be in any normal modern democratic state. If it helps people adjust to the new reality, however, keeping the Windsors post-independence would be no big deal IMO and may even be beneficial if it gives some people a sense of continuity with the past.