And what should they know of England who only England know?
- R. Kipling, The English Flag
When it reaches full maturity, the Kauri tree grows out of its conically shaped crown. But in order to reach this maturity, the Kauri requires shelter, water, sunlight and fertile soil. To grow the Kauri must outstrip its sheltering trees, and yet it still requires such trees to protect its roots.
Dr Swift has responded to my
previous post on the issue of the bedrock of republican sentiment in New Zealand, putting a key question I apparently didn't answer (well, it was an inarticulate post after all) on the nature of republicanism in New Zealand.
"What is republicanism? Is it a negation of Britishness? Or is it an affirmation
of New Zealandness? And how much of what it means to live, to be, and to love
here, do we owe to those long dead, the protectors, the guardians, and the
ancestors, of our liberty?"
It is on this, I am sure, that Dr Swift and I essentially disagree. I see republicanism as an affirmation of "New Zealandness" (which of course includes all the advantages of formerly being a British colony) rather than a negation of our former Britishness. Given that our British ancestors once abolished the monarchy themselves, whittled away its powers and created modern parliamentary democracy (and many weren't all to keen on the institution during the Victorian era), I don't think we owe our ancestors anything regarding the monarchy, or any part of our constitution.
Dr Swift sees New Zealand as a branch of a larger British tree; something that will rot and die if cut off from its trunk:
"… when it comes to remembering who made it what it is, I would prefer it that
the branch, the happy, green and flourishing branch, did not rip itself from the
tree, just to prove that it can."
Without challenging the assertion that the change of electing a New Zealand head of state instead of having a British one by default is cutting all links to Pakeha New Zealanders ancestry, and New Zealand’s history as a British colony, this proposition is, to be frank, ludicrous. The analogy of New Zealand as a branch of a British tree simply isn't correct. If it were, the it is the British who have been cutting our "branch" for the last 160 years, New Zealand has only made small, reluctant moves. But since we're using the analogy of trees I contend that our development should be seen more like the growth of a Kauri tree, as I've outlined above (with that awful pun about the Crown). So first, the question of maturity. Dr Swift states:
"In childhood, we hang upon apron strings. In teenage years, we rebel, retract,
remove, repeal, and differentiate ourselves from our parents. And in maturity,
we look upon our parents with affection, seeing their flaws, and embracing them
with kindness. So it is with our heritage. We can rebel, and glory in the fact
that we are Not-Britian, we can stand-on-our-own two feet."
Dr Swift appears to consider his country as only being in its teenage years, and republicanism as an adolescent rebellion against our "parents" - the British. I cannot agree with this view - the desire to have our own head of state is more like the desire almost everyone has to find a place of their own (although, to be fair, New Zealand is really living in the sleep out at the back, not in the house as such). It's not because we're rebelling against our parents, it's just that we'd rather not have to share the kitchen. It makes us look immature, even though we clearly aren't.
In fact because it's about having a head of state of our own we actually desire to be like our parents. And like any other young adult, we'll still have almost all of the good characteristics our parents gave us - Parliamentary democracy, the rule of law, a constitution of checks and balances... the English language, a British common law legal system. To suggest otherwise is nothing more than baseless speculation. Sadly, that is what Dr Swift then slips into, making some superlative assertions (and some unrelated statements about foreign policy) on the effect of abolishing the monarchy in New Zealand:
"When he has knocked down the most potent binding forces which hold us together in union; when he has divorced us from our history, ripped the fabric of our constitution beyond repair, and replaced the Queen, and all she represents with, say, Jim Bolger as our first President, does he really think that Uncle Spud will be the same?"
I am constantly amazed at the extent to which supporters of the monarchy attribute New Zealand's nationhood, and the stability of our constitution, to the institution; and claim that the monarchy is an essential part of on links to our history and traditions being part of the British Empire, and the wider "Anglosphere". To paraphrase the much maligned Mr Bolger (Oh, I'm not going to bother negating that silly 'A republic means a politician for President!' argument
yet again), that is nonsense. New Zealanders of Dutch ancestry don't need a Dutch head of state to vindicate their personal links to Holland, neither do Irish, Chinese, Russian or German New Zealanders. Whether we have a monarchy or not doesn't change the fact that I have family links to the United Kingdom, to suggest that it does is crazy. A republic is not a divorce from our history, you cannot divorce yourself from history. You can, however, learn from it. Sadly, there is no end to these sorts of claims being made against republicanism. Australian republican
Robert Hughes once put it rhetorically:
"Do they [the monarchists] imagine that, if our head of state is an Australian, we will cease to speak English? That our shared and native tongue will collapse into pidgin forms of Croatian or Tagalog? That Australian school kids will be forced to abandon The Man from Snowy River and memorise, instead, long slabs of the Ramayana? That the few remaining Georgian and high Victorian buildings in Australia that escaped being torn down by developers later knighted by Bob Askin in the '50s and '60s will now be demolished and replaced by circular thatched huts? What's all this twaddle about?"
Then we have the issue of whether the monarchy itself is actually part of Britian's identity. I would argue (with backing from Scottish constitutional law professor
Adam Tomkins') that the definitive characteristic of Britain's national identity is the strength of its Parliamentary democracy; the very tradition of Cabinet government Walter Bagehot credited with preserving the monarchy by being the "efficient secret" of the British constitution. No republican wants to abandon this institution because it is, at its heart, a republican institution with some useless monarchist finery attached.
Further, the key tradition in the British constitution for the last three hundred years has been the gradual move of executive power downwards from the Sovereign to Parliament, and hence the elected representatives of the British people. The "fabric" of our constitution is not the monarchy, it is the institution of Parliament; the Crown is simply the cog – turned at the behest of the Commons – to give effect to its decisions. Certainly the legal conception of New Zealand’s government rests on the fact that New Zealand is a monarchy, but there is no reason to say (as is the case in almost every other republic around the world) that the legal edifice of the Crown cannot be replaced by an elected New Zealand head of state.
Next, the issue of national identity:
"Does he really think that the national story of the emerging Enzed identity, the
narrative of Not-Britain, the idea that whatever we are, Asian, Pacific, post-colonial, whatever, we are Mature and Confident As A Nation All Out Here On Our Own Two Feet (tm); do you really think it will exert the same pull, the same love, the same hallowedness of custom as the Queen does? As the personification of the nation, does he think we will see the like of the Crown again, once it is gone?"
Well, on the last point it is a matter of principle - republicans believe in political equality, and so reject the notion that the Crown, or any individual who gains their political office by genetic lottery, personifies New Zealand. But a nation is not an individual; republicans view all citizens as politically equal. Indeed, this is really the view of the wider New Zealand community - why else does a good number of New Zealanders bemoan the Maori seats? Political equality, that's why.
Dr Swift's view is that the "Enzed identity" that he derides is by definition "Not-Britain". Again, this is nonsense. It is much the same - and is as true as - the claim that New Zealand republicanism is inherently anti-British. Nor is the "Enzed identity" something that has been constructed in the last thirty years. It is something that has grown from the soils made fertile by Britain; it is British by heritage. A republic is not going to change that, it is simply to affirm what we've become, it is not to deny where we've come from, it is to set out and state clearly to the world where we're going.
