Spain has spoken: voilá

But figureheads must do more

Image: Screenshot from the 1963 film Jason and the Argonauts showing the Argo’s figurehead, the goddess Hera.

Spain, once the epitome of everything that’s bad about imperialism, has spoken out against imperialism. It has sent stalwart protection for the aid flotilla en route to Palestine. Its king has spoken vociferously against Israel at our United Nations. In giving teeth to words of international condemnation, Spain is leading the way, with Greece, and an ambivalent Italy (it’s sending naval support, but its prime minister can’t resist indulging in political rhetoric). We now live in a world in which white flags need to be protected with guns: well, Israel did gun down three of its own who’d emerged from Gaza’s rubble bearing just such a flag. Tell me that that’s not indicative of paranoia.

There was a time when I tended towards republicanism. I still do, but I don’t tend towards America’s. I saw kings and queens as outdated, presumptuous and ineffective.¹ If a constitutional monarch has no tangible power, then why do they need tangible wealth? What is the point of a king or queen who figures on banknotes and postage stamps but cannot determine policy? Who acts as the vessel’s figurehead, whilst someone else entirely has their hand on the tiller.

Aft, and in control, is a skipper. Most of them these days increasingly lust after the order of wealth enjoyed by the figurehead, and direct its face towards policy ends that promise it, and do so with the acquiescence or encouragement (it can be hard to determine which) of that figurehead. Meanwhile, all the figurehead can do—we are reassuringly told—is be told the compass heading, and to warn of looming storm clouds but, otherwise, where the vessel goes, it goes.

In Greek mythology, the goddess Hera, mother of Mars, god of war, gave advice and counsel to Jason as he captained the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece, a quest that ultimately proved fruitless, if successful. I won’t say that Hera was anything comparable to King Felipe, but they had similar functions, if not similar powers: to aid and abet through counsel. And occasionally to solicit the assistance of other gods: so where is King Charles in all of this?

This year on our national holiday, 21 July, King Philippe of the Belgians broke protocol somewhat by speaking out against the disgrace to all humanity that had unfolded in Palestine. When Belgian air force personnel returned from dropping food aid, for which the C130 transport planes had taken off over my own house, they lamented how little it had been, but that they were at least pleased to have done what they could. Whilst many have railed against the obscenity that is Israel’s policy towards Palestine, against the express American support for this annihilation (Finish them off?), and against Keir Starmer’s stiff upper lip of insouciance towards the carnage, reflecting perfectly, to a T, the insouciance shown by his predecessors towards Armenia in 1915 (just two years prior to the infamous Balfour Declaration, which accorded such free rein to the Zionists²), little to no attention has been paid to the opposition put up by the little folk. By Belgium, by Ireland, and by Spain. Now we see the rush to recognise the Palestinian state. But where is the support for building it? Who will build it once Israel is done?

The rich can build it. Felipe’s words blew me away. But I would have been blown into the middle of next week if he and his fellow crowned heads had said, The entire crown fortunes of Spain, of Norway, of Sweden, of the United Kingdom, of Belgium, of the Netherlands, of Liechtenstein, of Luxembourg, of Eswatini, of Thailand, of Canada and of Australia, of Trinidad and Tobago, of Aruba and Curaçao … if the crowned heads of the world had put punch behind their words, for once, to make constitutional monarchs worthy of the name: to found a constitution that screams to the world: we will do what it takes to preserve justice on this planet. That is monarchy’s new calling, and it will succeed. As we lament the hijack of republicanism in the United States, civilised monarchy should now be showing the way, and what better one to gain the sympathies of downtrodden peoples across the planet?

And then I woke up. I wasn’t in the middle of next week any more. The room was applauding and I clapped with them, though I wasn’t sure why. Ah, yes: a speech by a king in a grand assembly.

I looked at my cup of Lipton’s tea and thought of the mysterious, gay Glaswegian man who’d founded a tea empire that stretched from Nebraska to Ceylon and succeeded by offering the best quality at the lowest price: Thomas Lipton, who had no offspring, left his entire fortune to the city of his birth. Born in Glasgow’s Gorbals, whose two infant siblings died in malnourished infancy, he gave his acquired, self-made wealth not to the constitution of power but so that his home town might offer better futures for those who came after him.

Before he died at the hands of the British as his penalty for fighting in Ireland’s Rising in 1916, Padraig Pearce said of the fight for an independent Ireland, “If our deed has not been good enough to win our freedom, then our children will win it by a better deed.”

What a great sentiment that was. And, it would prove true. Within a little over a decade, Ireland’s freedom was secured. Let children not inherit greed or lust. Let them not inherit the titles of mediaeval landlords. Let them inherit the spirit of freedom. Let them put their crowned heads to the use of those who are losing theirs. Let them secure the freedom of others, if the deeds of their forebears have already secured theirs.

I commend Spain’s acts. Of atonement? I’m not sure, but they are surely driven by conscience, and this I respect. But when you listen to the words of James Baldwin and of Toni Morrison and of MLK himself, you start to understand that, when you’re born free, you understand nothing about freedom. Because you never had to take it, or to fight for it yourself. We, who are born free and are now free will never be able to lecture to those who fight for freedom, and whom some of us call terrorists. We can comprehend, but we can never empathise. It is that inability that has stymied all efforts to save Palestine in the past seventy-seven years. For, as long as we are free, why would we push home the case for them?

“I can’t wait for the ultimate liberation theory to imagine its practice and do its work.”

Toni Morrison, Nobel Laureate (1931-2019)

The great objection to socialism has always been that it purports to tell those with money how to spend it. But socialism—true socialism—does not tell the rich to give their money to us, to me. It tells the rich to give their money to others.

I will survive, whatever they do with their money. But I advocate policy that asks them to put it where it can be put to best use. To alleviate suffering and misery, much of which the thirst for wealth caused. To fulfil causes that are truly noble. To put themselves in the shoes of others. The pomp and circumstance of monarchy is not money’s best use.

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