Who had never ceded sovereignty.
There are some delusions that people have over our sovereignty, and the way it resides in the British Crown. Australia, when young, needed Britain’s foreign policy and naval might to protect it. That was when the Constitution was created, placing the monarchy at the core of our loyalties and affections, as a more than willing sweetener for continued military and naval protection. In that period, D.H. Lawrence famously wrote, Australia “looks like a land no man has ever loved”. Aboriginal and Torres Islander people did not count in his worldview in the early 1920s, when Lawrence published that sentiment.
Mutthi Mutthi elder Dave Edwards was present when Mungo Man’s remains, along with more than 100 other ancient ancestors, were taken back to Country in 2017.Credit: Justin McManus
Mungo Man and Mungo Lady lived on the Willandra Lakes 42,000 years ago when the ancestors of Australian immigrants were still enduring the Ice Age in Europe. That’s 42 thousand years ago! That’s over 20 times older than Abraham, 30 times older than the biblical Moses.
Britain, by now, is another country with its own primary interests and its own foreign policy and trade. At the same time, Mungo Man speaks to us of oneness with this earth, this continent and the magical place it has been – not as someone’s colony but in and of itself.
I do not recognise that I owe any allegiance to amiable King Charles, who always says the issue is up to us. The monarch has inherited the role as our head of state and tells us its future is up to us. “Isn’t he a nice man?” someone will ask. Yes, he is, decidedly, and a conscientious man, too. There are very many nice British men in the world. Does that mean that I have to swear allegiance to them or recognise them as my sovereign? I admire the present King considerably, and I particularly admire his Queen. But I bet they know that it is an absurdity to believe that they who represent Britain, and do so amiably, don’t also understand that countries simply grow up and make their own systems. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But it is broke. It is contradictory of who we are.
“I do not recognise that I owe any allegiance to amiable King Charles.”Credit: Photos: AP/ Louie Douvis. Graphic by Matt Willis
We have a cricket crisis: the noble Pat Cummins is in doubt as our captain for the opening of the Ashes. Why not call on the English captain to be ours as well? At the level of the state, that’s what we ask Carolus Rex – Charles, our King – to do. An impossible job, of course. Because, we have a head of state who cannot speak for our government or our nation in any realistic form on God’s great earth. For the monarchy is required to represent and speak for the government in Westminster, even if its policy is directly against Australia’s interest. And so we have a head of state who is not the head of state, really, not in a fundamental and deep sense that Charles is the King of England.
There’s an Australian myth that you must hate the royals to be a republican. Do you need to hate your parents before you leave home? Is finding one’s own space a betrayal of the house you grew up in? No, you can carry familial love with you as you travel off. It is not necessary to renounce the parents you leave behind.
I’m far from alone among Australians in believing we no longer owe allegiance to the monarchy. So, is it fair to the monarchy to go on pretending to a loyalty we no longer feel, forcing the King to take on this unnatural posture. This is the mind-bending issue by which we live 15,000 kilometres from our head of state, who can’t speak for our state anyhow, without letting down his true government, that of Great Britain, and of Britain’s own parliament.
Loading
I would be as scared as anyone about installing someone with the powers of an American president. Let’s just say, that is NOT the sort of presidency I would propose. I am not talking, either, of some inappropriate racist twitch against the English immigrants who have come to this country, done great service to it, and caused it to achieve glory. But we would no longer belong to the Commonwealth, the arguers say. Yes we would, as fully as we wanted, since a majority in the Commonwealth, 36 nations, are republics.
But I claim the problem is in no way the British or their monarchy. I have met the current Queen of England and she is clearly a friendly person with a genuine interest in writing and books. I am sorry she suffered such worry over her spouse’s health. As I say, the King of England has always said that a Republic is up to us Australians. He has said so frequently and his word is trustworthy.
But I do hereby renounce all pretence of my own allegiance to the monarchy. Australia at its best is not a matter of dynasties but a matter of eons! I can no longer be seen to live with the delusion inherent in having the British monarch as our head of state. Yes, he is charming and he is benign, but that’s not the point. The point is that our head of state should be an Australian – a la Pat Cummins. Let us applaud the King and Queen of Great Britain but play under our own captain. The British themselves would not accept an Australian as a head of state, and it is time we declared at that level who we are, at last.
I ask you finally, if this material in any way offends you, the reader, write it off as a geriatric rant.
Thomas Keneally is an Australian novelist, playwright and essayist.