When Diversity Came To Buckingham Palace–The Sad Fate Of The Monarchy

A number of years ago the Queen of England was asked to travel to Kenya to apologize for Britain’s treatment of the Mau Mau while putting down its bloody insurrection.  Elizabeth’s advisors said that it was important to show how the Crown had evolved from a colonial, oppressive power to a more modern, sensitive, and inclusive force for good.

The memory of British citizens who had been barbarously murdered by the Mau Mau and soldiers who had been chopped up British soldiers and grilled over charcoal in the Great Rift Valley was still vivid and horrendous; so the intended apology stuck in the craw of the Queen, old enough to remember the glory days of Empire, when Kenya was the prize of British Africa, when her forbearers had brought civilization to the natives and prosperity to the land.  .  The Queen must have had to practice her apology speech very hard indeed and muster all her English self-control to utter it.

The British Empire had indeed been an influential, modernizing force throughout the world. Thanks to the British and their rule of law, the institution of a fair and just society and the integration of the many ethnic, linguistic states into a secular nation, a civil service schooled in responsible and responsible governance infrastructure which facilitated the movement of raw materials and finished goods.  India was indeed the Jewel in the Crown.

The colonial arrangement certainly benefited the British who had profited from the vast resources of the Subcontinent since the early days of the East India Company; but their ethos of fair play allowed them to rule with few civil servants and fewer military.  While they were absolute in their assumption of right and the permanence of Empire, they were never brutal, oppressive rulers.  They negotiated with the rulers of princely states, allowing a certain autonomy in return for ultimate fidelity to the Crown, and were reasonable and equitable in their treatment of lesser states.

British rule in India was no different from that of the Roman Empire in which, during its Pax Romana, loyalty to the Emperor was assured, understanding of the conditions of colonization accepted, and an economic and political quid pro quo respected.  Colonial rule need not be either authoritarian or brutal.  It was only in the days after independence that Africa turned violent with successions of brutalizing dictators, murderous civil wars, and endemic poverty.

British society at home was equally well-ruled.  Although Britain certainly had its share of political disharmony, wars, and dissatisfaction, it remained intact; and its culture of Enlightenment, responsive civil rule, and reasonableness was universal.  Its class system, often as much maligned as the Hindu caste structure, was fundamental to its national integrity.  Both cultures understood the nature of thriving in place, that mobility, ambition, and opportunism were antithetical to social harmony, and that there was no shame in birthright, regardless of its place in the hierarchy. 

It is with some uncertainty and no little concern that the monarchy faces the onslaught of ‘diversity’, considered by traditionalists as the antithesis of social stability, prosperity, and civil rest.  For all the touting of ‘inclusivity’ and the championing of different races, genders, and ethnicities, ‘diversity’ implies obligatory difference, identity, and separatism.  Claiming that race, gender, and ethnicity are primary attributes in any assessment of personal worth; and that talent, intelligence, wit, and insight are secondary in any valuation, not only demeans individuals but forces them into arbitrary categories.  To a society which has always valued cultural integrity and has shared those values which promote it with others, ‘diversity’ as understood today, is divisive, damaging to the necessary unity of any commonwealth.

Megan Markle is not only an interloper and a cultural outsider, but an aggressive, ambitious woman who, knowing how her mixed race heritage and marriage to Harry would raise her market value, give her political visibility, position her for a lucrative divorce, and identify her as an anti-monarchist, democratic revolutionary.

The monarchy is rightfully resentful, angry, and vengeful.  Markle is in their and most other people’s view, an arrivistic opportunist – a manipulative charlatan who uses her race as a tool for opening the royal treasure chest.  She knows that the world is woke; that its people are gullible, ignorant,  and ready to pounce on any semblance of ‘racism’; and that as a result she will be the world’s  newest, most visible, and most rewarded champion.

Prince Harry, snookered by Markle, blind to her ambition and duplicity, feeling some misplaced allegiance to his mother for her compassionate work and world citizenry, and being the less intelligent brother, is led along on a short leash, sent out by his Lady Macbeth to kill the king, disparage the throne, and make rule impossible for William.

The Queen, on the throne for seventy years, all of them served with dignity, respect, honor, and patriotism is nonplussed.  She is appalled at the assaults on her integrity, that of the royal family, and most importantly of Britain.  She has stood for the greatness of Empire, the foundational values which have underlaid all British colonial enterprise.  She is proud of Britain’s legacy – America, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and all the lesser nations which have been imbued with British imperial culture – and shocked an dismayed by its dissipation and disintegration.

It isn’t race or racism at the bottom of this concern, but dismay at the angry desire to dismantle history, to reconstitute it in their post-modernist, anti-traditional image, and to leave the monarchy in disarray.  The monarchy is not an independent institution, but a symbol and expression of the best of British culture.  Doing away with the monarchy will not simply empty Buckingham Palace, but will change the culture and destroy the legacy of Great Britain.

So Megan Markle is not welcome at the Palace because of her race; not even for her lowbrow background and bourgeois ambitions; not even for her sandbagging of the Queen’s grandson; but for her obvious hatred of the very idea of the monarchy.  Markle is ignorant of history, indifferent to the greatness of British kings, and dismissive of the revolutionary idea of parliamentary rule.  The Empire was multicultural, ‘diverse’, and ethnically rich; but England never wished this pluralism to derail integration and national unity.  What America and its Megan Markles are selling is just the opposite – a fractured, fractious, and ultimately weak sovereignty.