Transcript
Page 1: Johnny lucas his royal wedding plans | canada news report

The Royal Wedding: Yippe, Bah Humbug

by Johnny Lucas

“Bah Humbug” is a perfectly understandable reaction to the royal wedding, so is “Oh boy, oh boy.”

If you lived in the days of ancient Rome and the future Caesar was getting married in an extravagant pageant, costing millions, giving the populace an official day away from their drudgery and toil, and bringing out the complete collection of Imperial paraphernalia as well as attracting rulers from throughout the known world, might you not be inclined to pop your head in ?

If you could see into the future and knew that the days of the Imperial Caesars were numbered and that the whole thing would soon be relegated to the history books and the corresponding dustbin of history, would you not be more motivated to show up?

The monarchy is not important to me, but I know it is to some people. I also know that its days are numbered. I want to see the emotion it elicits at the heart of it all. I won’t be in the Abbey (I guess my invitation got lost in the mail) but I will be in London in Tredegar Square with a group of monarchists and republicans (that’s English for abolitionists) all of whom get along and all of whom have deeply rooted feelings about the institution and the fertility rite that it is now trying to appropriate with the event on April 29. I want to see and feel that in London, ground zero of the monarchy.

In a heartbeat I would vote for the abolition of the monarchy in my country, Canada. My hostility to it somehow makes the institution more precious to me because I am pretty sure that I’m on the winning side of this trend. The monarchy in Canada is not going to be around forever, but it has had a great run here. When the country was being developed the very thought of Queen Victoria was the single most unifying force we had. Before her, some of my ancestors came up from the States after their revolution. They were known as United Empire Loyalists, the party line being that their overwhelming loyalty to the Crown impelled them to move. Fatigue with being tarred and feathered, free land and the opportunity to be robber barons in virgin territory was just incidental.

Canada is littered with reminders of the monarchy and probably will be until the next ice age. There is hardly a member of the royal family that does not have a city such as Victoria, an island such as Prince Edward, a lake such as Louise or a province, such as Alberta named for him or her. We have “royal” this and crowns adorning little that’s from coast to coast. Their plenitude has rendered them invisible

Page 2: Johnny lucas his royal wedding plans | canada news report

and our fondness for that inefficient method of government, democracy, has rendered them meaningless. And our taste for equality has made them offensive, at least to some of us.

But who can think of such heavy thoughts when the bling of a thousand years is about to be trucked out and heaped on two youngish people in an attempt to perpetuate this greedy old dying beast that it’s poignant.

And besides, it’s happening with or without me; better I should be part of the magic while I can.


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