ELIZABETH II, QUEEN OF THE UNDEAD...

 

Blue: current realms that are presently part of the British Commonwealth of Nations (in plain words: the British State). Red: former realms that used to be part of said British State but are still members of the Commonwealth as republics. Only the former colonies of the Caribbean and Oceania -plus Canada- have stayed inside the British State as realms, alongside the core of that political entity, that is to say the United Kingdom, a country that includes two territories (Scotland and Northern Ireland) that may conceivably choose to dissociate themselves from it, eventually, in order to join the European Union, as a consequence of Brexit. (Source: Wikipedia, June 2022, English Edition)

 

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(All the following three definitions are taken directly from: Wikipedia, June 2022, English Edition)

 

ELIZABETH II

Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; born 21 April 1926) is Queen of the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms (...)

 

COMMONWEALTH REALM

A Commonwealth realm is a sovereign state in the Commonwealth of Nations that has Elizabeth II as its monarch and head of state. Each realm functions as an independent state, equal with the other realms and nations of the Commonwealth (...) There are 15 Commonwealth realms: Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, The Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, and the United Kingdom. (...)

 

SOVEREIGN STATE

A sovereign state, also known as a sovereign country, is a political entity represented by one centralized government that has supreme legitimate authority over territory. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defined territory, one government, and the capacity to enter relations with other sovereign state. It is also normally understood that a sovereign state is independent. (...)

 

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Sometimes, the plain truth is too evident to be seen at first. Alternatively, it happens that some people like to play with words, in order not to clarify but to obfuscate. So, the reader who wishes to understand the argument presented in this article is invited to be patient and to bear with the author, for a few minutes, till the last words of the last sentence.

 

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The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is a sovereign country and an independent one, at the same time, that is to say it is a state among all the states of Earth.

The same is true for the French Republic, the Italian Republic, the Principality of Monaco, the Bolivian Republic, the Russian Federal Republic, the Japanese Empire, the Kingdom of Sweden, the Finnish Republic, the Swiss Federal Republic, the United Mexican States, the United States of America, the Principality of Andorra, or any other of the almost 200 independent, sovereign entities that exist on the planet.

Currently, most of those countries are republics, whose inhabitants are full-fledged citizens. But even now, there are still 42 monarchies of all kind: emirates, grand duchies, principalities, empires, kingdoms, etc. Technically, their inhabitants remain subjects of their respective sovereign, even though, in practice, most of them are governed under a system of 'constitutional monarchies', that is to say they are monarchies where the powers of the sovereign are delegated to elected officials through constitutional means. It doesn't necessarily mean, though, that these monarchs don't still own and exert those political powers (meaning that the elected officials must always get approval from them if new laws are to be implemented...). That situation is the case of Japan, Sweden, etc.

It is also the case of the United Kingdom and the many other kingdoms that share at least three characteristics:

A) all of them were once were part of the British Empire,

B) all of them are still headed by the very same sovereign (a charming old lady who lives not far from the banks of the Thames, in southern England) and, as a consequence of both A) and B),

C) all of them are still unquestioning (and sometimes unaware) members of the British Sovereign State, a curious being whose members are at the same time sovereign but not really, not totally independent.

To truly understand that state of affairs, one has to take into account the very different paths followed by two geographically close but differently ruled kingdoms through the ages, all along the centuries of the last millennia.

The Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of England were quite different entities, even though they were only separated by a narrow Channel (la Manche). They shared an interesting, intricate history, mingling in different ways, sometimes peacefully, sometimes violently. Their relations were sometimes so violent that God Himself (or Herself, whatever) had to intervene, as in the series of royal family quarrels grandly called the One Hundred Years War (la guerre de Cent-Ans).

To return to the point, that is to say, to the compared history of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of France, let's say that one royal family (the English one) had sense enough to share gradually its powers with the common people (Magna Carta, Parliament, and all that), through the centuries, buying time, peace, and the continued support of the population, with the result that the royal family of that country is still there, alive and kicking. On the other hand, the royal family of France had a different trajectory. It loved its powers and the absolutism it meant (L'État, c'est moi, as Louis the XVIVth famously said), with the result that, some decades after that proud declaration, his royal descendant many generations later (two Louis down the monarchical succession road, so to speak, more precisely the one who had 'XVIth' added to his Christian surname), was beheaded, like thousands of members of the mobility during the course of the French Revolution, the seminal event that launched the democratic ideal on the European continent, after its rebirth in North America, at the end of the American Revolution and the foundation of a republic, from thirteen ex-colonies that had successfully rebelled against the tyranny of a monarchical crown.

(By the way, that story-line is obviously the gem from which the whole Star Wars franchise is based upon, with an Evil Empire that is rotten to the core and rebels creating a shiny new Republic that separates from it. In the mind of George Lucas, Luke Skywalker was probably some kind of young and pure George Washington. Think about it: an identical surname, and the name Lucas transformed into an imaginary, idealized Luke. It does make some sense if one thinks about it...)

Let's return to business. The Kingdom of England had a very different trajectory than its French counterpart. In its essence, it transformed itself slowly, in accordance with the will of the people, following a progressive, democratic evolution, avoiding thus the need for a violent (if short) revolution, like the one the French Kingdom had to go through. In its structural form, it also evolved slowly, event after event, incorporating Wales, then Scotland, then the whole of Ireland. After the loss of the southern part of that island, it became the present United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

That is not all, though. That country was very successful in the exploration of the planet and the colonization of a large part of its surface. At one point, a quarter of the world population was British, an impressive result. Soon after that point, when the colonized populations began to clamor for a greater say in their lives, the British had to agree, if only to prevent what happened in 1776. In truth, it must be said that the same thing happened all over the European world, from France to Spain to the Netherlands to Germany to Italy, etc, at different points in time (Germany after its defeat in World Ward I, and Central and South America after the U.S own accession to independence, for instance). The Commonwealth of Nations came into being in the same process, built around the concept of  'realms', which are, in effect, little kingdoms of their own.

The political animal that slowly evolved out of the old Kingdom of England is not easy to conceptualize or apprehend. It is formed of fifteen different kingdoms, each headed by the same person (the lady on London), each of these kingdoms’ sovereign in itself, each supposedly independent from each other, but in reality not really, since they're all part of the same State, symbolically represented by Elizabeth the Second. You can see how complex the whole thing is. It's as if Elizabeth the Second has fifteen crowns over her head, each one atop the preceding one, forming a column that goes high into the air, projecting a shadow large enough to cover fifteen different kingdoms, that range from North America to Europe, the Caribbean, Oceania, etc.

It may be worth noting that African countries and South Asian countries that used to be part of the British Empire, and that used also to be realms of the British State, saw through the artificial fog (I should say the obfuscation, if not the falseness, of the whole thing), and decided to part from the Commonwealth of Nations, preferring to be really independents, with real citizens, as opposed to being foreign-owned realms, with foreign-owned subjects. They thus became full-fledged republics, with full-fledged citizens...

Symbolically (and legally), Elizabeth, as the head of state (cheffe d'État), owns all her realms, that it to say, all the populations living inside those realms, every parts of those populations being subjects to the many crowns she wore at the same time. In other words, the Queen ruled all of her subjects, independently of the individual kingdom in which this or that subject happens to inhabit. In that sense, Elizabeth the Second is the Head of State (and royal owner) of all the inhabitants (read: all the subjects) living in Canada, Australia, The Bahamas, New Zealand, the Solomon islands, etc.

Think of it this way: of all the monarchies of the planet, more than a third are British ones, and they all belong to the very same person. That sovereign is a woman who (by the way) appears to be quite remarquable and even admirable in herself, and not only for her longevity, but for the quality of her character. 

But personal matters aside, it must be said that the British Empire didn’t disappear after the end of World War Two, in the period of known as decolonization. It just changed its form, modified its name, and learned to hide in plain sight. It did its best to be forgotten as an Empire, trying to pass instead for fifteen separate kingdoms, all supposedly sovereign, all supposedly independent, although none of them were then, or is now, or is likely to be in the near future.

When all is said and done, reality and truth should be more important than appearances and falsifications.

The British Empire is alive and well.

But for how long?