I’ve never been convinced by that particular argument. Tourists would still be attracted by Britain’s history. I mean, people still flock to the palace of Versailles and other French chateaus.
Where did I say that? :rolleyes:
The “white” dominions were composed in the main of British settlers and their descendants. A 100 years ago, a person in New South Wales thought of themselves as British as a person in South Wales. Even with political independance, the monarchy is as much a part of their history and culture as anything else. That was as a rule, NOT the case in the other parts of the empire, nor in South Africa.
I don’ count Ireland here as that was a part of the UK and the Irish were (post Republic positions) very involved and eager participants in the Empire anyway.
Sure. That might explain why Australia, Canada, etc, didn’t transition to republics at some point in the past.
But someone from NSW today definitely does not think of themselves as British today (unless, coincidentally, they do actually happen to be British) so this doesn’t explain why Australia isn’t a republic today. As already noted support for an Australian republic is fairly strong, and to the extent that a majority choose to retain the monarchy, I don’t think we can attribute that to any sense of “Britishness” on their part.
Well, Ireland was a part of the UK until 1922, but it was a dominion from 1922 onwards, and between 1936 and 1949 it transitioned to being a republic. I don’t see why you would discount that as a relevant example on the basis of Ireland having been part of the UK from 1800 to 1922. Nor is the participation of Irish people in the imperial venture terribly relevant. Lots of Indians were involved in the imperial venture, which is how there came to be signficant Indian communities in East Africa, Fiji, etc, but that didn’t stop India making the transition from realm to republic.
Of course each country is different, and its reasons for transitioning to a republic, or not doing so, are its own. For what it’s worth, I’m not projecting Canada to become a republic any time soon, but I think Australia will. The factors that tie Canada to the monarchy (constitutional rigidity, plus a desire to distingish themselves from the US) don’t apply in Australia, and I don’t think Australia’s dominant whiteness is going to be enough.
It’s not tradition or apathy, and even more than the “ain’t broke, don’t fix” mantra. It is arguably the most robust governance model in practice, particularly the US model due to the separation of head of state and head of government. So why spend the buckets of dosh for a changeover from a constitutional monarchy to get a worse result?
As a McGarvie model republican, I’d recognise the Irish model is probably the best that is currently in operation around the globe. There isn’t much difference between that model and the Australian Republican model that was put to the plebiscite.
Those of the ARM who voted down the Republic Referendum because they wanted to be ideologically pure they didn’t recognise that the end they were seeking; a non-political head of state, was incontrovertibly inconsistent with the means they wanted to deliver it i.e. a direct popular election.
We just had a full term of a hung parliament and an opposition that refused to accept the legitimacy of the minority government. Can you imagine how much worse that would have been if one was Prime Minister with a working majority and the other claimed the mandate of a popularly elected President?
But the Irish president is directly elected.
Understandable, but kind of a shame; I’ve always thought your maple leaf flag was one of the most appealing ones in the world. Simple, but unmistakably Canadian.
Slight hijack, but while we’re speaking of national symbols: why are Australia’s national colors green and gold, and New Zealand’s black, when both of their flags are blue, red and white?
Even further slight hijack: this was one of the most popular prototype designs for the new Canadian flag – and one that was widely believed to be the probable winner. At some point during the contentious flag debate it was deemed that simpler was better.
Because red, white and blue, as national colours, are not very distinctive - a huge range of countries have flags which are predominantly red, white, blue or a combination of them. And there was an additional issue in the case of Australia and New Zealand; their earliest representative sporting teams tended compete predominantly against British teams, or against one another, so red, white or blue would have been pretty well useless as a distinctive livery.
The usual account of the Australian and New Zealand sporting colours is that they are taken from popular floral emblems - the golden wattle, in the case of Australia, and the silver fern, in the case of New Zealand.
"This here’s the wattle, the emblem of our land,
You can stick it in a bottle, you can hold it in your hand.
Amen, Amen!"
Please, let’s at least keep our dreams in the realm of the plausible.
People just don’t like change. In the case of the Maple Leaf flag, the truth is that the leaders anticipated what Canada was becoming where the people maybe could not have.
Canada was a different country in those days - much whiter, much more English, much more British. We were well into the 1950s, maybe early 1960s, before it was legal to even open a movie theatre on a Sunday in Ontario. The percentage of people at the time who identified closely with the United Kingdom was way, way higher than it is now, and the percentage of people who truly saw Canada as a legitimately independent nationality was low. It was a much more socially conservative and traditionalist country.
All that changed. Canada is increasingly NOT a British place; there are more Canadian residents who were born in China than were born in the UK. The country became officially bilingual and multicultural. The country has swung, in some ways, dramatically open and liberal. Perhaps most significantly is that the country’s sense of independent identity is now incredibly strong - almost to the point of being a little irritating, to be honest. The idea of a flag that is solely Canadian, rather than reflecting that we used to be British, is seen as very normal by today’s Canadians, where it would not have been to 1964’s Canadians.