Charles is Not My Darling! (The Naked City)

‘Charles is not my darling!’ is the latest column (October 21, 2024) from Coffin Ed‘s The Naked City column – featured exclusively on City Hub.

Back in 2021 the tiny Caribbean nation of Barbados got the jump on Australia when they ditched the British monarchy and became a republic. The then Prince Charles was there to mark the occasion but made the rather grovelling apology – “from the darkest days of our past and the appalling atrocity of slavery, which forever stains our histories, the people of this island forged their path with extraordinary fortitude”.

When Charles was eventually crowned as king, Suleiman Bulbulia a commissioner on Barbados’s constitutional reform commission, stated “Barbados won’t be toasting Charles’s coronation – we’re still celebrating being rid of the monarchy.”

Meanwhile in Australia the largely dysfunctional British family still attracts some fans but just how many is open to question.

We are a bit like the child who never wants to leave home, wondering just what dangers lurk in the big outside world of republican democracy.

Given Australia’s apparent reluctance to say ta ta and good bloody riddance to the Royals, it’s unlikely Charles will ever be making an apology here for the sins of British colonialism and the massacres of First Nation’s people. Historians have often speculated as to just how much the British crown benefited financially in the early days of colonialism and their shameless thieving from our indigenous population.

Back in the days when Queen Elizabeth was still alive and obsessive anglophiles like Sir Robert Menzies called the day, it’s easy to understand why the British monarchy was held in such high regard. These days there’s still a strong nostalgia for mother England amongst certain sections of the population. Indeed, despite our claim to being a relatively egalitarian society, there are probably still those who would like to see a return of the old school imperial honours, regularly anointing knights and dames.

However as a multicultural country with thirty percent of the current population born overseas it’s hard to know just how many Australians still have a genuine reverence or allegiance to the Crown. Back in 1999 we voted around 45 percent ‘yes’ and 54 per cent ‘no’ as to the country becoming a republic.

Clearly the British Royal Family enjoy a different standard of morality than we common folk. Maybe the syphilitic, pox ridden Henry VIII set their standard back in the 1500s when he brutally beheaded two of his wives in the ultimate act of misogyny.

When Prince Andrew forked over a reported three million pounds in an out of court settlement with Virginia Giuffre, following allegations that she was forced to have several sexual encounters with him at the age of 17, it was a virtual admission of guilt.

Nevertheless he remains a ‘Prince’, carefully secreted aware by the family from both the public glare and any appropriate legal prosecution.

Imagine if a member of an Australian political party was accused and convicted of sex trafficking with a minor. They would be immediately sacked and disowned forever. Nevertheless Andrew remains sixth in line for the British crown and were the succession line decimated by some freak malignant virus, he could even become king – his ‘ability’ not to sweat saving him from the normal transmission in any worldwide pandemic! Of course all would be forgiven were he to ascend the throne.

Charles’s self admitted adultery with Camilla proved no handicap despite him being the head of the Church Of England and in direct violation of the sacred seventh commandment, “You shall not commit adultery”. It’s just a shame the Puritans aren’t sill in control as there were back in 1650 when they made that particular sin punishable by death!

Perhaps the greatest supporters of the British monarchy here and those with the most to lose should we become a republic, are the mainstream media. Fed with a constant stream of puffed up PR from the Palace itself and other Royal watchers, there’s hardly a TV news broadcast that goes by without some reference to their mundane everyday doings.

It’s often tacked on at the end of the nightly bulletin, a kind of good news item to cheer us up and remind us that we are still subservient to a foreign monarch. It’s part soap opera, part tradition and part laziness on the part of media organisations who could be concentrating on much more worthy issues.

The current royal visit has supposedly cost the government well over a million dollars, at a time when many Australians are skipping meals and doing it tough.

As a final gesture to the adulterous couple might I suggest they be given a bag full of tar balls from Coogee Beach to accompany them back to the UK, a symbol that for many Australians here they are about as welcome as accidentally stepping in a blob of the cacogenic gunk.