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The Queen's birthday: why do we continue with this archaic charade?

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Another year and another irrelevant public holiday; Barry Everingham wonders why we continue to bother.

Here we go again — tomorrow is a day off to mark a day which isn’t the birthday of a foreign Queen, who doesn’t live here and who is not Australian. Just what IS our country all about to continue with this archaic charade?

The Queen of England was born in the month of April and even in her own country the birthday celebration is held on a Saturday so the economy doesn’t suffer by giving millions a day off.

We often hear monarchists bleating that she has done so much  for this country and that our Constitution should remain inviolate so her non-Australian, Anglican, born  in wedlock “heirs  and successors”, by sheer accident of birth, can take over when she eventually goes to God — or wherever it is people like her eventually end up.

The hyperbole which spews from the mouth of the Indonesian-born chief monarchist of Australia – note, like the Queen he wasn’t born here – is worth sharing. David Flint actually wrote the following on his personal blog:

"The crown is not a rubber stamp: it is an important check and balance on the exercise of power. It is not surprising that the Queen’s birthday is our first and oldest public holiday. As such it is the celebration of our history, our heritage and our great democracy!"


Now unlike IndependentAustralia.net, the Flint personal blog does not allow comment unless it is from a registered user. Heaven forbid ordinary Australians, or Indonesians for that matter, are given a right in this great democracy to have their say. We might not like what some of our readers say, particularly those who are urged by David Flint to take umbrage, but we believe they have a right speak his and their minds at our expense.

Saturday was a special day for monarchists and David went into overdrive — it was the 90th birthday of Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, the spouse (and a cousin on several  removes — little wonder their children have turned out as they have; animals breeders would have put down litters with such close blood lines) of our head of state.

A writer in one of our newspapers on Saturday explained Philip’s behaviour as follows: he was never cuddled by his mother or father!

If we think (and certainly know) his and the Queen’s kids are from dysfunction writ large, Philip’s upbringing was fraught with the expectation of later behavioural problems.

Prince Phillip: never cuddled

Philip’s father, Prince Andrew – who, like all the royal Greeks was really a German – married one of Queen Victoria’s granddaughters, Princess Alice. Andrew was a playboy and saw out his days with a mistress at the Monte Carlo casino while Alice was so disturbed she spent many years in sanatoria and eventually found an order of Greek Orthodox nuns.

In spite of her eccentricity and to her great credit she managed to save several Greek- Jewish families from Hitler’s gas ovens and is buried in a cemetery in Jerusalem.

Philip has displayed insensitivity of huge proportions to those he has come into contact with over the years. He is a boor and a bully.

But none of which changes the idiocy of the reason we have tomorrow off.

Just how long this continues is in the hands of politicians — who really should slip loudly and publicly into the real world and stop this nonsense.
 
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