The thing about royalty…

WHAT a start to 2019! For the first time in our nation’s history, the King has resigned.

Sultan Muhammad V of Kelantan was our 15th Yang di-Pertuan Agong for just over two years. No reasons were given by Istana Negara when it made the announcement on Sunday, so the people can only try to figure it out why he had to leave office.

Time and time again we are told a citizen’s loyalty is to his country and not necessarily to the government of the day. That’s because it is, after all, the citizens who decide who gets the mandate to form the government and it is also the citizens who, as proven, can take away that mandate.

At the same time, a nation needs symbols of sovereignty that again are supposed to be honoured and respected if not revered, like the flag and the national anthem.

And generally speaking, citizens are also expected to show loyalty to this most important symbol – president or monarch.

Monarchs do come and go but they usually stay a very long time before going. Theirs is a job for life unless they abdicate willingly or get overthrown.

Does a country with a king (or queen) do better than one with a president?

In a 2014 op-ed published in thediplomat.com, Akhilesh Pillalamarri argues “Why monarchies are still relevant and useful in the 21st century.”

He says “monarchs can rise above politics in the way an elected head of state cannot. Monarchs represent the whole country in a way democratically elected leaders cannot and do not. The choice for the highest political position in a monarchy cannot be influenced by and in a sense beholden to money, the media, or a political party.”

He adds, “Monarchs are especially important in multi-ethnic countries such as Belgium because the institution of monarchy unites diverse and often hostile ethnic groups under shared loyalty to the monarch instead of to an ethnic or tribal group.” (Yup, I learned something new here; never knew there were hostile ethnic groups in the land of chocolate and waffles.)

Pillalamarri, an international relations analyst, further opines that monarchies prevent the emergence of extreme forms of government in their countries and cites Cambodia, Jordan and Morocco as examples where the presence of their kings had reined in “the worst and more extreme tendencies of political leaders or factions.”

He also believes “monarchies have the gravitas and prestige to make last-resort, hard, and necessary decisions – decisions that nobody else can make” and that they “are repositories of tradition and continuity” to “remind a country of what it represents and where it came from.”

Pillalamarri’s article was published in June. The following month, Canadian journalist Omer Aziz came up with a counter-argument headlined, “No, monarchies don’t make sense in the 21st century” because “monarchism is the very antithesis of self-determination.”

He writes that “the various monarchies around the world makes clear the fact that they are predicated on the same insidious assumption: legitimacy through inheritance.”

He claims that the most basic reason why monarchy is so abhorrent in this day and age is because monarchism represents “humanity’s slave mentality for celebrity and inherited power, a prostration before thrones and royal insignia.”

Indeed, there are many degrees of royal rule; to quote Omer again: They range from the constitutionally limited to the absolutely powerful.

In our region, we have quite a few mostly constitutionally limited kings with the obvious exception of Brunei, where the absolutely powerful sultan is head of state and head of government.

Malaysia has the world’s only rotational national throne shared by nine state royal houses.

If we were to use Pillalamarri’s pro-royalty arguments, how would our monarchs fare?

As a Malaysian, I love my country and want to preserve it as our founding fathers intended it to be. That means having a constitutional monarchy.

But our rotational monarchy makes it hard to form an attachment to the person sitting on the throne in Istana Negara, certainly not the way the British love their long reigning queen.

That’s the thing about royalty. It’s an institution that feeds on emotions and in turn, continues to fire dreams. Royals carry a kind of fairy-tale romance that mark them as special, exalted beings deserving awe and reverence, which is why girls still want to marry a prince.

Still, loyalty must also be earned. As fairy tales and history tell us, bad kings or badly behaved ones can earn the wrath and anger of the citizens. That’s why Robin Hood who stood up to evil Prince John is still a hero and Louis XVI lost his head.

Under the Federal Constitution, our King has many important functions. Even if they are largely ceremonial and bound by “advice” by the prime minister, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong has a vital check-and-balance role in government. But thanks to our rotational throne, our country is unique in that our King has a term limit but not the politicians holding office.

While I may not agree with Omer that monarchies are totally anachronistic, I certainly believe they are beholden to their subjects to show themselves worthy of being held in such high esteem and respect. None should claim legitimacy to power and privileges simply by birth or divine right. In the very expensive 21st century, there is no such thing as a free lunch.

Aunty likes this quote from Thailand’s late King Bhumibol Adulyadej: I am not afraid if the criticism concerns what I do wrong, because then I know. Because if you say the King cannot be criticised, it means that the King is not human.