&larr 6 Christen 6:6
Bin Laden: Die wolf is nie werklik dood nie &rarr
2 antwoorde op Ons obsessie oor die koninklikes is mos gek
Modderkoekie, ek het nie die huidige koningin of haar seuntjie persoonlik beledig of selfs kritiek op hul gedrag uitgespreek nie. Ek skryf oor die monargie as simbool van ‘n staat, en die vreemde verskynsel dat burgers van ‘n ander staat, wat ‘n republiek is, dan so sterk met die buitelandse monargie identifiseer – terwyl dit toevallig die monargie, en dus die simbool, is van ‘n moontheid waaronder die betrokke republiek in die geskiedenis al baie gely het. Ek is bly jy koester geen wrok oor die verlede jeens die Britte nie. Ek ook nie. Maar om van daar na verering van hul koninklikers te spring, lyk vir my ‘n bietjie ‘n groot sprong.
Ek is ook teen monargiee in die algemeen. Dis ‘n onding. Ek weet hulle is belangrik vir sekere state. Dis juis waarteen ek is. Maar weer eens: dit gaan nie oor tannie Elisabeth of haar seuntjies nie. Dit skryf ek selfs eksplisiet in die stuk.
gerritbrand het gesê op Junie 1, 2011
PIET LE ROUX SKRYF:
Ek het jou rubriek oor die Britse troonsitters geniet – maar moes tot my verbasing sien hoeveel mense hul verafgoding in die kommentaarafdeling voortsit. Ek dink jy sal Ettienne de la Boetie (1530 – 1563) se “The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude” geniet.
“Poor, wretched, and stupid peoples, nations determined on your own misfortune and blind to your own good! You let yourselves be deprived before your own eyes of the best part of your revenues; your fields are plundered, your homes robbed, your family heirlooms taken away. You live in such a way that you cannot claim a single thing as your own; and it would seem that you consider yourselves lucky to be loaned your property, your families, and your very lives.
“All this havoc, this misfortune, this ruin, descends upon you not from alien foes, but from the one enemy whom you yourselves render as powerful as he is, for whom you go bravely to war, for whose greatness you do not refuse to offer your own bodies unto death. He who thus domineers over you has only two eyes, only two hands, only one body, no more than is possessed by the least man among the infinite numbers dwelling in your cities; he has indeed nothing more than the power that you confer upon him to destroy you.”
“Roman tyrants invented a further refinement. They often provided the city wards with feasts to cajole the rabble, always more readily tempted by the pleasure of eating than by anything else. The most intelligent and understanding amongst them would not have quit his soup bowl to recover the liberty of the Republic of Plato. Tyrants would distribute largess, a bushel of wheat, a gallon of wine, and a sesterce: and then everybody would shamelessly cry, “Long live the King!” The fools did not realize that they were merely recovering a portion of their own property and that their ruler could not have given them what they were receiving without having first taken it from them.”