Saturday, December 3, 2011

The sins of our Western attitude towards royalty

s an Asian, my understanding towards British monarchy, from our perspective, is they are sinful.

Many Western believe in regards to royalty and relationship between royal and none royal are consider to be problematic an d sinful in Eastern ideologies.

Since as far back as history can record (5000years ago), the Eastern world, believe a nation is common property of the people, therefore policy must be set in public interest, this ideology was furture reinforce by Confouscious ideology, while talking about the ethic of a King's rule, saying the King must respect the fact that the nation is common property of all and therefore the King is a public servent and should rule in public interest. (It is also one of the reason, why democracy spread like wild fire, after it was introduce to the east) In prior to introducing democratic goverment structure, rulers (Emperors) who failed to rule in public interest are remove from office, if able via legal mean, if not, by force. (e.g. revolt) When an Emperor is removed by force, the new Emperor the people choose, usually have no blood tie to the previous royal family. We also believe what is relevant to determine if a person is better then another, is determine by a his/her action. Race, religion, royality or even if he is a king, is irrelevant, as a result, unlike in the west, marriage between royal and none royal is the norm. Kings usually insist for Princess to marrie upper class, but not necessary royality, Princess frequently marry senator or knights or their children or grand children, otherwise respect scholars, wealthy businessman's family and sometime royalty of another nation. Prince marrie woman of all class, historically very few Asian Queens came from a royal family and Queen born from a working class family, are common.

So you can see why from Eastern point of view, many ways of Britsh royals historically, can be seen as sinful. E.g. 'divin right of the king", "king is god's given right", "royals to better then none royals simply because they are royals"(How dare they! Jesus' head apprentice Peter isn't royal, are the royals better then him, too?), refer to royal and none royal relationship as "royal and commeners", royal and none royal should not wed. While Gen Y royals are normal, these sinful believe still have some hold over older royals,

(Example that support these sin still might have a hold over older royals, include the fact they still insist for us to refer to them as "Your royal highness" and can't forget the word "royal" in it. Political figure have title too "usually is your honor or your excellency" but apart from former document or in court, we do not refer to them that way. The only royals who don't insist for people to refer to them as "Your highness" are gen Y royals)

Many Asians who first came to the West, (including myself) was shocked and suprise, by the fact, that there are western nation with this sort of believe and was even more suprise by the fact UK is one of them (although, I did heard a rumor saying that Prince Chales wanted Princess Diana to refer to him as "sir", when they were married, if that is true, I guess we now know why.), The reason most Asian would find it to be so shocking, is because, firstly, democratic government structure is invented by the west, secondly, the fact that, under America's leadership, the West stood firm again communism and stood firm to supprt freedom during the cold war and thirdly, unlike in Asia, the west never have the custom saying a person need to kneel in front of the Emperor and is not allow to see the Emperor's face until the Emperor allow (in Japan, such custom, is not abolish until after WW2). When you put all these factors into consideration, no Asians who do not live in the west or are not specialist in understanding the west, could imagin the west having these problematic ideology. Once coming to the west, many Asians were shocked by the fact the west have these problematic ideologies in regards to royalty and sicken by it, even more. While the west have greatly improved since the introducing of constutional monarchy and the revival of democratic government sturcture and these problematic behavior no longer exist amount Gen Y royals, many work still need to be done, example that reflect that, is that, even today, royal and none royal relationship are still been refer to as "Royal and commoners", considering royalty is irrelevant to determine whether a person is better then other, it mean royals and none royals are equals therefore the referral of "Royal and commoners" are naturally inappropriate, as the royals are also commoners, like us.

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