Английский язык для специальных и академических целей: Международные отношения и зарубежное регионоведение. Часть 1 - [68]

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Does compulsory voting represent a viable solution to the on-going disconnect between young people and the democratic process? It would seem that more young people would vote if such a system were introduced — not surprising if such a system were mandatory. However, whether or not this would mean that they would feel truly connected to the democratic process remains in question. Indeed, forcing young people to vote when they feel such a deep aversion to the political class may actually serve to reinforce a deepening resentment, rather than to engage them in a positive manner and bolster the democratic process.

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WHY DOES THE UK LOVE THE MONARCHY?

Mark Easton, BBC News, UK

29 May 2012 http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-18237280

I have recently been accused on Twitter of being both a royalist “uber-Toady” and the author of “the most anti-monarchist report you could want to view”.

Both tweets related to the same item, a report for the BBC News at Ten that tried to answer a straightforward question: why does a country that has become so cynical about other institutions (Parliament, the City, the press, the police) remain so loyal to the monarchy?

Whatever republicans might wish, less than a fifth of the Queen's subjects in the UK say they want to get rid of the Royal Family — a proportion that has barely changed across decades.

According to polling data from Ipsos Mori, support for a republic was 18% in 1969, 18% in 1993, 19% in 2002 and 18% last year. Three-quarters of the population want Britain to remain a monarchy — a finding that has been described by pollsters as “probably the most stable trend we have ever measured”.

Given the enormous social change there has been since the current Queen assumed the throne 60 years ago, it might seem surprising that a system of inherited privilege and power should have retained its popularity.

But reading some of the comments on Twitter, it seems that even to raise a quizzical eyebrow at the approval ratings of the Windsors is regarded by some monarchists as tantamount to treason.

Republicans, on the other hand, believe that to highlight the conspicuous lack of progress they have had in winning the nation to their cause is evidence of obsequious knee-bending.

I recently re-acquainted myself with the work of two seminal figures in the long-running debate between republican and monarchist thinkers in Britain — Thomas Paine and Walter Bagehot.

I was searching for an answer to the same question: “What is it about our country that we retain such affection for a system which appears at odds with the meritocratic principles of a modern liberal democracy?”

In January 1776, Paine's pamphlet Common Sense began to be passed around among the population of the colonies of the New World, a manifesto for American independence and republicanism.

“There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of Monarchy,” Paine declared. “One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of the hereditary right in kings, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise she would not so frequently turn it into ridicule by giving mankind an ass for a lion.”

The Reader

He contrasted the common sense of his pamphlet's title with the absurdity and superstition that inspired the “prejudice of Englishmen” for monarchy, arising “as much or more from national pride than reason”.

To this day, British republicans refer to Paine's Common Sense almost as the sacred text. But monarchists have their own sacred text, written almost exactly a century afterwards. Walter Bage-hot's English Constitution was a belated response to the revolutionary arguments of the New World republicans.

“We catch the Americans smiling at our Queen with her secret mystery,” he wrote, with a suggestion that Paine and his kind were prisoners of their own “literalness”. Bagehot didn't try to justify monarchy as rational (indeed he accepted many of Paine's criticisms), but his point was that an “old and complicated society” like England required more than mundane, dreary logic.

Walter Bagehot wrote about the “mystic reverence” essential to “true monarchy”

“The mystic reverence, the religious allegiance, which are essential to a true monarchy, are imaginative sentiments that no legislature can manufacture in any people,” he wrote. “You might as well adopt a father as make a monarchy.”

Bagehot had identified a developing national characteristic. As colonial power and the riches of empire declined, there was an increasing desire to define greatness as something other than wealth and territory. Britain wanted to believe it was, intrinsically, special. “People yield a deference to what we may call the theatrical show of society,” he wrote. “The climax of the play is the Queen.”

Wind the clock forward to 1952 and plans were being made for the Coronation of the new Elizabeth II. Despite post-war austerity, it was decided the event should be a fabulous, flamboyant, extravagant affair with all the pomp and pageantry they could muster. There would be feathers and fur, gold and jewels, anthems and trumpets.