Month: May 2023

What little I’ve read about the forthcoming coronation fills me with a sense of foreboding. By the sound of it, Princess Anne, our busiest and (whisper it softly) best royal, shares my feelings.

She seems to be aware how dangerous her brother’s modernising instincts are to the survival of our indispensable institution. An awareness, I’m afraid, that isn’t shared by the small but influential coterie fronted by The Guardian and the BBC.

Since most of those people have been to good schools, they’ll be able to shroud their preference for an elected president in a dense fog of academic jargon. But blow it away, and you’ll find nothing behind but the destructive urge that’s the defining characteristic of that lot.

With their education they must realise the scale of the catastrophe that would follow should they succeed in turning Britain into a republic. When that revolting Blair tried to get rid of the institution of Lord Chancellor, he found even that impossible – so wide and intricate was the constitutional ganglion around the post.

Trying to get rid of the monarchy would produce an instant collapse of government, followed by the kind of social unrest comparable to the one that did for Charles I. Charles III would be unlikely to lose his head on a Whitehall scaffold, but he’d lose his crown – and Britain would lose everything that makes her British.

That is an existential threat, and to ward it off the monarchy should stay close to the principle expressed by Matteo Ricci: Simus, ut sumus, aut non simus” (“We shall remain as we are or we shall not remain at all”). Some tweaks here and there are unavoidable and even desirable. But only as long as they don’t compromise the inherently conservative nature of monarchy.

Princess Anne understands all that. But does her brother? He should really listen to his sister who said that King Charles’s plan to slim down the monarchy “doesn’t sound like a good idea from where I’m standing”.

The Royal Family, she added, brings “long-term stability, continuity and goodness” to the UK and Commonwealth. The princess didn’t specify what the demise of the Royal Family would bring, leaving that task for wretches like me, people unbound by any protocols.

It’s not just His Majesty’s idea of a cheaper, more populist monarchy that scares me, but just about everything else he says during the run-up to his coronation. For example, he is planning to apologise for the historical links between the monarchy and slavery.

Any such apology would be a tacit admission of the family’s criminal record, which is indefensible constitutionally, questionable morally and illiterate historically. Anne seems to realise that too, saying that her own view is “slightly different, maybe more realistic”. She said: “Come on… don’t be too focused on time scales and periods. History isn’t like that.”

She is exactly right. History isn’t like that. But those who want to destroy the mionarchy are — and worse.

Incidentally, the same people who yelp the loudest about the monarchy being undemocratic despise democracy more than any monarch in recent memory ever did. Every poll I’ve seen shows that the British love their monarchy and certainly don’t think the king should apologise for slavery.

But hey, they are just hoi polloi. None so contemptuous of the people as those who seek to destroy tradition in their name.

Admittedly, his mother set the royal bar so high that Charles faces a hard task. But he makes it much harder by espousing progressivist bilge in unison with those who hate him and everything his family stands for.

His mother the late queen was a figure of utmost dignity, respected even by those who hated her and the institution she headed. She was never mocked, even though some people spoke of her with a good-natured chuckle.

Mockery can be a more murderous weapon than hatred. The Catholic Church might not have found itself on the receiving end of Luther’s diatribes, had it not in the previous centuries been exposed to cutting ridicule by writers like Boccaccio, Ariosto and Rabelais.

Alas, certain things Charles III is planning for his coronation seem to invite malicious mockery. Such as his idea of TV viewers taking the oath of allegiance as they watch the ceremony.

When I first scanned those reports, I thought of every Briton reporting to the local courthouse, putting a hand on the Bible and then doing what American schoolchildren used to do at the beginning of every day (do they still?): “I pledge allegiance to… [King Charles III, rather than the flag of the Unites States]”.

That shows how important it is not to scan reports, but to read them word for word. Turns out what His Majesty thinks we should do is scream allegiance at the TV screen. I can’t help thinking that such an oath would be less than legally binding, making it out and out kitsch.

Anyone with a shred of humour is bound to laugh, and not necessarily in a very good-natured way. First they laugh, then they cry, then they march – and then they vote. Or, even worse, revolt.

The monarchy must preserve its grandeur, its pomp and circumstance precisely to perform its key function of continuity that Anne spoke about. Is it too late to crown her instead?

Yes, I know orderly succession is essential, and those who accede to the throne must be those legally entitled, not necessarily those best suited. But a man can have wild dreams, can’t he? In reality, such dreams never come true. Anne will remain the best monarch we’ve never had.

The lady, Mother Russia that is, doth protest too much. Like Mohammed Ali in his prime, she keeps screaming “I’m the greatest!”

Actually, if you want to be pedantic about this, it’s not Russia that screams. It’s everyone who presumes to speak for her: politicians, writers, journalists – just about every Russian with access to public media.

Some of them, Putin and his merry men, see violent imperial expansion as a factor of greatness. Others, known as ‘liberals’, don’t mind imperial expansion but wince at too much violence.

Since the first group of Russians is busily imprisoning, murdering and banishing the second, most commentators highlight the differences between them. The more significant similarities are overlooked.

The two groups converge in their loudmouthed insistence that Russia’s great culture, especially literature, makes her people spiritually superior even to Western Europe, never mind the country’s neighbours. Such smugness would be unbearable even if it were justified. But is it?

Russians tend not to ask that question. For them, the presumption of cultural greatness is axiomatic.

If anyone disagrees, they start wielding names as single-word counterpunches: Pushkin! Tolstoy! Dostoyevsky! If the doubting Thomas still isn’t convinced, the litany of names will continue. Gogol! Lermontov!

Please stop bragging, chaps, I get it. Russia has indeed produced a great literature. But I can refute her claim to cultural greatness with a single numeral: 1755.

That was the year when Russia got her first University, 767 years after Christianity arrived at her shores. More to the point, Poland got her first university in 1364, Lithuania in 1579, Estonia in 1632 – and these are the neighbours Russians look down on. I could strike out farther afield and mention Italy, France and England where universities began to spread in the 12^th and 13^th centuries, but there is no need.

Tarde venientibus ossa, the Romans used to say. Nothing but bones for the latecomers, and that applies to cultures as well.

Until the mid-18^th century (and for a long time thereafter) Russia satisfied her need for educated people by sending a few aristocratic youngsters to European universities, while importing swarms of European scientists, academics, administrators, engineers, generals, historians and so forth.

Russia was largely run by foreigners, mostly Germans variably Russified, until the 20^th century, and it was German immigrants who wrote the first history books in the country. Thus Russian culture couldn’t help being derivative and provincial, adding its own indigenous touches to foreign implants as it went along.

French became the dominant language of cultured discourse, a tendency often satirised in Russian literature, from Griboyedov to Tolstoy and Chekhov. Even in the 19^th century French-speaking aristocrats like Karamzin were still creating Russian words by translating (not simply borrowing) French ones.

(But for that court historian and poet, Russian wouldn’t have words for impression, charity, free thought, responsibility, industry, touching, amusing, concentrate, aesthetic, epoch, harmony, catastrophe and many others.)

For all their efforts, the Russian vocabulary remains small to this day, a third the size of English, for example. But it’s true that Russian is big enough to have accommodated an impressive number of great writers.

But a dozen or so great writers do not make a great national culture. Especially in Russia, where literature has always had to assume functions that civilised countries delegate to other disciplines, such as philosophy, political science, history, economics and so on.

Practitioners of those disciplines have always been hamstrung by censorship, backed up by the punitive machine of the Russian state. For example, any critical analysis of Russian culture could have serious consequences for a thinker.

The first Russian philosopher Chaadayev (d. 1856) found that out the hard way when he published his essay Lettres philosophiques, written in French of course. As a result, he was officially declared insane and confined to home arrest – the first, but far from last case of penal psychiatry used as an extension of censorship in Russia.

Yet poets and novelists could get away with taking a few liberties, albeit within very narrow limits. Thus they had to assume a didactic role, teaching the population the essential ingredients of culture and civilisation.

Since at the time when great literature was produced most Russians were illiterate, the poets and novelists had to go through intermediaries by teaching the teachers, who’d then disseminate these lessons to those unable to receive them from the horse’s mouth.

So what did they teach? Take Pushkin, Russia’s national poet in the same sense in which Shakespeare is England’s, Goethe is Germany’s, Dante is Italy’s, and Racine is France’s. Though toying with the odd liberal idea here and there, underneath that veneer Pushkin was a dyed-in-the-wool Russian imperialist and supremacist.

When the Poles rose against their Russian masters in 1830-1831, Pushkin showed his true colours by publishing the poem To the Slanderers of Russia, in which he issued an open threat to Europe:

Ye’re bold of tongue — but hark, would ye in deed but try it
Or is the hero, now reclined in laurelled quiet,
Too weak to fix once more, Izmail’s red bayonet?
Or hath the Russian Tsar ever, in vain commanded?
Or must we meet all Europe banded?
Have we forgot to conquer yet?

Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and numerous lesser figures wrote about the innate moral and spiritual superiority of Russians to anyone else. They glorified Russia as a great empire, implicitly entitled to civilise her neighbours, by flogging them if need be.

That sort of thing has been not so much the omnipresent motif of Russian culture, but the dominant one. When expressed with the artistic mastery of Pushkin or Tolstoy, the theme enchanted readers – and inspired men of action.

When you describe your country as the greatest, that’s both a superlative and a comparative. ‘Greatest’ means greater than anyone else – in Russia’s case, specifically the West and any other place that’s not Russia.

When those countries are smaller and weaker, pouncing on them is depicted as a cultural mission, not merely naked aggression. This is especially pronounced in the way Russia treats her former dependencies trying to break free, such as Georgia and the Ukraine.

The great Russian culture is touted as a justification for invasion – in exactly the same way that Pushkin called for disciplining Poland and anyone else who dared support her. I’d suggest no culture that teaches such lessons can be great – regardless of the number of accomplished artists it has produced.

The ultimate role of culture is to elevate man to a perch as near God as possible, not to reduce him to a feral beast or, at best, a smug, provincial Johnny-come-lately.

A message to the Russians: stop thumping your chest and screaming how great your country is. If it really is, quiet self-confidence, backed up by good and noble actions, will communicate that message much better.

And do leave others to their own vices and devices. They may have a point, you know.    

I don’t know why I chose this silly pun to talk about the scandal brewing around the football commentator Martin Tyler.

After all, other than his surname, he has nothing in common with Wat Tyler who led a 14^th century peasant rebellion. I knew that, but the words came to me and I just put them down without giving it another thought. So there.

But boy, am I glad I’m not held to as much scrutiny as Martin Tyler and everyone else in the public eye. One gets the impression that the only way for those chaps not to get in trouble is to keep shtum.

Perhaps our TV channels should start hiring Trappist monks as commentators. They may not add any insights, but then neither would they offend our sensitive public the way Martin Tyler did – more than once.

His latest transgression came yesterday, when a Korean player named Son wrestled his opponent to the ground and got a yellow card for his trouble. Mr Tyler’s comment on the incident included the words ‘martial arts’, dropped as casually as my title above.

Within minutes the whole Internet hell broke loose. “Are we not taking that as a racist comment?” asked one irate viewer.

Another fan said: “Martin Tyler saying ‘martial arts’… is not a good look.”

Such opprobrium was way too mild for another sanctimonious viewer: “Martin Tyler’s ‘martial arts’ comment about Son’s yellow card was disgusting, xenophobic and racist…”

Sky Sports, Mr Tyler’s employer, issued a grovelling apology and a veiled threat to the commentator: “Martin Tyler has been reminded of need for care with his wording. No offence was intended.”

Yes, but it was taken, though it’s hard to understand why. The part of Asia Mr Son is from is widely associated with martial arts. In fact, every one, other than boxing, I’ve ever heard of originated in China, Japan or Korea. That, I’d suggest, in no way demeans the dignity of Oriental people – quite the contrary.

In fact, Shaolin monks developed kung fu thousands of years ago because they weren’t allowed to carry weapons. Personally, I have nothing but admiration for people capable of defending themselves without running their assailant through with a sword.

Some people may feel differently, but still – where’s the racist offence? Mr Tyler’s remark was perfectly innocuous, as any sensible person would know. I’m sure that Son himself wouldn’t be in the least offended – as he isn’t when his besotted fans sing: “He will run and he will score, he will eat your Labrador”.

Not every racial stereotype is offensive – most are good-natured. Moreover, I’m absolutely positive that none of Mr Tyler’s detractors was genuinely offended. No one, not even football viewers, is as cretinous as that (I am one myself, by the way… and no remarks from you).

The issue, I’m afraid, is much more sinister than common or garden stupidity. Our masses have fallen victim to a Pavlovian experiment, designed to produce a reflexive response that has nothing to do with the professed irritant.

The subject is systematically indoctrinated in the values of new, virtual morality that may co-exist with the old, real kind, but ideally should supersede it. This new code is like a private club charging a membership fee or a religion demanding a tithe.

It’s paid not in money but in attacks on anything that goes against the tenets of virtual morality. One such tenet is that a generalised reference to any group identity is ipso facto offensive.

Yes, we know that, for example, men and women are different in some respects, black athletes are better at running and jumping than their white colleagues, the Irish hold their liquor better than the Japanese, Italians are more emotive than Swedes, and the Dutch have a compulsion to produce and consume mountains of mediocre cheese.

But the guardians of virtual morality will censure anyone who reveals, by word or even gesture, that he knows not everyone – and not every group – is the same. Modernity worships at the altar of fake uniformity, and its priests will punish any perceived heresy.

This is brainwashing indoctrination at its most sinister. Our masses are being converted to a bogus secular religion with its code of virtual morality. The converts discipline themselves. They know that even the most innocuous reference to any group stereotype is sacrilegious – and react on cue.

If you ask them whether they really are offended by, say, a suggestion that Asians have something to do with martial arts, they won’t know what you are on about. Their consternation will be caused by the word ‘really’.

What do you mean, really offended? You miss the whole point. Reality has nothing to do with it. It’s that club membership, isn’t it? Or tithes to be paid to the virtual religion.

A neophyte doesn’t want to be drummed out or excommunicated. Registering the indignation he doesn’t really feel is like paying a membership fee or dropping a fiver into the collection plate.

As to poor Martin Tyler, he’d better watch his step because he has previous. Last month, he commented on a slightly injured Ukrainian player who, he said, should “soldier on”.

That too was deemed insensitive, disgusting and offensive. Doesn’t he know there is a war on, and many Ukrainians, including soldiers, are dying?

Admittedly, the link between Tyler’s use of that old idiom and his racism, homophobia, misogyny and perhaps global warming denial is less immediate than in the case of his ‘martial arts’ affront. But given enough painstaking scrutiny, it can be found.

And by the way, if Tyler wants to keep his job, he should refrain from talking about yellow cards. You can be sure some people out there will be offended by the racial allusion.

I started with one silly joke, so let me leave you with another. A woman is buying a chicken and holding up the queue by examining the bird for five minutes. She sniffs under the chicken’s wings, then between its legs, and finally pronounces her verdict: “This chicken smells.” The angry butcher answers: “Lady, are you sure you could pass the same test?”