The Monarchist 1.0
Defending the British Crown Commonwealth and the English-Speaking Peoples
[+] HONOURING OUR PATRON, SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL, VICTOR OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING PEOPLES
[+] HONOURING OUR QUEEN, ELIZABETH THE SECOND, ON THE 80TH YEAR OF HER BIRTH (1926 - 2006)
[+] HONOURING OUR KING, SAINT EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, ON THE 1000TH YEAR OF HIS BIRTH (1005 - 2005)
[+] HONOURING OUR HERO, LORD NELSON, ON THE BICENTENNIAL OF THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR (1805 - 2005)
[+] HONOURING OUR SONS, THE QUEEN'S COMMONWEALTH SOLDIERS KILLED IN THE 'WAR ON TERROR'
Chief Warrant Officer Robert Girouard, 46, Royal Canadian Regiment, Nov 27, 2006 (Afstan)
Staff Sergeant Sharron Elliott, 34, Intelligence Corps, Nov 12, 2006 (Iraq)
Private Jacob B. Kovco, 25, Royal Australian Regiment, April 21, 2006
[+] HONOURING OUR VETS ON THE 150TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE VICTORIA CROSS (1856 - 2006)
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
America's Choice: Anglosphere or Anarchy
Part II of our series by James Pillman:
The United Nations was founded with what the road to hell is paved with, good intentions. The victorious allies gathered in 1945 to write a UN Charter, replete with ringing calls for peace and security, human rights and equality. Yet for the past six decades the vast majority of the world's people have enjoyed few, if any of these ideals. Even today less than half of the 192 member states are considered free. And the list of UN scandals and outrages is seemingly endless: Oil for food, human rights bodies that include Saudi Arabia, Libya, Sudan, etc., "peacekeepers" moonlighting as drug runners and child-prostitute procurers, Zionism equals racism and on and on. Conservatives have long wanted to give the UN the boot and turn it's HQ into the Turtle Bay Tenements, or some such. But the UN, for all it's corruption and ineffectiveness, will probably survive, if only out of inertia.
There is, however, another international organization with a far better record on freedom, democracy and human rights. And where scandals and corrupt practice are the exception, not the rule. The Commonwealth of Nations predates the UN, includes members of every color and creed, and extends to all six inhabited continents. The Commonwealth though, is considerably poorer than the rest of the UN. It has 30% of the world's population but only 16% of it's economy, which makes it's record on human freedom that much more impressive. Consider these statistics from Freedom House, broken down regionally:
------------------- Commonwealth nations -------- Non-Commonwealth nations
------------------- free / partly-free / not-free ---- free / partly-free / not-free
Americas --------- 12 ******* 1 ********** 0 ------------ 12 ******* 8 ******** 2
Europe ------------ 3 ******* 0 ********** 0 ------------- 34 ****** 4 ******** 2
Africa -------------- 6 ******* 10 ********* 2 ------------- 5 ****** 14 ******* 16
Asia/Pacific ------- 8 ******* 8 ********** 3 ------------- 9 ***** 13 ******** 20
Total ------------- 29 ****** 19 ******* 5 ------------ 60 **** 39 ********40
The British traditions of liberal democracy and the supremacy of the law have obviously survived throughout most of the old Empire. But can the Commonwealth transform itself from a mostly Third World talking shop into something more substantial? The criteria for membership includes having had a constitutional association with an existing member state, and complying with it's general principals, such as democratic governance and respect for human rights. Unofficially, speaking English would help. Ireland and a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe, as former Commonwealth nations, would be happily welcomed back into the fold. But the elephant in the room is a certain republic whose constitutional association with Britain lasted from 1607 to 1776. US membership would transform the Commonwealth into a powerhouse overnight, and pave the way for the English-speaking successor states to the American "empire" to join: Liberia, the Philippines, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau. Former British colonies in the Middle East and Burma are unlikely candidates as none are English-speaking, and none (except Israel) are free democracies. The last possible candidate might be Rwanda, never part of the Empire but with English as an official language since the genocide of mostly English-speaking Tutsis by mostly French-speaking Hutus in 1994. Rwanda's inclusion (contingent on democratization) would mean the entire English-speaking world was inside the Commonwealth.
To distinguish this new Commonwealth from the old one, let's call it the Greater Anglosphere (GA). One primary function of the GA might be channelling development assistance to deserving recipients. Why should Canada, Ireland or Singapore continue to aid totalitarian states like Cuba, Algeria or Vietnam? Foreign aid should be directed to sister Anglophone democracies like Jamaica, Ghana and the Philippines instead. And the GA's institutions should be strengthened. Heads of government could meet annually rather than biennially as is the case now. A charter could be drawn up based on the declarations of Singapore in 1971 and Harare in 1991, promoting democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Like the UN Charter, but with a history of actually adhering to it's principals. Likewise a permanent council to represent the GA's 62 member states. Instead of a UN-type Security Council, an informal inner circle of major democracies could meet from time to time. Australia, Canada, India, the Philippines, South Africa, the UK and the US (the GA-7, if you will) together account for over 70% of the GA's population, over 75% of it's area, and over 90% of it's GDP. Upon major improvement in their economies and democratic systems, large countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria could be admitted to this inner council.
The GA should never be allowed to grow a useless, byzantine bureaucracy like the UN. Nor should it try to replace useful Western institutions like NATO and the OECD. But it should act as a check against a world breaking up into regional and religious blocs. The EU has gone furthest down this path, with Brussells Eurocrats trying to impose a centralized, supranational state on a reluctant population. France sees itself as Europe's natural leader and, in it's reflexive anti-Anglo-Saxonism, more often than not sides with the autocracies (China and Russia) over the democracies (the US and UK) on the UN Security Council (the grownups among the children of the General Assembly). Mark Steyn, paraphrasing Harold Macmillan, sees France's grand strategy as a French-led Europe playing Greece to China's Rome. All to the detriment of America, of course. In her book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, Bat Ye'or paints a dark picture of an anti-American, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian Europe with increasing institutional ties to the despotic Arab League. Beholden to Muslim immigrants at home and Arab oil-producers abroad, the EU seems to be evolving into Eurabia.
Meanwhile, the US has immersed itself in NAFTA and has proposed extending it to the entire hemisphere (FTAA). While laudably increasing trade between it's members, NAFTA seems to have a hidden clause allowing for the illegal immigration and eventual amnesty of tens of millions of Mexicans into the US. NAFTA's consolidation into an EU-like political and economic union would likely wind up seeing the US as a hybrid Anglo-Hispanic society. It's expansion into the FTAA might find the US/Estados Unidos as merely the northern appendage of Latin America in a Spanish-dominated hemisphere. The politics, culture and economy of this future America might resemble that of present-day Brazil. In a similar vein, Australia and New Zealand are now "dialogue partners" of, and may push for full membership in, ASEAN. ASEAN is an Indonesian-dominated political-economic group based in Southeast Asia. It's mostlypoor population of several hundred million could easily swamp the mostly-rich Aussie-Kiwi combined population of just 25 million. The two may be rushing from their British past towards an Austral-Asian future. The core states of the Anglosphere (the UK, Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) are thus divided into three regional blocs. And the divisions between them will only widen if further EU integration begets further NAFTA integration begets further ASEAN integration.
Still, all things considered, the EU, NAFTA and ASEAN are, for now, relatively benign organizations. Not so with the Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO). This little reported-on group acts as a kind of Eurasian anti-NATO. Formed in 1996, the SCO comprises China, Russia and four Central Asian republics. It has five associate members, including Commonwealth countries India and Pakistan, plus, more ominously, Iran. The SCO's primary function is military co-operation between member states, and eventually to evict US troops and bases from Central Asia, including Afghanistan, another SCO associate member. At the group's 2006 summit, Iran's president called for an overtly anti-Western stance from the SCO, and offered access to his country's vast energy reserves in exchange for Chinese and Russian support on the UN Security Council. An emerging China-Russia-Iran axis is troublesome enough for the West, but India's full membership in the SCO, and buying into it's anti-Western agenda, would be a geopolitical disaster. The world's "centre of gravity" might switch permanently from the US and North Atlantic to China and mid-Asia. Future generations will ask "Who lost India?".
Another malignant world body is the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Formed in 1969, the OIC's animating principals seem to be a virulent anti-Semitism and deep resentment of the West. Twelve of it's 57 mostly Islamic member states are also in the Commonwealth. In countries from Nigeria to Pakistan to Bangladesh to Malaysia, Muslim-inspired theocratic rule and Sharia Law are in a bloody struggle with British-inspired democratic rule and Common Law. The worldwide rise of radical Islam has strengthened the OIC vis-a-vis the Commonwealth. America and the West must continue to support the Enlightenment values of the Commonwealth against Islamic extremism. The African Union (AU) rivals the UN in it's bureaucratic graft and incompetence, it's support of vicious dictatorships, and the avariciousness of it's so-called peacekeepers. Eighteen of 53 members are in the Commonwealth. The AU may "mean well", but it tends to sink to the level of it's lowest common denominator. An example of this is the pan-African adulation of Robert Mugabe, whose misrule of Zimbabwe led to it's expulsion from the Commonwealth, but remains a member in good standing of the AU. South Africa in particular should be encouraged to align itself with English-speaking democracies in other parts of Africa and overseas, rather than despots closer to home.
So the world is breaking up into blocs, some bad, some worse. All under the watchful eye of the emerging world government (shudder), the UN. Isolationism in this coming world is not a realistic option. That's why the GA is an idea whose time has come. English-speaking democracies under the Common Law are being nibbled away at around the world. If we think that they're worth defending, then we need a plan. If not, not. But the decision is essentially an American one. If the US joins the Commonwealth, then the Greater Anglosphere and the freedom and democracy it represents will become a reality. If it declines, then Americans might end up looking on from their hemispheric isolation as Eurabia plays Greece to the SCO's Rome.
POSTED BY: The Monarchist AT 11:59 a.m. | LINKS |
Part II of our series by James Pillman:
The United Nations was founded with what the road to hell is paved with, good intentions. The victorious allies gathered in 1945 to write a UN Charter, replete with ringing calls for peace and security, human rights and equality. Yet for the past six decades the vast majority of the world's people have enjoyed few, if any of these ideals. Even today less than half of the 192 member states are considered free. And the list of UN scandals and outrages is seemingly endless: Oil for food, human rights bodies that include Saudi Arabia, Libya, Sudan, etc., "peacekeepers" moonlighting as drug runners and child-prostitute procurers, Zionism equals racism and on and on. Conservatives have long wanted to give the UN the boot and turn it's HQ into the Turtle Bay Tenements, or some such. But the UN, for all it's corruption and ineffectiveness, will probably survive, if only out of inertia.There is, however, another international organization with a far better record on freedom, democracy and human rights. And where scandals and corrupt practice are the exception, not the rule. The Commonwealth of Nations predates the UN, includes members of every color and creed, and extends to all six inhabited continents. The Commonwealth though, is considerably poorer than the rest of the UN. It has 30% of the world's population but only 16% of it's economy, which makes it's record on human freedom that much more impressive. Consider these statistics from Freedom House, broken down regionally:
------------------- Commonwealth nations -------- Non-Commonwealth nations
------------------- free / partly-free / not-free ---- free / partly-free / not-free
Americas --------- 12 ******* 1 ********** 0 ------------ 12 ******* 8 ******** 2
Europe ------------ 3 ******* 0 ********** 0 ------------- 34 ****** 4 ******** 2
Africa -------------- 6 ******* 10 ********* 2 ------------- 5 ****** 14 ******* 16
Asia/Pacific ------- 8 ******* 8 ********** 3 ------------- 9 ***** 13 ******** 20
Total ------------- 29 ****** 19 ******* 5 ------------ 60 **** 39 ********40
The British traditions of liberal democracy and the supremacy of the law have obviously survived throughout most of the old Empire. But can the Commonwealth transform itself from a mostly Third World talking shop into something more substantial? The criteria for membership includes having had a constitutional association with an existing member state, and complying with it's general principals, such as democratic governance and respect for human rights. Unofficially, speaking English would help. Ireland and a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe, as former Commonwealth nations, would be happily welcomed back into the fold. But the elephant in the room is a certain republic whose constitutional association with Britain lasted from 1607 to 1776. US membership would transform the Commonwealth into a powerhouse overnight, and pave the way for the English-speaking successor states to the American "empire" to join: Liberia, the Philippines, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau. Former British colonies in the Middle East and Burma are unlikely candidates as none are English-speaking, and none (except Israel) are free democracies. The last possible candidate might be Rwanda, never part of the Empire but with English as an official language since the genocide of mostly English-speaking Tutsis by mostly French-speaking Hutus in 1994. Rwanda's inclusion (contingent on democratization) would mean the entire English-speaking world was inside the Commonwealth.
To distinguish this new Commonwealth from the old one, let's call it the Greater Anglosphere (GA). One primary function of the GA might be channelling development assistance to deserving recipients. Why should Canada, Ireland or Singapore continue to aid totalitarian states like Cuba, Algeria or Vietnam? Foreign aid should be directed to sister Anglophone democracies like Jamaica, Ghana and the Philippines instead. And the GA's institutions should be strengthened. Heads of government could meet annually rather than biennially as is the case now. A charter could be drawn up based on the declarations of Singapore in 1971 and Harare in 1991, promoting democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Like the UN Charter, but with a history of actually adhering to it's principals. Likewise a permanent council to represent the GA's 62 member states. Instead of a UN-type Security Council, an informal inner circle of major democracies could meet from time to time. Australia, Canada, India, the Philippines, South Africa, the UK and the US (the GA-7, if you will) together account for over 70% of the GA's population, over 75% of it's area, and over 90% of it's GDP. Upon major improvement in their economies and democratic systems, large countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria could be admitted to this inner council.
The GA should never be allowed to grow a useless, byzantine bureaucracy like the UN. Nor should it try to replace useful Western institutions like NATO and the OECD. But it should act as a check against a world breaking up into regional and religious blocs. The EU has gone furthest down this path, with Brussells Eurocrats trying to impose a centralized, supranational state on a reluctant population. France sees itself as Europe's natural leader and, in it's reflexive anti-Anglo-Saxonism, more often than not sides with the autocracies (China and Russia) over the democracies (the US and UK) on the UN Security Council (the grownups among the children of the General Assembly). Mark Steyn, paraphrasing Harold Macmillan, sees France's grand strategy as a French-led Europe playing Greece to China's Rome. All to the detriment of America, of course. In her book Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis, Bat Ye'or paints a dark picture of an anti-American, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian Europe with increasing institutional ties to the despotic Arab League. Beholden to Muslim immigrants at home and Arab oil-producers abroad, the EU seems to be evolving into Eurabia.
Meanwhile, the US has immersed itself in NAFTA and has proposed extending it to the entire hemisphere (FTAA). While laudably increasing trade between it's members, NAFTA seems to have a hidden clause allowing for the illegal immigration and eventual amnesty of tens of millions of Mexicans into the US. NAFTA's consolidation into an EU-like political and economic union would likely wind up seeing the US as a hybrid Anglo-Hispanic society. It's expansion into the FTAA might find the US/Estados Unidos as merely the northern appendage of Latin America in a Spanish-dominated hemisphere. The politics, culture and economy of this future America might resemble that of present-day Brazil. In a similar vein, Australia and New Zealand are now "dialogue partners" of, and may push for full membership in, ASEAN. ASEAN is an Indonesian-dominated political-economic group based in Southeast Asia. It's mostlypoor population of several hundred million could easily swamp the mostly-rich Aussie-Kiwi combined population of just 25 million. The two may be rushing from their British past towards an Austral-Asian future. The core states of the Anglosphere (the UK, Ireland, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) are thus divided into three regional blocs. And the divisions between them will only widen if further EU integration begets further NAFTA integration begets further ASEAN integration.
Still, all things considered, the EU, NAFTA and ASEAN are, for now, relatively benign organizations. Not so with the Shanghai Co-operation Organization (SCO). This little reported-on group acts as a kind of Eurasian anti-NATO. Formed in 1996, the SCO comprises China, Russia and four Central Asian republics. It has five associate members, including Commonwealth countries India and Pakistan, plus, more ominously, Iran. The SCO's primary function is military co-operation between member states, and eventually to evict US troops and bases from Central Asia, including Afghanistan, another SCO associate member. At the group's 2006 summit, Iran's president called for an overtly anti-Western stance from the SCO, and offered access to his country's vast energy reserves in exchange for Chinese and Russian support on the UN Security Council. An emerging China-Russia-Iran axis is troublesome enough for the West, but India's full membership in the SCO, and buying into it's anti-Western agenda, would be a geopolitical disaster. The world's "centre of gravity" might switch permanently from the US and North Atlantic to China and mid-Asia. Future generations will ask "Who lost India?".
Another malignant world body is the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Formed in 1969, the OIC's animating principals seem to be a virulent anti-Semitism and deep resentment of the West. Twelve of it's 57 mostly Islamic member states are also in the Commonwealth. In countries from Nigeria to Pakistan to Bangladesh to Malaysia, Muslim-inspired theocratic rule and Sharia Law are in a bloody struggle with British-inspired democratic rule and Common Law. The worldwide rise of radical Islam has strengthened the OIC vis-a-vis the Commonwealth. America and the West must continue to support the Enlightenment values of the Commonwealth against Islamic extremism. The African Union (AU) rivals the UN in it's bureaucratic graft and incompetence, it's support of vicious dictatorships, and the avariciousness of it's so-called peacekeepers. Eighteen of 53 members are in the Commonwealth. The AU may "mean well", but it tends to sink to the level of it's lowest common denominator. An example of this is the pan-African adulation of Robert Mugabe, whose misrule of Zimbabwe led to it's expulsion from the Commonwealth, but remains a member in good standing of the AU. South Africa in particular should be encouraged to align itself with English-speaking democracies in other parts of Africa and overseas, rather than despots closer to home.
So the world is breaking up into blocs, some bad, some worse. All under the watchful eye of the emerging world government (shudder), the UN. Isolationism in this coming world is not a realistic option. That's why the GA is an idea whose time has come. English-speaking democracies under the Common Law are being nibbled away at around the world. If we think that they're worth defending, then we need a plan. If not, not. But the decision is essentially an American one. If the US joins the Commonwealth, then the Greater Anglosphere and the freedom and democracy it represents will become a reality. If it declines, then Americans might end up looking on from their hemispheric isolation as Eurabia plays Greece to the SCO's Rome.
POSTED BY: The Monarchist AT 11:59 a.m. | LINKS |
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