The Hypocrisy of Australian Republicans

(Photograph: VisitCopenhagen, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

According to opinion polls, most Australians wish to remove the British monarch as their head of state and become a republic.

Thus, in anticipation of their glorious revolution, if and whenever that will be, King Charles does not appear on Australian banknotes. During their broadcast of his coronation, Australia’s equivalent of the BBC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), spent much time debating the monarchy’s future and blaming it for the oppression of First Nation Australians during the period of colonisation. ABC did not make it clear how Charles III can be held guilty for the crimes of his ancestors, but to expect progressives to demonstrate mature reasoning is wholly unrealistic as we know only too well this side of the Equator. Furthermore, the monarchy is not responsible for the continuing prejudice against First Nation Australians within Australian society. That is the fault of some Australians. For instance, 400 First Nation Australians have died in police custody over the past three decades, sometimes in highly suspicious circumstances. In the light of such a shameful statistic, we would expect ABC’s presenters to be rather less sanctimonious, but then again, lamenting past prejudice is easier than doing something about prejudices in the present.

Having lambasted the British monarchy as genocidal lunatics, Australia’s republicans nevertheless are very pleased that an Australian will soon be Denmark’s new queen. The current queen, Margrethe II, will be abdicating in two weeks’ time because after fifty-two years as queen, she has concluded it is now time to leave the responsibility to the next generation. Her son, Crown Prince Frederick, will succeed her and he is married to an Australian called Mary Donaldson.

Frederick and Donaldson’s courtship and marriage have been closely and jubilantly followed by the Australian Media. Now that she will be queen, Australia’s television and newspapers are falling over themselves to report this. ABC has presented the couple’s relationship as a true ‘love story’ and tracked down Donaldson’s former headteacher who said in an interview with ABC that she always knew Donaldson was destined for greatness.

MPs have been no less gushing. The liberal party MP, Alex Hawke, declared that 2024 had got off to a wonderful start with the news that an Australian would soon be wearing a Danish crown. As Donaldson was born in Tasmania, the Tasmanian republican premier, Jeremy Rockcliffe, could not resist describing her as ‘Princess Mary’ and declaring her to be a wonderful ambassador for Tasmania.

Such inconsistency on the part of Australia’s republicans is laughable or infuriating depending upon one’s disposition. What makes it worse is that no one in Australia’s media and ruling classes appears to know that Denmark’s monarchs over centuries created a colonial empire. Denmark acquired its first colony in 1536 and its empire lasted until 1953 when Greenland ceased to have colonial status. Denmark was involved in the transatlantic slave trade also. Fort Christiansborg was Denmark’s slave trading base in West Africa from which slaves were transported to the plantations in the Danish West Indies. In total, it is estimated that Danish slave traders sold 111,000 slaves. The fort was named after the Danish king, Christian IV.

If one delves further back in Denmark’s history, one finds additional shocking facts. During the eight to the tenth centuries AD, Denmark’s bestial Vikings, under the leadership of their kings, not only pillaged and massacred but also enslaved many Europeans. This egregious practice for the most part ceased when the Danes converted to Christianity in the tenth century, but there were still Danes prepared to enslave people until as late as the fourteenth century.

With such a record, one would expect Australia’s republicans to be horrified that one of their own has married into a royal family. Surely the same reasoning applies as with the British monarchy which ‘has blood dripping from its hands’? Alas, apparently not. The idea of an Australian queen has gone to their heads.

Australia’s republican-cum-Danish monarchists therefore ought to crack open a few books on Danish history and educate themselves about this nation, whose liberal society belies its bloody past. If they cannot manage books, Wikipedia spills the beans. They then will have a choice: either be consistent and condemn Donaldson’s role at the top of an institution that has a history of colonialism and slavery, or cease their attacks on the British monarchy and find a more reasonable basis for their republicanism – such as the simple desire to have an Australian head of state. Decisions about Australia’s political future cannot be made by those whose attitudes towards Britain’s monarchy are the product of historical and moral ignorance.

Peter Harris is the author of two books, The Rage Against the Light: Why Christopher Hitchens Was Wrong (2019) and Do You Believe It? A Guide to a Reasonable Christian Faith (2020).

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