{"id":22193,"date":"2022-09-13T19:04:55","date_gmt":"2022-09-13T19:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=22193"},"modified":"2022-09-16T17:32:17","modified_gmt":"2022-09-16T17:32:17","slug":"game-of-thrones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2022\/09\/13\/game-of-thrones\/","title":{"rendered":"Game of Thrones"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following article about the British establishment’s attempt to use the royal funeral and proclamation of Charles as king of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to prop up the Union was written by Mike Small and first posted by bella caledonia. <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

GAME OF THRONES<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The desperation to over-project onto today\u2019s events in Edinburgh are a sign of the fear in the British establishment. The repressive police management and the attempt to ascribe political meaning to the crowds lining the streets of the Old Town are signs of a real anxiety at the process we\u2019re in the middle of.<\/p>\n

The historian Robert Lacey \u2013 talking after the service in St Giles\u2019 on BBC Scotland \u2013 explained carefully that;<\/p>\n

\u201cthe Union obliterated Scottish identity \u2026 it came back in the 1990s \u2013 many people saw it and it was a symbol of Scotland becoming more independent \u2013 breaking away from the Union but here tonight we\u2019re seeing this \u2018independent body\u2019 turning to the old certainties \u2026 it\u2019s plugging back into the United Kingdom\u2019s system and there are political repercussions that are not for us to speculate on \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Huw Edwards nodded along to this weird political propaganda.<\/p>\n

The efforts to curate a sense of \u2018national unity\u2019 are painfully obvious and painful to witness. Whether its the hegemonic bromides of endless tributes and trivia \u2013 sterling work from Kirsty Wark and Sarah Smith speculating (and just inventing) what people think and experience emotionally \u2013 are just deeply embarrassing. The BBC Radio Scotland producer who commissioned the dog experts to come onto national radio to discuss the grief of the Corgis \u2013 who they named individually (I shit you not) \u2013 needs to have a word with themselves. This is deeply embarrassing behaviour.<\/p>\n

The service at St Giles\u2019 was dignified, restrained and human-scaled. Even if it was surrounded by couthy exceptionalist commentary from the Scottish commentators (all that \u2018Queen of Scots\u2019 guff) and wildly ignorant confused commentary from the non-Scottish ones, it did have some decorum, some decency about it. The crowds were here for a number of reasons but this wasn\u2019t a display of Unionism and to describe it as such is more than hopeful.<\/p>\n

As I wrote the other day: \u201cthe Britain that Charles the Third reigns over is one in deep social crisis more bitterly divided than anyone can remember. This doesn\u2019t just go away as we parade endlessly in forced mourning and mandatory deference. It will still be there when the bunting goes away.\u201d<\/p>\n

The British State are probably delighted that the Queen died at Balmoral. This way we can have a \u2018Scottish moment\u2019 and continue the facade of national unity as all the relics and remnants of the northern bit of feudal Britain parade around us.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But they are mis-stepping at every turn and not just in the weird and endless media coverage.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been announced that the Stone of Destiny will be returned for the coronation, and of course that William will become the Prince of Wales, immediately inspiring\u00a0a petition<\/a>\u00a0created after the Queen\u2019s death calling for the Royals to \u201cend Prince of Wales title out of respect for Wales\u201d which surged to 10,000 signatures over just 24 hours.<\/p>\n

The petition says that\u00a0since the days of the Welsh Princes the title has been \u201cheld exclusively by Englishmen as a symbol of dominance over Wales\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe title remains an insult to Wales and is a symbol of historical oppression and also implies that Wales is still a principality, undermining Wales\u2019 status as a nation and a country,\u201d the petition\u2019s author, Trystan Gruffydd, said.<\/p>\n

The Royal title was originally given to Edward II of Caernarfon, son of Edward I who conquered Wales, as a means of confirming that the \u2018Tywysog Cymru\u2019 title previously held by native princes of Wales was subservient to that of the King of England.<\/p>\n

A cannier more confident monarchy, or a more innovative British state would have used this moment to genuinely use the accession as moment to upgrade and re-define Britain and strengthen the union. Genuinely modernising the monarchy \u2013 or what Britain means would have been a defence of it. Instead it resorts to default settings.<\/p>\n

The coronation chair was literally designed to hold the Stone of Destiny. It is a crude symbol of subjugation. When the Stone was returned to Scotland on St Andrew\u2019s Day 1996 it was by design of Michael Forsyth, then Scottish Secretary. It was widely seen as a crude stunt, but if Forsyth thought it would stem the flow towards devolution or the Tories unpopularity he was wrong. The Conservatives would go on to lose all their Scottish seats the following May.<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s impulse for centralisation and the asymmetrical nature of the power dynamics of the Union are on full display here, as are the brutalist nature of the new police powers now used to repress even the most modest dissent. This will be their death-knell. Just as we are awash with sentimentalism, Paddington Bears and a suffocating cocktail of propaganda and authoritarianism, the Union is quietly falling apart. That no-one among the executives, the spin doctors the columnists and TV producers can see this is all part of the fun.<\/p>\n

The crowds on the High Street were quiet and dignified. They knew they were at a funeral.<\/p>\n

12.9.22<\/strong><\/p>\n

________<\/p>\n

also see:-<\/p>\n

Kitsch colonialism and Continuity Britain \u2013 Mike Small, bells caledonia<\/a><\/p>\n

Solidarity with all protesting the imposition of an unelected king \u2013 Radical Independence Campaign<\/a><\/p>\n

The reign of Elizabrit:70 years of imperial and unionist violence \u2013 Allan Armstrong, RCF<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following article about the British establishment’s attempt to use the royal funeral and proclamation of Charles as king of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to prop up the Union was written by Mike Small and first posted by bella caledonia.   GAME OF THRONES The desperation to over-project onto today\u2019s events in Edinburgh are…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1843,1873,1846,1868,1878,1876,1875,1877],"tags":[8984],"class_list":["post-22193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-capitalists-organise","category-against-unionism","category-british-imperialism","category-against-imperialism","category-england-against-unionism","category-ireland-against-unionism","category-scotland-against-unionism","category-wales-against-unionism","tag-author-mike-small"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"views":7183,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22193","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22193"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22193\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22303,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22193\/revisions\/22303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}