SYDNEY, Australia—Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said monarchies were a source of stability that resonates with deep human values.
“The idea of monarchy is essentially a locus of authority that is above and beyond politics, speaks to something deep in our human nature, the need for ceremony, ritual continuity,” he said at an event by Australians for Constitutional Monarchy in Sydney.
“Somewhere in the hearts of citizens or subjects, there has got to be something great that we can identify with, whether it’s faith, whether it’s family, whether it’s country, and it needs a system which somehow speaks to the deep things in our souls if it is to survive,” he added.
One advantage of hereditary monarchies was that the people are born and bred into a life of duty and service, though he acknowledged that not all family members will take that responsibility seriously.
“People who are not familiar with these concepts [of duty and service] nevertheless resonated with the person who had so well exemplified them,” he said.
Abbott, who played a significant role by leading the “No” campaign in 1999 during Australia’s republic referendum, argued that monarchy works well in traditional, clan-based societies, noting the instability of republics in the Middle East.
“All of the Middle Eastern republics have degenerated into some form of tyranny, either personal tyranny, or more often, Islamist tyranny,” he said.
“If you look around the Middle East, it is the monarchies that have enjoyed a considerable degree of success, whether it be the Moroccan monarchy, the Jordanian monarchy, which have produced relatively decent and humane societies without the benefit of the untold riches of oil.”
Russia, Iran, and China
Three modern dictatorships were also discussed, along with their histories.
Abbott contrasted the aggression of modern Russia under President Vladimir Putin with the more expansionist but less oppressive Russia under the tsars.
He stated that modern Russia has been a relentlessly aggressive state, whether in the early attacks on Poland, the aggression in Eastern Europe under the Soviets, or the more recent attacks under Putin on former Soviet countries.
“When you look at Russia under the tsars, yes, it was an expansionist power, but it was expanding eastwards, generally speaking, into areas where, arguably, the Russians were able to bring something better. If we look west, Russia under the Tsars was more the oppressed than the oppressor,” he said.
“Likewise, China under the emperor, sure they saw themselves as the Middle Kingdom, sure they saw the role of tributary states as being to trample and obey. Yet it was hardly an expansionist power in the way China under the Communist Party certainly looks like becoming.”
