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Quings birthday
Jun. 5th, 2023 02:59 pmIt's the first New Zealand observance of King's Birthday Weekend since 1952, following the ... transition from Queen Elizabeth II to King Charles III.
A poster on mastodon whom I will credit if I ever manage to find the post again, made mention of tripping over the change in name of the public holiday, and I agree that it should henceforth be called simply "Quing's birthday weekend" until such time as we manage to strike it from the calendar and replace it with something more appropriate to modern Aotearoa / New Zealand. Perhaps a memorial day for the past, freeing up more of Waitangi Day for celebrating the present / future.
Anyway that post put this image in my head, and now I put it in yours.
Historical note: the regular observance of Quing's Birthday in New Zealand was set during the reign of a later George than the one portrayed above, George VI.
~~~
People have been pointing out that now is a good time to make the move away from Commonwealth state to Republic, but there is still not the /political/ will do so. Unfortunately our politicians are still for the most part either part of or beholden to the class of people who fear that making that necessary step away from our colonial past will mean having to
* admit to and maybe even [horror] /give up/ some of the social and economic privilege bestowed upon them by the historic and ongoing wrongdoings of the "Crown" and
* take on the challenges of becoming something new, properly recognising the principles in Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
While I am definitely keen on us making the move as soon as practical, there are national conversations we need to have first, and one of those is around what we do about having "head of state" (a.k.a. king, queen or president). I question what we actually need a separate head of state - particularly an elected one - for at all.
The most common suggestion is simply to transfer the duties to the "Governor General" - a title which is already a misnomer as it has had no relevance to the actual governing of the country in decades. The responsibilities as they stand are purely ceremonial/diplomatic/social and actually I would be fine with the idea of codifying that as a (suitably titled) position for conveying and upholding the mana all peoples of Aotearoa on the public stage, as long as it doesn't become just another plum political appointment for MPs who are past their use by date.
A poster on mastodon whom I will credit if I ever manage to find the post again, made mention of tripping over the change in name of the public holiday, and I agree that it should henceforth be called simply "Quing's birthday weekend" until such time as we manage to strike it from the calendar and replace it with something more appropriate to modern Aotearoa / New Zealand. Perhaps a memorial day for the past, freeing up more of Waitangi Day for celebrating the present / future.
Anyway that post put this image in my head, and now I put it in yours.
Historical note: the regular observance of Quing's Birthday in New Zealand was set during the reign of a later George than the one portrayed above, George VI.
~~~
People have been pointing out that now is a good time to make the move away from Commonwealth state to Republic, but there is still not the /political/ will do so. Unfortunately our politicians are still for the most part either part of or beholden to the class of people who fear that making that necessary step away from our colonial past will mean having to
* admit to and maybe even [horror] /give up/ some of the social and economic privilege bestowed upon them by the historic and ongoing wrongdoings of the "Crown" and
* take on the challenges of becoming something new, properly recognising the principles in Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
While I am definitely keen on us making the move as soon as practical, there are national conversations we need to have first, and one of those is around what we do about having "head of state" (a.k.a. king, queen or president). I question what we actually need a separate head of state - particularly an elected one - for at all.
The most common suggestion is simply to transfer the duties to the "Governor General" - a title which is already a misnomer as it has had no relevance to the actual governing of the country in decades. The responsibilities as they stand are purely ceremonial/diplomatic/social and actually I would be fine with the idea of codifying that as a (suitably titled) position for conveying and upholding the mana all peoples of Aotearoa on the public stage, as long as it doesn't become just another plum political appointment for MPs who are past their use by date.
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