Where chaos stops and more chaos ensues. Where Filia plays the electric keyboard.
Where anything goes.
-//o_O\\7 *Home of the Awful, Mediocre and Pathetic* -//u_u\\7
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Where chaos stops and more chaos ensues. Where Filia plays the electric keyboard. Where anything goes. -//o_O\\7 *Home of the Awful, Mediocre and Pathetic* -//u_u\\7 |
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Thursday, September 07, 2006 And it's a ... boy! Well, congratulations to the Japanese royal family, and in particular the imperial couple, and the father and mother of the blessed infant. Why those people in particular? Well, the recent debate, furore, and now the revelation and the reactions to it have got me thinking, as is usual, and I'll explain in a short moment. First I'd like to state a few things. I don't have anything against the Japanese royal family in the slightest, in fact, they have my very deep respect for being one of the royal families to actually preserve their reputation and reverance among their people and not engage in any scandalous or sordid activities as are regular features of others, especially the now near-defunct European monarchies. And of course, I'm a supporter of Japan generally (no mention about their political or economic policies here ... *rolls eyes* ... but if mister Koizumi wants to visit Yasukuni shrine it's his issue, and not mine in any way). But, you know, we can't have anything like traditions or preconceived notions standing in the way of good, thorough consideration, else we wouldn't have had famous and unconventional philosophers and thinkers like Machiavelli, Kant and Marx, would we? So I'd like to state first and foremost that all conjecture is purely fiction and is in no way meant to reflect or predict reality. But is what I suggest what I would really like to see? I needn't answer that question, suffice to say that it will never happen. But every time the issue of the Japanese royal family's line of succession appears in the news, it always gets me thinking, and with the birth of a new prince to the second son of the emperor, it adds a new twist to the issue. Sometime last year, the Prime Minister had been lobbying to allow an amendment to ... is it the constitution? Or just tradition? To allow girls to succeed to the throne. This would, of course, be most beneficial to Princess Aiko, only daughter of the Crown Prince and Princess, plus it would take a lot of stress off her mother for the pressure to produce a male heir. Pressure to produce a heir. Sickening. Needless to say, I approve. Whole-heartedly. And for the principle of it, not for any benefit of the (irresistibly cute!) dear girl whatsoever. But many Japanese people are not agreeable to such a change, and I mention in particular some (stereotypically tradionalist) old Japanese ladies, who still believe unswaveringly that purity in the imperial line can only be passed down through males, and the first-borns, at that. The thought of it just makes me sick ... that people from an advanced and modernised country can still agree to the repression of their own gender. It's like serfs begging to be returned to slavery, or hostages begging to be returned to their captors. Whenever I think about the Japanese imperial succession dispute, and the way these people feel about it, I just feel so impossibly depressed and saddened. And I did mention how I was a supporter of Japan just moments ago ... a supporter of such a society? For this, I'm sad, both for these people, and for the monarchy themselves. Which brings us to the intricate issue that is the modern monarchy. Now, as we all know, I don't approve of hereditary monarchy in the slightest ... everyone knows I'm a benevolent dictatorship kind of person. But you know what kind of dictator I'll probably end up like ... anyway, that's irrelevant. As anyone who has studied political history or read fantasy novels or both knows, unless you're the supreme leader or the immediate and adult (to be old enough to dodge assassination attempts) descendant of the supreme leader, it sucks to be part of a monarchy. Sure, there are kickbacks to being part of a monarchy, like having pretty mansions, pretty girls, pretty toy boys *ahem*, but as we all know, supreme leaders and future supreme leaders have a rather nasty habit of eliminating the other contenders to the throne, which usually refers to their siblings and descendants, by putting them all to the sword. Or marrying them off to barbarian tribes o.0. While such unsavoury fratricide is no longer common, or legal, amongst today's constitutional monarchies, it also eliminates a convenient avenue of recourse for those non-immediate descendants of the supreme leader who have to forever live with the inferiority complex that they will never be the supreme leader. This is especially prevalent in the Japanese royal family, which, as mentioned earlier, is still extremely ... archaic ... about their succession policies compared to the liberalised (and consequently discredited?) western monarchies. Not to mention an alternative worry ... that the descendants of the future supreme leader will never be the supreme leader themselves for so meagre of a reason ... such as gender. If you don't understand what I mean so far, just try putting yourself in their shoes. Pretend that you have to shoulder the responsibility of being a royal all your life, but you'll never be the supreme leader. Example below. 1. Charlotte : "Charlotte, I'm sorry, but you'll have to live your life knowing you'll never be the king." Charlotte : "Yeah, I know, 'King Charlotte' sounds pretty stupid to me." 2. King Charlotte : "Charlotte, I'm sorry, but you'll have to hand your throne over to your younger sibling's bratty kid, not your bratty kid." King Charlotte : "Yeah, I know, it's not as if I'd ever even want to have a kid, bratty or not. And 'King Charlotte' sounds really stupid when you try putting it in context. 'Emperor Charlotte', however ..." Okay, those weren't very good examples. But you should be able to glean my wafer-thin points from them. The point is that the recent debate over the order of succession, and now the birth of the new prince, have thrown up new complications in the relations and interactions between the royal family. I'm not saying that I know what these are, of course, since I don't profess to be related to royalty in any way (yuck, I shudder to imagine that some of my more unpleasant relatives could possibly be related to royalty) or to be able to understand them. But you know what I'm like. I'm a thinker, a conjecturer. A person who likes to imagine. And imagine not merely the completely imaginary, but the potentially very, very real. And thinking is part of my job, if I'm going to be someone who writes for a living. We can't have cut-and-dried issues filling our every page now, can we? I pride myself on my active imagination which is able to switch rapidly between the rational and the completely nonsensical. Though it tends to dwell on the nonsensical side, especially when imagining about how good it is. Imagination imagining about imagination. Scary. I'm quite sick of putting up disclaimers (plus my post was deleted half-way while I was writing it by an internet error) so I shall scrap a planned, um, imaginary thought pattern analysis of the people involved in this ongoing saga, with names suitably left out to keep my writing firmly in the realm of fiction. Anyway, the less traditionalists coming after my head, the better (not that it's very bad in itself ... traditionalists, I'm coming after YOU!). Suffice to say, as I mentioned, I greatly congratulate in particular the grandparents, and the parents of the lucky infant. For if there is no change in the situation currently besetting what is claimed as the world's longest-running imperial line, then these are the people who have gained the most from the happy news. For the rest of them? I don't know. If they're happy, I must say that I can't really share their feelings, if I was in their position. If they're not (which they would never say), I can imagine why. I'm really not sure about this. When I see the smiling faces of the Japanese imperial family in that recent official picture, which was reproduced in My Paper, I can't help but feel consumed by a deep and unshakeable sadness. But I love the powersuits the two girls, the elder sisters of the new prince, are wearing. They're 14 and 11 years now, so I hear. I wish I had a powersuit when I was their age. If power has never suited me, at least the impression of it does. posted by Charlotte | 4:30 pm
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Disclaimer : The Slayers and Filia Ul Copt and all images thereof are the property of Hajime Kanzaka and Rui Araizumi. I don't own any of them, although if I had a choice I would want Filia ... ~//n_n\\7 |
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