You don't vote for Kings!

As Monty Python said, "You don't vote for Kings!" So the question is then how do you become the elected King of Australia?

On the weekend of 11-12 July 2009, Australia's own home-grown king along with his nobles and courtiers took to the Field of St Michael's, during the Abbey Medieval Festival. This is the largest authentic medieval re-enactment event in Australia. It spans a thousand years from Europe's Dark Ages to the High Middle Ages, roughly AD600 to 1600. In 2007, approximately 18,500 people participated in the weekend Tournament outside Caboolture, north of Brisbane.

The Australian Crown on the field came into being in 2000, when the Baronry's, Shire's, College's, and Canton's of Australia voted in favour to advance to Kingdom status, to split from the Kingdom of the West (the West coast US) and rule themselves as the Kingdom of Lochac. As the seventeenth kingdom of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), a historical re-creation and living history group founded in California in 1966 which recreates pre-17th century Western European history, life and culture of the landed nobility, the Kingdom of Lochac encompasses all Australian states and New Zealand.

Viscount Baronress Mistress Rowan Perigrynne said at the time, "I love the West and always will, as a child loves its parents. Yet every child grows up and makes their own way in the world, and the parents rejoice to see them stand on their own! I believe we are ready to make the next step, take the next challenge, and celebrate the dawn of the Kingdom of Lochac. This would truly be the fulfillment of my dream of so many years ago."

Yolande Kesteven also said, "I know that Lochac is a part of the Kingdom of the West, and that makes a difference to me when I swear fealty, when I give the Royal Toast, do Princess things, and when I call for three cheers in my student Heralding moments. But these are the only times it really makes a difference to me. For the rest of the time, there is only Lochac. And while the West is very dear to me, it is a separate place, far away".

The echoes of the arguments put forward for the Yes vote in the 1999 republican referendum resound clearly through these comments. As Australia matures as a nation there comes a time when the child grows up and cuts the apron strings. A year after the defeat of the 1999 referendum the Lochac Kingdom Poll was successful.

The Australian Crown of Lochac is chosen in a different way to that of the British Crown. To become King of Lochac a candidate must win a Crown Tournament, that is through combat on the field, to hold the Crown for a period of six months. Of course, this was not how medieval monarchs were chosen. Certainly many Kings were crowned after having conquered a kingdom through right of arms, but the crown tournament model of selecting Kings is purely a SCA process.

Even though Monty Python's character King Arthur said it was by divine providence that he became King through presentation of Excalibur by the Lady in the Lake, the Anglo-Saxon Kings were actually elected by the witan, a group of self-interested land holders who could raise a large enough fighting force to cause trouble if they didn't get their own way. This process of appointment through consent is not unique but certainly unusual. Britain had twice been momentarily an elective monarchy, in the sense that new monarchs were appointed by a process of consent - William-and-Mary and George 1. Maybe three times, insofar as George VI succeeded Edward VIII not strictly by hereditary right but by the explicit consent of the governments of the Empire.

Of course, a monarch ruling over Australian's is an absurd fiction, whether it is a right of arms medieval re-enactment King, or the hereditary British monarch. Although the nobles of Lochac may enjoy the pagentry of recreating times gone by, for those of us in the mundane world the sooner Australian's create a republic the better.

A Lunar Republic

Today is the 40th anniversary of human's landing on the moon.

The official website of The Lunar Republic is at http://www.lunarrepublic.com/

Worth a look for a bit of fun!

An Australian republican future

In Ken Harris's Pathway to Treason it is the year 2020 and Australia is a republic with a President joining the Prime Minister at the helm of the country, although as with the Governor General before, the President is supposedly merely a figurehead, a rubberstamp when it comes to the question of running the country.

Peter Elphinstone, ex-test cricketeer and President of Australia is far from satisfied with the way the country is being run. Prime Minister Bill Packard is far from pleased with the President sticking his beak into matters that shouldn't concern him. When the Australian ambassador to Syria is assassinated, the PM is all fired up to join the US in sending troops to the Middle East should America ask him. Elphinstone, on the other hand, is horrified that a war could be about to start and moves to stop the possibility. Technically the President has the authority to affect such a decision, the big question is, does he have the power? It's his willingness to have this question answered that ignites the political fireball.

The remainder of the novel revolves around the head to head battle between Packard and Elphinstone as the entire seat of government is threatened.

We need more of these Australian stories with a republican backdrop. They don't have to be political thrillers or constitutional whodunnits but rather an exploration of our future, our republican future.

Presidentsland

If Australia were to become a republic would Queensland be called Presidentsland?

Presidentsland explores the often-contemplated and always contentitious subject of what our future will look, feel, smell, taste and, of course, sound like.

When: 8pm, Wednesday, 29 July 2009

Where: Brisbane City Hall - part of Queensland Music Festival

Cost: Full $38 - $58 / Concession $28 - $48. To book call 136 246 or visit http://www.qmf.org.au/

This contemporary concert in three parts features collaborations between Australia's most innovative composers and authors: jazz maestro Paul Grabowsky with speech writer Don Watson (pictured); avant-garde composer Erik Griswold with poet and novelist Rodney Hall; and The Saints guitarist Ed Kuepper with novelist Venero Armanno.

Presidentsland will shine a well-focussed high beam into the future. One performance only.

Singing the republican blues

In Alison Goodman’s Singing the Dogstar Blues she sets her 1998 debut novel in an Australian republican future.

Joss Aaronson has two loves in her life: playing the blues and training at the prestigious Centre for Neo-Historical Studies to jump through time.It is at the Centre, on the old Melbourne University campus, Daniel Sunawa-Harrod is reputed to discover the Time-Continuum Warp Field. “On the 10/10/50, the 50th anniversary of Australian Independence Day, Danny receives the Nobel-Takahini Prize for Science”.

Then Mavkel, the first alien student on Earth, selects her to be his time-travel partner and Joss’s life gets a lot more complicated. There’s an assassin on campus, an anti-alien lobby group chanting slogans, and Joss is constantly being tracked by the tight security around her new friend.

The Chorians, an alien people, wish to exchange the technology they have in the field of time and space with the Centre’s knowledge of time-travel. A deputation from Choria brings their chosen candidate, Mavkel, to pair with a suitable student at the Centre to do the course. Joss is chosen and the story unfolds through her eyes.

Life with Mavkel is not all bad, though. Music-loving Joss is fascinated by him and his people, the Chorians, who communicate through song. But Mavkel is pining for his lost twin, and his will to live is draining away. Joss wants to help him, and that means going back to the petri dish where it all began.

She’s playing with history, but if Mavkel doesn’t survive, then Joss could really be singing the blues …

Keeping the Meter Running

In the Australian Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine Aurealis, 20/21, April 1998 a special double issue speculated on the possible futures of an Australian republic. SF is, afterall, the 'literature of ideas'. Below is an extract from Geoffrey maloney's 'Keeping the Meter Running'.

On the morning of the 40th anniversary of the People's Democratic Revolution Jerzhi Kapuscinski woke up feeling like a piece of beef jerky that had been left out in the sun for far too long. He had drunk himself into a stupor at the Hari Krishna Club the night before, celebrating the ned of the Revolutionary year with his colleagues from the Bureau of State Security ...

Kelly Country - an Australian future?

What if Ned Kelly escaped police capture in 1880 and led a successful Irish-Australian rebellion against British authority? A. Bertram Chandler’s novel Kelly Country (1984) explores an alternate history in which the bush ranger Ned Kelly was not captured and hanged but led a successful revolution, ultimately becoming the president of an Australian republic, which degenerated into a hereditary dictatorship with the result that Australia becomes a world power.

The books synopsis centres around a mental time traveller who organises Kelly's escape. In the nineteenth century, Ned Kelly (and friends) lead a revolution against corrupt colonial government in order to establish a republic. They use various technologies available at the time (but not all widely used), including a precursor to airships, rail and gatling guns. A number of other historical figures, events and technologies affect the story. This book fits into the SF genre of Steampunk.

The story shifts between the nineteenth century and modern times. When the time traveller wakes up the world has changed with Australia rather than the United States embroiled in the Vietnam War. All because Curnow never stopped the train (he ended up getting his brains bashed in instead)! The Australia has now shifted to a future where "The Kelly" is a hereditary dictator.

Arthur Bertram Chandler (28 March 1912–6 June 1984) was an Australian science fiction author. Born in Aldershot, England, he was a merchant marine officer, sailing the world in everything from tramp steamers to troopships. Chandler emigrated to Australia in 1956 and became an Australian citizen. He commanded various ships in the Australian and New Zealand merchant navies, and was the last master of the Australian aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne as the law required that it have an officer on board while it was laid up waiting to be towed to China to be broken up. Chandler wrote over 40 novels and 200 works of short fiction. He was most well-known for his John Grimes novels and for the Rim World series, which have a distinctly naval flavour. He won Ditmar Awards for the short story The Bitter Pill (in 1971) and for three novels False Fatherland (in 1969), The Bitter Pill (in 1975), and The Big Black Mark (in 1976).

‘Kelly Country’ was originally published as a short story in Void, 3 May 1976 and received a Ditmar nomination and was the basis of the novel of the same name.