Amid the fury over Stan Grant, a reminder of the British Crown’s deeply political nature

The Australian provided a helpful reminder with today’s front page EXCLUSIVE, which refutes a claim Crikey and others hadn’t actually made regarding its level of coverage of now-departed ABC journalist Stan Grant and his comments during coverage of King Charles III’s coronation.

One key accusation from the Oz and elsewhere levelled at Grant and the ABC was that it “wasn’t the time”:

 Sydney radio 2GB breakfast host Ben Fordham said: “When people tune in to watch the coronation, they’re not expecting lectures about the monarchy and about the Commonwealth. But that’s what they got on the ABC from the likes of Stan Grant.” Fordham’s stablemate, Ray Hadley, said: “It’s just not the platform for it, there’s no dignity attached to it.”

This points to the remarkable dual role the royals have carved out in British and by extension Australian public life: they are somehow simultaneously a foundation in our national identity, a core tenet of our system of government, glue that binds us to parts of our history and — at the same time — entirely symbolic and apolitical theatre.

Sean Kelly has deftly addressed the absurdity of approaching the coronation of, let’s not forget, our king in that way: “Those watching the coronation were watching a political act. Much of the power of that act lies in its projection of continuity and stability, its intimations that Charles belongs to an orderly line of succession.”

But if we need further reminding that the British monarchy should not be dismissed as simply a once-powerful political agent reduced to harmless pageantry and theatre, consider the case of Prince Déjatch Alámayou.

The late heir to the throne of what was then Abyssinia, now known as Ethiopia, the prince’s father, Emperor Tewodros II, took his own life during the battle of Maqdala in 1868 rather than surrender to British forces attempting, at least ostensibly, to free hostages he held. Alámayou was taken to Britain. An orphan at age seven (his mother died during the journey), he was apparently a favourite of Queen Victoria, and died at 18 from pleurisy. He was buried, at Victoria’s request, at St George’s Chapel in Windsor.

Leaving aside other concerns — the plunder that followed the war that brought Alámayou to Britain, and the misery and racism he seems to have experienced during the decade he lived there, his frequent and ignored requests to be brought home — the Crown has refused to repatriate his remains to Ethiopia. The first requests for his return came in 2007, to coincide with the Ethiopian calendar’s millennium.

The palace’s refusal was reiterated this week after more calls from the Ethiopian government and Alámayou’s descendants, with Buckingham Palace arguing: “It is very unlikely that it would be possible to exhume the remains without disturbing the resting place of a substantial number of others in the vicinity.”

Further, Ethiopian delegations could always be “accommodated” any time they wished to visit, the palace said. (Perhaps such delegations could combine it with a visit to the British Museum and really make a day of it?) Still, it’s not fair to ascribe any concrete political impact to the Crown, certainly not while we’re endorsing its continued rule.