Evicting a king and ruminations about monarchy and Tibet

Gyanendra, formerly King of Nepal, has not only been stripped of his crown but been evicted from the formerly royal palace.

Cool.

I think there is no such thing as a good monarchy. They range from the absurd - like the Brits have - to considerably worse, such as the House of Saud in Arabia which rules the country like a personal possession in a brutal, fundamentalist and despotic rule. In this day and age, the only good monarch is the one that actively works for the destruction. Which makes King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck of Bhutan the only decent monarch in the world. He is destroying the monarchy. Good for him. But all the rest of them range from ludicrous and decadent reminders of past brutality and excess - again, Queen of England and your ilk, I'm looking straight at you - to despots like those scattered through the Middle East.

The BBC article elaborate concern for the deposed monarch and his family. Where will former prince Paras live?! And what about former queen Ratna? WHERE WILL SHE STAY?! Golly, maybe Paras will have to go out and get a job and pay rent like everyone else! And certainly Gyanandra won't abandon his dear sweet stepmom, right? And even if Gyanandra does toss her out on her bum (possible - he's a complete and utter fucktard widely believed to have supported his brother's bloody palace coup), I mean, she'll get treated just the same as everyone else in that situation . . . which should call attention to the atrocious way Gyanandra ruled. To think otherwise is to take the absolutely absurd and morally preposterous position of thinking that a person used to luxury should be provided for it on the basis of their former wealth. Horrible things happen to poor people all the time with absolutely no comment, kick one former queen on her ass and the BBC sheds tears for you. Preposterous.

But what this mostly makes me think of is Tibet, really. Nowadays, the Dalai Lama does pretty good for himself going around talking about the injustices of the Chinese rule in Tibet. What he forgets to mention is that before he was the kindly, sainted fighter for the rights of the Tibetans he was their primary oppressor of the Tibetan people as the absolute monarch of that country. Perhaps if he'd fought for the freedom of the Tibetan people before 1950 - say in the fashion of King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck of Bhutan - I might give a fuck what this feudal monarch thinks. But it was only after he lost his own magnificent palace that he discovered the need to fight for Tibetan freedom. That really fails to impress me.

Which is not to say that there isn't race based bigotry on the part of the Chinese government. There is. It is abominable and should stop. But, hey, the Chinese didn't keep the Tibetans in feudal bondage to the land as the Dalai Lama did. Should we forgive or ignore the class based discrimination and crimes of the Dalai Lama's misrule simply because of Chinese misrule? As we all learned as children, two wrongs don't make a right.

All monarchy is bad. All. Including the Dalai Lama's. The only monarchs that aren't evil bastards are the ones actively seeking to get rid of the monarchy. Which means King Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck of Bhutan. Who is pretty cool.