The Brazilian Monarchy - Projeto Pró-Monarquia do Baronato de Fulwood e Dirleton

Those who imagine that a politician would make a better
figurehead than a hereditary Monarch might perhaps
make the acquaintance of more politicians.
The Baroness Thatcher, November 1995.

The monarchy is a political referee, not a political player,
and there is a lot of sense in choosing the referee by a
different principle from the players. It lessens the danger
that the referee might try to start playing.
Earl Russell, The Spectator, 11th January 1997.

If a nation does not want a monarchy, change the nation’s mind. If a nation does not need a monarchy, change the nation’s needs.
Jan Christian Smuts,
Prime Minister of South Africa 1939-1948.

For every monarchy overthrown the sky becomes less brilliant, because it loses a star. A republic is ugliness set free.
Anatole France, First winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, 1921.

They tell us that all Kings are bad; that God never made a King; and that all Kings are very expensive. But, that all Kings are bad cannot be true: because God himself is one of them; he calls himself King of Kings; which not only shows us he is a King, but he has other Kings under him: he is never called King of Republics. The Scripture calls Kings, the Lord’s Anointed; but who ever heard of an anointed Republic?
Association Papers, London, 1793.

It is sometimes said that Country can never be a really modern state while it still has a monarchy. This of course ignores countries like United Kingdom, Japan, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands and many others all of which are modern constitutional monarchies in modern countries where majority of the people of those nations have absolutely no intention of removing their monarchy because of the benefits they recognize they derive from it. In some countries where they have relinquished the monarchy in the past rather than reforming it or modernizing it, many people wish that there was a possibility of restoring it but often the passage of time has been too great. In some countries recently such as Afghanistan serious attempts were made to look at the restoration of the monarchy as a valuable uniting symbol of a disparate population but it was realized that in the meantime other factors had intervened which rendered this not practical.

The argument often put forward is that a monarchy it is not democratic. In fact it is that blissful combination of an institution which is entirely under democratic control yet above politics, faction, division, election, appointment, and short-term tenure providing a continuous thread from the past to a certain future.

The first question that one has to consider is what type of president one is referring to. This is absolutely crucial because the various different types of president vary enormously in their power and scope and role. Indeed this is one of the major difficulties in any attempt to move from a constitutional monarchy to a republic in that it is can be almost impossible for the nation to decide, and to decide by a large enough majority, just what sort of President they wish to have and also by which method this President is to be elected or chosen. Is it to be by universal suffrage would result in another absolutely mammoth nationwide election or is it to be by some sort of electoral college or by appointment by the parliament or by some group of elected representatives? Is the president going to be the head of government as well as the head of state or purely just the head of state and if so will he or she have any powers at all or simply be a figurehead? The argument against a President who is head of state as well as head of government is that too much power is concentrated in one pair of hands, despite any other checks and balances that there may be. The overall workload and responsibilities are massive and the post has to combine the roles of the head of government and the ceremonial duties of head of state and these are often incompatible and in any case very time-consuming. One of the advantages of the constitutional monarchy is that it can remove a large number of the ceremonial and figurehead and nation-unifying roles from the head of government allowing the person to concentrate on matters governmental. If a country opts for a head of state with little power, a limited period of tenure and who attempts to be above politics, the result is usually somebody who cannot adequately symbolise for any period of time the unity, the history, and the continuity of the nation and this person sometimes is a nonentity whom very few people know outside the country and indeed sometimes inside the country! There can also be huge difficulties in the head of government having ceremonial duties with the armed forces and this is best done by a non-political person and this is of course one of the major roles of the Royal Family.

Elected presidents are concerned more with their own political futures and power. Constitutional monarchs are not subject to the influences which can corrupt short-term presidents. A monarch can represent centuries of history whereas elected Presidents in their nature devote much energy to undoing the achievements of their predecessors and setting traps for their successors. With monarchs it is the reverse- they build on the achievements of their forebears in order to strengthen the position of their successors. A long-reigning monarch can put enormous experience at the disposal of transient political leaders. This was the case with our last Emperor Pedro II who ruled Brazil for almost 60 years with respect and dignity to the people and it’s political power and above all act as the “cool-head” to hot-temper fire brander members of both liberal and conservative political parties. An experienced monarch can act as a sounding-board for politicians.

Having a monarchy and a Imperial family means that a whole family of people are undertaking valuable ceremonial and charitable duties across the country to a degree to which an executive president or symbolic president just cannot fulfil.

An Emperor is an Emperor, not because he is rich and powerful as most only wealth and power is their moral high ground , not because he is a successful politician, not because he belongs to a particular creed or to a national group. He is King because he is born. And in choosing to leave the selection of their Ruler to this most common denominator in the world - the accident of birth - Nations implicitly proclaim their faith in human equality; their hope for the triumph of nature over political manoeuvre, over social and financial interest; for the victory of the human person.

You often hear it asked why the opportunity to hold the highest position in the land should be denied the person in the street. But it is a question of how you define our highest position in the land. It is clear that the Prime Minister is the most powerful - a post which is of course open to anyone. The monarchy retains only residual powers which are hardly ever used and if they are, they are only exercised on the advice of the government of the day or in order to save the country and it’s institutions from chaos and anarchy, much like King Juan Carlos of Spain did during the attempt Coup On 23 February 1981, during the debate preceding Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo's investiture as successor to Adolfo Suarez who had just resigned on the insistence of his own party members a small group of Guardia Civil of Spain occupied the Congress of Deputies at the same time that Captain General of Valencia declared a state of emergency and ordered the militarization of the region. The decisive action of the King aborted the attempted coup. That is the Moral of a King, that we can not see in someone like our present President Lula and previous such as Janio Quadros who help to create the situations that we still living on.

Republicans will argue against people holding positions when they have not been democratically elected to them, yet they appoint to the govern unseasoned people who have never held elected offices and in most case know very little about the job they were appointed to do. A constitutional monarchy is the delightful combination of an institution which is entirely under democratic control and yet entirely above divisive election and supported by the majority of members of all political parties.

The words archaic and feudal are applied to put down the argument in favor of the monarchy to make it sound out-of-date and anachronistic, not taking into account how that monarchies have evolved and developed over the centuries and the major modernization and reform taking place and envisaged at present.

A good example is Queen Elizabeth who is the Monarch of 16 independent countries and the Head of the Commonwealth of 54 nations across the globe- an absolutely astonishing fact in this age of separatism and a massive worldwide symbol of unity and association which can only be achieved by a monarch – can you imagine all these nations agreeing on an appointed let alone elected symbol. Most on the nation which who HM the Queen is the head of are success story and real symbol of political freedom and democracy. Can you image President Lula or Bush being able to head sixteen different nations? Most president have a hard time controlling they own parties.

At the present Brazilian political situation hopes are dying down to find that one person who is the truly by the Grace of G-d a Constitutional ruler and Perpetual Defender of Brazil. Most Brazilian politician our neither honest, constitutional observers and certain not interest in Defending Brazil, but only they on financial interests.

The new political scandal of Brazil "The Mensalão" is good example of were an Emperor would in private say to a Prime Minister of the day, "Mr. Prime Minister we believe that under the circumstances your government in no longer beneficial to the people of Brazil". The Emperor powers would be vital for the safeguard of democracy and liberty.

Many nations who have lost their monarchies wish they could restore them, such as Afghanistan, Brazil and others because they can see the value of a non-political unifying symbol above faction and politics and racial and ethnic division.

A Summary of some of the many benefits of our modern constitutional monarchy could offer to Brazil