Showing posts from category: Political History
Unthroned and Exiled: The Fluctuating Fortunes of some Lesser Known Royal Houses of the 20th Century
The 20th century witnessed much turbulence in the landscape of ruling monarchies…while some royal families remain extant today, quietly lingering on with diminishing relevance to the day-to-day governance of the nation-state (Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, the Scandinavian countries, etc)✲, many others have fallen out of favour in the changing political climate and been swept away by the thrust of republicanism often in the name of modernity.
▲ Tarquin “the Proud” – Last Rex Romae
We should remind ourselves that the overturning of the monarchy by republican zeal is by no means confined to modern times…the last of the line of the seven kings of Ancient Rome, by legend founded by Romulus – Lucius Tarquinius Superbus – was deposed in ca.509 BC and succeeded by the Roman Republic.
Deposed, exiled but still with us!
The rise of European totalitarianism in the interwar era saw many of the old (minor) monarchies swallowed up by the imperial expansion of Nazi German, Fascist Italian and Soviet Communist movements and the incumbents made jobless. Yet, some such monarchs of yesteryear despite the passage of time are still around …
▲ The last king of the Bulgarians
Bulgaria: the former Tsar Simeon II of Bulgaria (House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry) is an interesting case of a remarkably late political comeback. With Bulgaria’s absorption into the Soviet-dominated Eastern Bloc, Simeon was deposed from the Bulgarian throne in 1946 and after a referendum exiled from the country. Fast-forward to the 1990s and the fall of communism – Simeon was invited back to Bulgaria and promptly re-entered politics, forming his own party. In 2001 as plain Simeon Sakskoburggottski, the one-time tsar was elected prime minister! (remaining in power until 2005)◊.
▲ Romanian stamp bearing portrait of King Mihai, 1943
Last king of the Romanians:
Prior to 2018 former King Michael of Romania (Mihai I) would have made this list (had he not died in December 2017 at age 96!). Michael was twice monarch of his country and twice abdicated – the first when his father King Carol II retook the Romanian crown in 1930, and then again when he was deposed by the communists in 1947✪.
▲ Ahmad Fouad in 2010 (Source: Wall Street Journal)
Egypt: King Fuad II (or Fouad II) is the last king of Egypt. Exiled along with his father (King Farouk) in 1952 as a result of the Free Officers’ coup. Fuad was only 17 months old when the new Nasser-controlled Egyptian regime deposed him in 1953. The infant king is the last monarch of the Alawiyya dynstasty of Egypt and Sudan. Since exile Fuad has spent the bulk of his life living in Switzerland and France.
▲ Quntet of Greek colonels who terminated the Hellenic monarchy
Greece: King Constantine II is the last monarch to reign in Greece. Constantine ascended the throne in 1964 with the title “King of the Hellenes”※. His short rule was controversial – he embroiled himself in and exascerbated the mid-Sixties political crisis over the prime ministership known as the Apostasia (‘Apostasy’), a period of political instability and unrest culminating in the 1967 “Colonels’ coup”…right-wing army officers under George Papadopoulos seized control of the country and launched a military junta regime which Constantine gave legitimacy to by recognising it. A failed counter-coup in the king’s name forced Constantine and his family to flee, first to Rome and later London. In 1973 the Colonels initiated a referendum which resulted in the abolition of the Greek monarchy. Constantine’s long exile ended around 2013 when he voluntarily returned to live in Athens.
Zanzibar: Sultan Jamshid Abdullah Al Said was the last monarch to rule Zanzibar. Al Said was sultan◘ when Zanzibar, a British protectorate since 1890, was granted independence from Britain in 1963 (with the status of constitutional monarchy). Independence was short-lived however as the following year saw the Sultanate violently overthrown by African revolutionaries and the establishment of a People’s Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba by a coalition of moderate and radical insurgents. The new Zanzibar republic was even more ephemeral, within a couple of months its leaders agreed to unification with adjacent Tanganyika under the new name Tanzania. Sultan al Said was duly exiled in 1964, initially to Oman and now lives in retirement on the English south coast.
Qu’aiti Sultanate: Ghalib II bin Awadh al-Qu’aiti al-Hadarmi was one of a multiplicity of ruling sultans at the tail-end of the British Protectorate in Aden. (Qu’aiti was in south-eastern Yemen within the protectorate). Ghalib, also known as the Sultan of Shihr and Mukalla, was forced to abdicate by communist rebels and the sultanate abolished during the Yemen Civil War. The London-born Ghalib (last sultan of the Royal House of Hadhramaut) has spent most of his life living in Britain.
▲ Last king of Nepal
Nepal: King Gyanendra’s ousting from the throne in 2008 following the Nepalese Civil War (AKA ‘the Maoist Conflict”) ended nearly 240 years of the Hindu Shah Monarchy of Gorkha. Mahārājādhirāja Gyanendra had two spells as the king of Nepal, the second coming after the dramatic, internecine massacre of the Nepalese royal family in 2001. A republic was declared and the deposed king forced into internal exile to live as a common citizen.
▲ Pahlavi Royal crest
Footnote: The not-so-great pretenders!
Aside from the surviving “has-been” ex-monarchs of the world, there are also a scattering of “never-was” pretenders still around. These include, among the better-known, the son and uncrowned, “would-be” successor of the Shah of Iran. Mohammad Shāh Rezā was unseated by the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and fled Iran with family in tow. On the Shah’s death in exile in 1980, his eldest son, US resident Rezā Pahlavi, assumed the title of “Crown Prince of Iran”. At 21 Pavlavi symbolically styled himself as Shāhanshāh (literally “King of Kings” in Persian). Another ‘pretender’ son of a more famous regal father is Alexander Karađorđević of the former Yugoslavia. Father Peter II was the last king of Yugoslavia, forced into exile by the Nazi invasion in 1941. After the breakup of Yugoslavia Karađorđević returned to independent Serbia…since the 2000s Karađorđević who refers to himself as “Alexander II” and the “heir-presumptive to the defunct throne of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia” has been actively staking his claim to “the abolished throne of the precursor Kingdom of Serbia”.
-:———-—-:—————:————:——-—-—:-
✲ these are all constitutional monarchies (the most common type in existence today), with the monarchs fulfilling basically ceremonial roles within regimes which are democracies to a greater or lesser degree. In a handful of other surviving monarchies (Liechtenstein, Monaco and a few in Asia) the royal leader retains more individual powers but it is still limited. Absolute monarchies are a rarer form in today’s world and found mostly in Muslim-dominated countries, eg, Brunei, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and also Swaziland (this last one strictly speaking is an absolute diarchy – a co-rule of two)
◊ Simeon was not the only monarch to have his royal rule ended and then (after a long interval) return as political leader…Cambodia’s Prince Norodom Sihanouk abdicated his crown in 1955 and later became prime minister and head-of-state. The ultra-malleable Sihanouk resurfaced in 1993 to re-claim the Cambodian monarchy – and later abdicated for a second time!
✪ likewise, Kigeli V Ndahindurwa, Rwanda’s last king (Mwami) died in exile in 2016. Following the eruption of Tutsi-Hutu conflict (encouraged by the then occupying Belgian military) in 1959-1960, Ndahindurwa, an ethnic Tutsi was deposed by Hutu opponents and the monarchy subsequently abolished in 1960 (in 2017 Hutsi supporters named Emmanuel Bushayij as his (symbolic) successor – king-in-exile with the title ‘Yuhi VI’) (see also FN ‘The not-so-great pretenders!’ above)
※ the Greek former king’s first cousin is the Prince of Edinburgh (Prince Philip)
◘ Arabic: ‘power’, ‘ruler’ – as distinct from Malik, ‘king’
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Reference works consulted:
‘The last king of Bulgaria’, BBC News, 09-May-2018, www.bbc.com
Harry Campbell, Whatever Happened to Tanganyika?: The Place Names that History Left Behind, (2007)
Nicholas Gage & Joan Paulson Gage, ’Why is the King of Greece Living as a Commoner?’, Town and Country, 21-Aug-2015, www.townandcountrymag.com
’Life after the Throne’ (‘A Royal Flush’, 2007), Time, www.content.time.com
‘Rwandan Revolution‘, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org
‘Once in line for the British throne, Prince Alexander is now a royal without a kingdom’, (Nahlah Ayed), CBC News, 15-May-2018, www.cbc.ca
Two Competing Strands of Arab Unity During the Cold War: UAR and the Arab Federation
Modern Arab nationalism doesn’t begin with Gamal Abdel Nasser✲, but the charismatic Egyptian politician’s bold and assertive leadership in the 1950s provided inspiration and the impetus to give the movement a particular vigour and purpose.
Egyptian hegemony under Nasser?
In 1952 the Egyptian “Free Officers’ Corps” (with Nasser in the driver’s seat) launched a coup, deposing the Egyptian ruler, King Farouk, and installing General Mohamed Naguib as prime minister. The following year the Egyptian-Sudanese monarchy was irrevocably abolished and guided by Nasser, a republic was established. In 1954 Naguib was cast aside and Nasser assumed full control as prime minster and later president. The new Egyptian ruler (Egypt’s first leader NOT emanating from the country’s elite), with a clear nationalistic agenda was determined to rid Egypt of foreign interference, especially from the old colonial European powers.
Nasserist brand of Pan-Arabism
Nasser, a passionate Pan-Arabist, had aspirations beyond Egypt’s national borders and was evolving a strategy for unifying the Arab world in a common struggle against the European colonial powers. One of the first tasks tackled by Nasser was to try to ingrain in his fellow countrymen and women a sense of their unique Arab identity. Accordingly, the national constitution was amended to state that Egypt was an Arab state (as well as a socialist state). The choice of the name “United Arab Republic” in 1958 imported this theme to countries outside of Egypt. To Nasser’s mind, an instrumental factor in unifying the Arab world was a common commitment to the liberation of Palestine [‘Arab Unity: Nasser’s Revolution’, Al Jazeera, 20-Jun-2008, www.aljeera.com].
On the home front Nasser introduced socialist policies, pursuing wide-reaching land reforms to lift Egyptians out of the depths of poverty. The Aswan Dam project was a key component of the reforms with the US committing itself (with the UK) to finance the massive enterprise. The prevailing Cold War intervened at this juncture with Washington reneging on its promise of aid for the project, citing Nasser’s dalliance with the Soviet Union as it’s reason [‘1956: United States withdraws offer of aid for Aswan Dam’, www.history.com].
Suez Crisis
The USSR duly rushed in to fill the void left by the US, offering to provide Egypt with the required finance. Nasser’s annoyance at the sudden US pullout led to an audacious unilateral action in retaliation…he nationalised the Suez Canal. France (owners of the Suez Canal Co) and Britain (the major shareholder) responded by invading the canal in unison with Israel. The US, outmanoeuvred, refused to join in. The ensuing action saw the combined forces inflicting a military loss on Egypt, however under US and UN pressure they were forced to withdraw by 1957. France and Britain emerged from the episode as weakened powers and US relations with the Middle East also took a hit. The diplomatic upshot was a political victory for Nasser.
The Egyptian president, having stood up to the colonial powers, emerged from the conflict with an enhanced reputation as the strongman of the Arab world. Nasser’s example inspired Arabs in other states to act, such as the 1958 Iraqi Free Officers’ coup d’état against the Hashemite monarchy; radical elements within Lebanon taking on the status quo regime (the 1958 Civil War) [Al Jazeera, op.cit.].
Groundswell for union
During the 1950s Syria underwent an upsurge of support for Arab unity…at the national conference in 1956, Syrian political parties endorsed union with Egypt, concurring with the view that any bilateral agreement between the countries should include economic, political and cultural affairs [Palmer, M. (1966). ‘The United Arab Republic: An Assessment of Its Failure’. Middle East Journal, 20(1), 50-67. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/4323954]. Observers at the time noted that the Syrian government “made all the running” for union. Such was Nasser’s stature and charisma within the Middle East that the incumbent Syrian president Shukri al-Quwatli was happy to stand aside for Nasser to be anointed president of the unified republic [T. R. L. (1958). ‘The Meaning of the United Arab Republic’. The World Today, 14(3), 93-101. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40393828].
Nasser’s first UAR cabinet ⟰
For his part, Nasser was initially cool on the idea of unification, his concern was that the two states had quite different political systems and experiences …Nasser’s preference at this time apparently was for a federation [Al Jazeera, op.cit.]. Under urging from the Syrian politicians Nasser eventually came round to the union idea☯.
UAR Flag (1958-61) ⟰
On the 1st of February 1958 the United Arab Republic (UAR) was proclaimed in Cairo with due fanfare (under the banner of “one flag, one army, and one people”). Nasser was confirmed as president of the new republic by referendum involving both Egyptians and Syrians. Nasser’s special position as primus inter pares (“first among equals”) was shown in his being given sole selection of the membership of the UAR’s joint assembly [ibid.]. In 1959 Nasser absorbed the Gaza Strip into the UAR.
⟰ North Yemen – at the southernmost tip of the Arabian Peninsula
UAR/MKY alliance
Later in the same year as UAR formed, the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen (MKY) (North Yemen) joined the Syrian-Egyptian union (which had been preceded by a defence pact between North Yemen and Egypt). The new association was called the United Arab States (UAS). The Yemeni motives for allying itself with the UAR were security concerns about it’s larger neighbour Saudi Arabia. North Yemen and Saudi Arabia had fought an war in 1934 over territory and there was still an undemarcated border situation between the two states. The UAS, a different beast to the UAR, was a loose confederation of states only, MKY retained its sovereign independence and its separate UN membership and embassies for the duration of the confederation – which in any case, like the UAR, only lasted a short period❇.
⟱ North Yemen flag
Rivalry and suspicions: Rifts in the unitary socialist republic
What harmony there was in the Syrian-Egyptian union at its onset, did not last long. Egypt dominated the UAR, producing a grossly unequal partnership. With Cairo chosen as the UAR capital, Damascus, Syria’s traditional capital, was downgraded to provincial status only. Syria’s leading politicians were required therefore to live in Cairo, which isolated them from what was happening back in their home country.
Syrians across the board had cause to be disgruntled with life under the lop-sided union. Those now working for the UAR government found themselves on lower salaries than they had been as Syrian government employees. The three years of the UAR saw a succession of failures of the Syrian food harvest – resulting in hikes in the price of foods for locals [Arthur Goldschmidt Jr, The Middle East: Formation of a Nation State, (2004)].
With the new administrative structure in place, many Egyptian military and civilian personnel were ‘parachuted’ into Syria, taking over the important public offices that had been filled by local (Syrian) staff. This greviance was compounded by the high-handed, imperial attitudes of many Egyptians towards the Syrian population (as typified by Nasser’s right-hand man in Syria, Abd al-Hakim Amir) [ibid.].
⟰ A Syrian issue stamp celebrating the formation of the UAR
Another factor adding to Syrians’ dillusionment with UAR was that after three years everyone had come to the realisation that Iraq and the other oil-rich countries were not going to join the union [Goldschmidt, loc.cit.].
Nasser reshaped Syria’s political setup to mirror that of Egypt. Syria’s assortment of political parties were abolished and replaced with a single political instrument (the unicameral National Union) to match Egypt’s one-party state.
Many sectors of society found axes to grind with the new system – Nasser’s sweeping land reforms angered landlords, as his program of nationalisation did for business interests (in Egypt as well) [‘Egypt: Nasser and Arab nationalism’, The Socialist, 08-Apr-2011, www.thesocialist.org.au].
Syria formally disengaged from the UAR in September 1961…despite this Egypt however retained the union name “United Arab Republic” for itself until 1971.
Conservative Arab response to Nasser and proxy Cold War
The advent of Nasser’s left-leaning Arab union prompted an instant reaction from the conservative Hashemite monarchies of Iraq and Jordan (until 1949 Transjordan). In February 1958 King-cousins Faisal II (Iraq) and Hussein (Jordan) formed the Arab Federation of Iraq and Jordan (AFIJ) as a buffer against the rise of Nasserism. AFIJ, more a confederation of kingdoms than a unification, and UAR, represented two very different versions of Arab nationalism❂. At the same time the two Arab federations, sparring against each other ideologically, were also arranged as surrogates for the Cold War. Monarchist Iraq, the senior partner in AFIJ, took a position opposite Egypt with a clear orientation toward the West, aligning itself with the UK, and with Turkey, Iran and Pakistan as regional cogs in the American stratagem of trying to contain Soviet expansion. In contrast, Egypt, through the acquisition of economic and military aid and friendship agreements, was moving closer to the Soviet Bloc, while professing an orientation towards the Non-Aligned Movement [‘Arab Federation’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org].
⟰ Arab Federation of Iraq & Jordan
The Arab Federation bound Iraq and Jordan together in defence and foreign policy while leaving the running of domestic affairs to each country. Though Iraq was clearly the ascendant party in the confederation, it didn’t repeat the Egyptian mistake of making the partnership too one-sided…there were more cabinet posts in AFIJ for Jordan and Amman was allowed to retain its status as a union capital, although Baghdad was de facto the centre of the confederation [Juan Romero (2015), ‘Arab Nationalism and the Arab Union of 1958’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 42:2, 179-199, DOI: 10.1080/13530194.2014.994317].
”14th July Revolution”
As things transpired AFIJ didn’t get a chance to demonstrate if it could become an effective regional force in the Middle East. In July 1958 an Iraqi Free Officers coup led by Brigadier Abd al-Karim Qasim overthrew the monarchy and executed Faisal and some of his senior ministers. The Sunni Arab coup leaders, drawing inspiration from Pan-Arabism and Nasser’s 1952 Egyptian coup, acted (they said) “to liberate the Iraqi people from domination by a corrupt group put in power by imperialism” (the dissidents’ perception was that the monarchy under Faisal had associated its interests too closely with Britain and the US) [1958: Coup in Iraq sparks jitters in Middle East’, ‘This Day – 14 July’, (BBC Home) www.news.bbc.co.uk/]. The Hashemite kingdom was abolished and Iraq was declared a republic.
PostScript: Arab federation redux
In the 1970s Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi tried several times to resurrect the idea of union in the region, first proposing a Federation of Arab Republics (FAR) in 1971◚. Comprising Libya, Egypt and Syria, the proposed merger was approved by referenda in all three countries, but in working through the details the “member states” couldn’t agree on the specific terms of the merger. The union was never implemented and remained effectively stillborn (however the federation was not formally revoked until 1977). The leaders, especially Nasser’s successor Anwar Sadat, didn’t follow through because they thought Gaddafi was too radical in his aims [‘The Federation of Arab Republics’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org].
Gaddafi refloated the concept in 1974 with the Maghreb countries to Libya’s west. Agreement (the Djerba Declaration) was reached between Libya and Tunisia to establish the Arab Islamic Republic (AIR) [‘Arab Islamic Republic ’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. Tunisia’s leader Habib Bourguiba’s idea was of a confederation that retained the identity of each sovereign entity…which was at odds with Gaddafi’s notion of an seamless, homogeneous “revolutionary movement”. Algeria and Morocco were later included in the proposed AIR but again the idea never got airborne※.
There were a number of other Libyan-led proposed “Federations of Arab Republics” during the Seventies (with various combinations of states some of which included Sudan, Syria and Iraq), but all with the same result of not leading to anything tangible.
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Endnote: Common purposes and individual priorities
The idea and actuality of an “Arab League” predates the rise of Nasser by some 13 years. The original such organisation, the League of Arab States was founded in 1945 with an focus on developing cooperation between Arab states re economic matters, post-colonialism, resolving disputes and coordinating political aims [‘Arab League’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org]. This last objective has proved wholly elusive given the key different orientations of Arab nationalism of the states of the Middle East◈. Largely because of this, the various Arab federations of the 1950s to the 1970s ultimately failed to deliver on their raison d’etre as vehicles for Pan-Arabism or Arab nationalism.
Flag of the League of Arab States ⟱
͡° ͡° ͡° ͡°° ͡° ͡° ͡°° ͡° ͡° ͡°° ͡° ͡° ͡° ͡° ͡° ͡°° ͡° ͡° ͡°° ͡° ͡° ͡°° ͡° ͡° ͡° ͡°° ͡
✲ the seeds of modern Arab nationalism were sown during the Ottoman Empire and the sentiment intensified among Arabs as the empire’s decline gathered pace in the early part of the 20th century culminating in the Arab revolt against Ottoman rule during WWI
☯ the two main status quo political groupings within Syria had their own, separate reasons – Syrian army officers of a pro-Nasserist bent naturally sought to be unified under the Egyptian president, while the rival socialist Ba’ath Party was fearful of internal communist insurgency and thought that merger with Nasser’s Egypt would head off the communists’ challenge and the same time allow them to stay in power in Syria [WL Cleveland & M Bunton, A History Of The Modern Middle East, (4th Ed, 2009)]
❇ the withdrawal of MKY from the Arab Union didn’t end Nasser’s involvement with Yemen. When civil war broke out in North Yemen in 1962 Nasser committed over 70,000 Egyptian troops to fight with the Yemeni republicans in the five-year long war against the monarchy
❂ the creation of the Hashemite conferation in fact intensified the Iraqi-Egyptian rivalry [Romero, loc.cit]
◚ once again Nasser was the model exemplar for an aspiring Pan-Arabist leader…Gaddafi followed the Nasser blueprint, seizing power from the enfeebled Libyan monarchy in 1969 through a “free officers’” movement. He formed a one-party Socialist Union in Libya (á la Nasser) and in public repeatedly espoused the broad objectives of Arab nationalism
※ Bourguiba wanted a regional alliance with Gaddafi (not a de facto absorption) …strategically he envisaged Libya as a buffer against potential threats posed by Egypt [‘Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya’, (MJ Deeb), in The Government and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa, DE Long and B Reich (Eds.) (4th ed. 2008)]
◈ the historic, default common cause for unity among the Arab states – the need to establish a permanent Palestinian state and homeland – has only occasionally got beyond the realm of rhetoric when the vested self-interests of individual Arab countries are on the table
The Franco-British Union Redux …Version Deux
The prospect of Britain and France forming a union with each other in 1940 – albeit in the most desperate throes of a world war going horribly wrong for the allies – was of itself incroyable as the French would say, unbelievable, incredible, add any other appropriate adjective. But even more of a shock perhaps was that there was to be a redux, a second go at hoisting the exotic banner of a Franco-British Union (FBU) … in 1956, sixteen years after the first attempt, there was FBU Mach II.
This one, like the plan in the early period of World War II, was born out of a dangerous international crisis, this time over control of the Suez Canal which was vital to Western oil supplies. The year was 1956, the initiative (wholly one-sided on this occasion) came from embattled French prime minister, Guy Mollet. A tentative first step towards Franco-British coordination had been taken with the setting up of the Anglo-French Task Force to take counter-action against Nasser’s sudden act of nationalising the Canal✡.
The French Fourth Republic was confronted with a string of simultaneous, serious issues, both domestic and external to Metropolitan France. Firstly, on the home front, the country was beset with economic difficulties.
Added to these woes, France was deeply (and seemingly inextricably) mired in an increasingly toxic North African war – its colony Algeria was in a struggle with the French for independence from the colonial power – the Algerian War of Independence. And as already mentioned the Suez Crisis was on the point of escalation as France and Britain found themselves players in a deadly stand-off between Israel and its US ally on one side, and Colonel Nasser’s Egypt on the other.
⇲ The Algerian War (Source: AP)
Adding to Mollet’s Middle East anxieties, in the wake of the Suez Crisis, was a build-up of tensions on the Israeli-Jordanian Border. If that were to escalate, Mollet was worried that it might spill over into fighting between the French (allies of Israel) and Britain (allies of Jordan)…bringing London and Paris together at this time would bring a security measure against such an eventuality [When Britain and France nearly married’, (M Thomson), BBC News, 15-Jan-2007, www.bbcnews.co.uk].
In the midst of all this, Mollet, an affirmed Anglophile, made a huge call…he proposed in secret to his UK counterpart, Anthony Eden, that the two wartime allies (and erstwhile hereditary enemies) establish a political union. Mollet’s proposal entailed a common citizenship for both peoples and he ventured that French men and women would be prepared to accept Elizabeth II as their head of state. Eden and his cabinet immediately rejected Mollet’s offer out-of-hand…but there was a corollary from the French premier.
British Prime Minister RA Eden ↸
Completely out of left field, the French prime minister made a second request to Eden, this one an even more intriguing, mind-boggling proposition that France become a member of the British Commonwealth! The British PM apparently warmed to the idea of having the French in the. Commonwealth, telling Mollet that it would receive “immediate consideration”, but nothing eventuated from the proposition❉, leaving observers to muse on the curious theoretical conundrum of what might have been – eg, the exquisite contemplation of the British monarch adding “Queen of France“ to her list of titles! [‘Incroyable, but true … France’s 1956 bid to unite with Britain’, (Angelique Chrisafis), The Guardian, 16-Jan-2007, www.theguardian.com]. The proposal was short-lived in any case…as soon as the disastrous Anglo-French incursion floundered, Mollet abondoned the idea altogether [Thomson, loc.cit.].
The most surprising thing about this extraordinary episode is that nothing was known about it publicly until 2007! The documents relating to it in the possession of the British government were declassified in 1980 and then apparently forgotten more or less completly. They sat, gathering dust, in the National Archives in. London until discovered in 2007. The scoop was unearthed by BBC journalist Mike Thomson and the news met with amusement in the UK – the BBC scoffed at the notion, dubbing the proposed union ‘Frangleterre’ [ibid; Thomson, loc.cit.].
French Prime Minister G Mollet ↸
In France the disclosure precipitated an outcry. Responses were, not surprisingly, generally ascerbic. Many politicians and ex-politicians saw the revelation as outrageous, scandalous, and some even thought it amounted to an act of treason on Mollet’s part [Thomson, ibid.]. Intriguingly, a search of the French archives failed to turn up any trace of Mollet’s FBU proposal among the records.
PostScript: In the fallout of the crises, both leaders found themselves politically undone within twelve months…Eden, humiliated by the backdown over Suez, was forced out of the top job, and Mollet’s government collapsed after a public backlash at the disclosure that Mollet had approved counterterrorist tactics including torture against the Algerian rebels [‘Guy Mollet’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org].
Epilogue: FBU: two 20th century manifestations of a desire for unification between France and the United Kingdom, one emerging in global war-time, the other out of an international crisis. In turn, the first initiated by one of the allies and subsequently rejected by the other, with the roles reversed and the same outcome in the second instance.
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✡ this was preparatory to Mollet and British PM Eden combining with Israel to launch an invasion force of Egypt
❉ one year later after the signing of the Treaty of Rome (1957), France became a founding member of the European Common Market (later EU)
Back to the Future: 1946 – a Vintage Year for Presidents
Donald John Trump, TRUMP – the name most uttered or tweeted about in the world during the last twelve months, was born in 1946. Three of the last four US presidents in fact were born in 1946 … it was a good year for future president procreation!
In chronological order they are Bill Clinton (elected 1992) George W Bush (elected 2000) and Donald Trump (elected 2016)❈. Wedged between these last two septuagenarians is the almost ‘obscenely’ young (by comparison) Barack Obama (born 1961).
In the post-war period the sequence of resident presidents of the White House has gone Truman (born 1880s), Eisenhower (born 1890s), Kennedy (born 1910s), Johnson (born 1900s), Nixon then Ford (1910s again), Carter (1920s), Reagan (1910s again), Bush I (1920s again), Clinton then Bush II (1940s), Obama (1960’s) and back to the 1940s for the present incumbent, “The Donald”.
The 1930s – a decennium devoid of presidential origins
No president has ever been born in the 1930s … barring some extraordinary event (the largely unforeseen election of the braggadocious and distinctly unstatesman-like Donald J Trump as President was just such a extraordinary event!), it is probably safe to say that there will be no US commander-in-chief born in the 1930s⊛. Putting aside the thorny notion of impeachment for a moment, the next president will be elected in November 2020 … it is highly, highly improbable that America (unlike say India) will unearth from obscurity some 80-plus-year-old (I was going to say ‘politician’ but of course you no longer need to be a politician to become president of the United States, so maybe, media celebrity, senior billionaire business geek, ex-B-grade film actor, etc) who gets him or herself elected to the Oval Office (see also FN).
All this means that the 1930s (together with the equally un-fecund 1810s) are destined to be the only decades in the history of the Republic without a (future) presidential birth. Every decades between the 1730s (when the first two presidents Washington and Adams I were born) and the 1800s witnessed the birth of one or more American presidents. The same goes for the decades from the 1820s to the 1870s inclusive.
FN: A future US president born in the 1930s would be over 80 by the time he or she won the presidency – and that would be a bridge too far even for the increasingly senior trend of holders of the United States’ number one public office.
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❈ Three presidents born in the same year: another presidential oddity is the frequency of left-handers among the recent incumbents – Obama, Clinton, George HW Bush, Reagan … that’s four of the last six prezs having been of a sinistral bent! Yes mollydookers of the world, you too can become president! ⊛ Not to overlook that also no president has been born in the 1950s either, thus far … but during the last presidential election season, Trump turned 70, Hillary Rodham Clinton turned 69 and Bernie Sanders 75, so there’s still plenty of time for the 1950’s crop of White House wannabes to elbow (and bankroll) their way to the top!
The Eugenics Movement in Australasia IV: a Progressive Crusade?
The period in the first part of the 20th century when advocates of eugenics solutions ran rampant, “playing God” with the lives of society’s powerless unfortunates, was an abomination on many levels. Deeply flawed by racial and class biases, self-righteous eugenicists categorised a typology of ‘lesser’ humans. They then arbitrarily assigned certain of their country’s citizens to this ‘underclass’ of ‘unworthies’, trampling all over their human rights and liberties in the name of an allegedly ‘scientifically’ determined inferiority. The inequity of individuals being singled out for ‘special’ treatment based on perceived racial stereotypes, mental or physical capacity or because of ‘inherited'(sic) criminality, and the denial of their basic human rights, cannot be overstated, nor can the devastating consequences for its victims (segregation, removal from birth family, sterilisation, even liquidation in extreme cases).
The harm and wrong-headedness of eugenics ideology with its ‘scattergun’ approach lies fully exposed to scrutiny today, and is viewed with the opprobrium it deserves. The eugenicists in all countries practicing eugenics were offering nothing less than a recipe for racial cleansing. Notwithstanding the ‘bad'(sic) eugenic applications of that era, it is important to note that the phenomenon paradoxically did lead to changes in Australian and New Zealand health practices that were significant, progressive and far-reaching to society. As cogently argued by Diana Wyndham, putting aside eugenics’ alarming consequences for a moment, the movement in Australia also involved a genuine attempt to “increase national efficiency and vitality through enlightened state intervention programs” in areas such as “sanitation (eg, cleaning up or eradicating slums) town planning and quarantine” … and of course in health[1]. The Queenslander in 1914 praised its state health authorities for pursuing what it called “practical eugenics”, vital pre-natal and after-birth care for the infant, a pre-condition for a “strong and healthy race”[2].
Eugenics as preventative care Those who enthusiastically took up the banner of eugenics in the early 20th century were in the main well-meaning if ill-conceived in their reasoning. The scientist-eugenicists genuinely saw themselves as engaging in science for the benefit of “social efficiency”, and what they were doing, targeting the “unfit and feeble-minded”, was in accordance with Benthamite principles of the greater good of society. They believed that breeding a higher calibre of person was ‘proof’ of rational, social progress and civilisation … eugenics was just such a simplistically enticing blueprint for society’s ills and problems, eliciting the support of social reformers as well as leading international intellectuals including J Maynard Keynes, Bertrand Russell☼, T S Eliot, W B Yeats, Virginia Woolf, D H Lawrence and the Fabian socialists H G Wells, G B Shaw and the Webbs, as well as businessmen and politicians, eg, Alexander Graham Bell, the Rockefellers, Teddy Roosevelt (see PostScript) and Winston Churchill[3].
Dr Cumpston: advocated making Australia “a paradise of physical perfection”
1930s Australian poster warning against VD° National fitness and advances in health care Emphasising one of the eugenics movement’s objectives as national fitness, Wyndham identifies a number of positive spin-offs of in Australia – it put the focus on maternal care and on the care of the child❈; it played a part in the fight against both VD and TB; in the provision of sex education and birth control; it stimulated the study of genetics (before 1938 not part of the university training of Australian doctors). Eugenics influenced the advancement of Australian health services, especially in family planning and public health (introduction of baby health centres, child endowment schemes, a national health bureaucracy, etc.)[6]. New Zealand eugenicist and health reformer Dr Truby King established the Plunket Society (pioneering early childhood health and development service) as well as introducing innovative child-rearing techniques.
Bjelke-Petersen School of Physical Culture, exercise demonstration (Syd) during WWII (Source: Nat Lib of Aust)
° Embracing physical culture in Australia Stephen Garton has noted other positive developments that grew out of the eugenics movement, most prominently a push for citizens to engage in more outdoors, healthy activities. As an antidote to the confining and often unhealthy milieú of urban life, eugenics encouraged people to take to the outdoors and to partake in physical exercise. Bush-walking and hiking clubs were formed, Boy Scouts and Girl Guides associations were encouraged and Police Citizens Boys Clubs sprang up. The establishment of gymnasiums and fitness centres (especially in NSW and Tasmania by the Bjelke-Petersen brothers) extended the emphasis on physical culture, allegedly important to maintain eugenic health[7]. An emphasis on physical culture as the method of attaining good genes also flourished in New Zealand, largely inspired by one German eugenicist.
Sandow the Strongman’s ‘System‘° Environmental eugenics and physical culture in New Zealand Eugenics is commonly described as “the belief in the power of nature over that of nurture”, reducing it to a question of a person’s character being shaped by heredity[8], this is the eugenics orthodoxy. But environmental eugenicists like Eugen Sandow sought to improve the human condition by improving the external factors of one’s environment✤. Sandow, a Prussian-born strongman based in London from the turn of the 20th century, was a eugenicist who believed that the flagging racial stock of the white race could be improved by nurture, which would overcome any natural flaws in a person[9]. He pioneered the art of body-building, developing his own training regime involving repetition and barbells (which he called the “Sandow System”) which he sold to the public by mail order. Sandow toured the world giving “artistic performances” in music halls, including an extended stint in Australasia in 1902-1903. Sandow was principally responsible for popularising the physical culture movement and giving it a kick-start in New Zealand. After his successful tour of NZ Sandow-inspired gymnasiums and physical culture institutes sprang up all over the country[10].
°
NZ physical welfare instructors, early 1940s° As elsewhere in the advanced western nations, New Zealanders were plagued by the notion of their supposed physical inadequacies (especially after the Anglo-Boer War in 1899-1902). The disclosure that half of the young NZ men seeking to serve in the British navy were rejected as medically unfit reinforced the view that New Zealanders had poor physiques. Physical culture was presented as a panacea, a remedy to ward off the possibility of physical and mental infirmity. As Caroline Daley has shown, the potentiality of Sandow’s exercise program led to shifts in the way New Zealanders viewed their bodies. Men, with the correct dedicated training, could achieve the “He-man” physique of Sandow. The Sandow technique also pitched its message to middle class NZ women, in line with the eugenic goal of increased procreation by the elite, mothers-to-be could be trained to develop the right muscles for childbirth. After the passage of the Physical Welfare and Recreation Act in 1937 physical culture became “a state sanctioned leisure activity” in New Zealand. The Act was a boost to sport for adults, and with the outbreak of WWII the government promoted the idea that New Zealanders had “a duty to be fit”, it was now patriotic. From its initial eugenic wellspring physical fitness and culture had become firmly entrenched in the mainstream of NZ life[11].
The physical underdevelopment of the nation’s young was much in the mind of New Zealand eugenicists in the early 20th century. In this milieú school physician Elizabeth Gunn pioneered the health camp movement for school age children. An avowed eugenicist, Gunn was instrumental in getting schoolchildren out of indoors, either into active camp life or into classes conducted in the open air [12].
PostScript: Racial fitness in America – ERO
Again, like the British eugenicists’ pronouncements, new ideas from America fell on receptive ears in Australasia. The centre of the American eugenics movement revolved around biologist Charles Davenport and his Eugenics Records Office whose activities reached eugenicists worldwide. Davenport and his ERO eugenicist associate Harry Laughlin were both chicken breeders illustrate the link of agriculture to eugenics[13]. Race reinvigoration in the US was championed from the very highest quarters. At the turn of the century soon-to-be president, Teddy Roosevelt, appealed to his country’s citizens to take up “the strenuous life” (his message was aimed primarily at native-born Americans of good Anglo-Saxon stock). And Americans did heed his words: many took up sports for the first time, American (college) football became popular as the ultimate physical test of manhood, competitive athletics and cycling were taken up in the quest to demonstrate masculine physical strength and endurance. Roosevelt’s urgings led to the popularity of hiking, hunting and mountain climbing among Americans. Behind all of these feats of physical exertion lurked the same self-doubts of the dominant white race as elsewhere. The depression of the 1890s and the enervating affects of industrial society accentuated these anxieties. The US was experiencing a shift in immigration patterns at this time which had started to favour especially Southern and Central Europe over immigrants from Britain and Northern Europe⚀. The more affluent, native-born Americans predictably called for a halt to immigration[14] with the purpose of stopping the ‘poorer’ stock of immigrants coming into America (Italians, Jews, Slavs, etc). The pattern of restricting particular ethnic groupings was duplicated concurrently in other western countries (eg, the WAP in Australia).
───────────────────────────── ☼ Nietzsche was another leading philosopher who earlier embraced the theory of eugenics as a panacea ❈ in New Zealand as well, “national efficiency” was high on the agenda … degeneracy anxieties (c.1920 NZ had the world’s 2nd highest mortality rate for mothers, much worse than its (Pākehā) infant mortality rate) prompted a safe maternity campaign in NZ. Eugenic concerns led the state to intervene in maternity services (P Mein Smith, A Concise History of New Zealand) ⚀ immigration from the British Isles, Ireland, Scandinavia and Germany fell dramatically from 1900, replaced by immigration surges from Italy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia and the Baltics ✤ Known as the science of euthenics (AKA “the science of controllable environment” (Ellen H Richards) – cf. eugenics “the science of controllable heredity”)
[1] D H Wyndham, ‘Striving for National Fitness: Eugenics in Australia 1910s to 1930s’ (Unpub. PhD, Dept of History, University of Sydney, July 1996), www.kooriweb.org [2] The Queenslander (Bris,), 11-Apr-1914, quoted in E Wilson, ‘Eugenic ideology and racial fitness in Queensland, 1900-1950’, (Unpub. PhD, Dept. of History, University of Queensland) www.espace.library.uq.edu.au [3] in a memo to the prime minister in 1910 Churchill said: “The multiplication of the feeble-minded is a very terrible danger to the race”, V Brignell, ‘The eugenic movement Britain wants to forget’, New Statesmen, 9-Dec-2010, www.newsratesmen.com. Churchill is on public record for even more unequivocal and explicit statements of pro-eugenics sentiments, eg, “I do not admit… that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia… by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race… has come in and taken its place” (1937) [4] Wyndham, op.cit [5] as well as that of socialists, feminists and other radicals, S Garton, ‘Eugenics in Australia and New Zealand: laboratories of racial science’, in A Bashford & P Levine [Eds.], The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics [6] Wyndham, op.cit [7] Garton op.cit.; the physical culture school founder, Lt-Col. H C Bjelke-Petersen, exploited the anxieties around eugenics at the time to promote the B-J brothers’ physical fitness schools, E J Wilson, ‘Eugenic ideology and racial fitness in Queensland, 1900-1950’, (Unpub. PhD, Department of History, University of Queensland, May 2003), www.espace.library.uq.edu.au [8] C Daley, Leisure and Pleasure: Reshaping and Revealing the New Zealand Body, 1900-1960 [9] the emerging physical culture movement dovetailed neatly into eugenics thinking at the time. Latching on to the prevailing perception that the “racial stock” of white settler societies such as Australia and New Zealand had become “soft and weak”, the tangible positive benefits of an active exercise plan (as illustrated by Sandow) presented itself as the obvious counter to this growing ‘feebleness’ on a national level. The popularisation of the Japanese self-defence skills, judo and ju-jutsu, for women in Australasia early in the 20th century also grew out of the ‘race’ anxieties (athlete and entertainer Florence LeMar toured Australasia with a ju-jutsu vaudeville act in the 1910s), C Macdonald, Strong, Beautiful and Modern: National Fitness in Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, 1935-1960 [10] Sandow inspired a generation of home-grown NZ bodybuilders who opened gyms, such as Fred Hornibrook and Dick Jarrett, Daley, op.cit. [11] ibid. [12] M Tennant, ‘Gunn, Elizabeth Catherine’, TEARA – The Encylopedia of New Zealand, (Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Volume 3 1996), www.teara.govt.nz [13] S A Farber, ‘U.S. Scientists’ Role in the Eugenics Movement (1907-39): A Contemporary Biologist’s Perspective’, Zebrafish, 2008: December; 5(4), www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov [14] J Murrin, P Johnson, J McPherson, A Fahs, G Gerstle, Liberty, Equality, Power: Volume II: Since 1863 (Enhanced Concise Edition)
Australia’s Foremost Valparaíso-born Politician❈
(Source: https://www.worldatlas.com/)
If you ever take an international flight to South America and happen to stop over in Santiago, Chile with a spare day or two and find you are not much enamoured of what’s on offer in the less than pulsating capital, a trip to picturesque Valparaíso would be just the tonic! To escape Santiago’s grimy greyness … and its multi-millions of stray, mangy dogs, take a trip on Route 68 115km north-west to Valparaíso and Region V.
Valparaíso, or ‘Valpo’ for short, today has a faded, glamour but stacks of aesthetic character – with a higgedly-piggedly, chaotic pattern of brightly coloured houses, “a heap … a bunch of crazy houses” as poet Pablo Neruda described them, and numerous run-down/falling-down Victorian mansions (conversely on a cautionary note, the city these days also has a criminal underbelly including endemic petty crime and prostitution). Remnants of the city’s former glory and especially its quaint charm remain however: the old and rickety ascensores (inclined motorised lifts, called funiculars elsewhere) transport passengers up and down Valparaíso’s steep, undulating hills, from atop the cerros visitors enjoy sweeping views across the bay and the ports. It’s a city awash with the most brilliant murals on the walls of houses and commercial buildings which themselves exude colour and character.
Valaparaíso’s “salad days” were in the 19th century, during this period it was a world-class port on the Europe to California shipping route. A combination of the devastating 1906 earthquake and the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 signified the rapid commercial decline of Valparaíso, once known as the “Jewel of the Pacific”. This small city on the eastern edge of the Pacific 11,326km from Sydney might seem an odd place for a turn-of-the-century Australian prime minister to be born◙, but in 1867 one such future PM was born there (also see Postscript). His name at birth was Johann Christian Tunck. Tunck’s father was Chilean of German stock whilst his mother was born in New Zealand of Irish ancestry. After his Chilean father disappeared early on, his mother remarried, changing the child’s name to John Christian Watson.
Later on Watson perpetuated a myth as to the truth of his origins which sustained itself throughout his political life. The name John Christian Watson emphasised his supposed ‘Scotchness’ and concealed an inconvenient, alien background. If his non-Britishness have been known, Watson’s eligibility for public office would have been imperilled (Australian politicians were required to be subjects of the Crown)[1].
(Photo: NRMA)Tanck (the future J Christian Watson) grew up in the South Island of New Zealand, he trained as a compositor and worked for provincial newspapers such as the North Otago Times and the Oamaru Mail. Through these workplaces Watson had his first contacts with labour politics, joining the Typographers’ Union and the NZ Land League. Finding himself unemployed in his late teens prompted him to migrate to Sydney and peripatetic employment with local newspapers until moving to the Australian Star, a paper with a protectionist bent which matched his own economic thinking. As in NZ Watson found a path into the New South Wales Trades and Labour Council (TLC) via the Typographical Association of NSW[2].
Rising quickly through the official labour ranks Watson became both president of the TLC and chairman of the Labor Party (only recently established as the Labor Electoral League) by age 25. Watson served as a member of the colonial parliament of NSW, representing rural Young, and his star continued to ascend after the Commonwealth came into being on 1 January 1901. A few months after Federation, still closer to 30 than 40, Watson was chosen as the first parliamentary leader of the Australian Labor Party (ALP).
Early Federal Australian politics entailed a three-way tussle between Watson’s ALP, the Protectionist Party led by Deakin and the Free Trade Party under Reid. Watson’s ascension to the prime minister-ship in 1904 was a novel occurrence: (the ALP was the) first national, labour-based government in the world; Watson at 37, the youngest-ever Australian PM[3]. The advent of Watson’s “workers'” government was met with cynicism and hostility as it challenged the hitherto standard notion that the working class were capable of assuming the mantle of government and succeeding. It didn’t as it eventuated succeed, surviving not quite four months before Watson found his government’s position untenable and was edged out of power¤ … but this was more to do with the nature of the Watson government, a minority one, than the quality or performance. Basically it couldn’t muster the numbers in parliament to continue governing and the governor-general appointed George Reid to the PM-ship in August 1904[4].
Watson’s political ideology: In the terminology of 2016 filtered through the media’s lens, Chris Watson would be called “right-wing Labor”. Pro-protectionist (much closer to the position of his friend Deakin than to that of Reid and his Free Traders), a staunch advocate of the White Australia Policy, committed to gradual, industrial change in the working conditions and wages of the working man (hence his constant championing of Arbitration and Conciliation reform whilst PM). On the enduring question of the ALP and socialism, Watson, a moderate and mediator by temperament, eschewed a revolutionary approach, seeing himself rather as a proponent of “evolutionary (Christian) socialism”[5]. At his core Watson was no ideologue, he was far from being a fan of the later, quasi-messianic NSW Labor leader Jack Lang and his style of politics. Not a fuzzy idealist either, Watson was a thorough-going pragmatist (albeit a well-liked one), ever happy to do deals and compromise with the Free Trade Party and especially the Protectionists to try to retain Labor’s hold on power.
Labor front runner from Double Bay with Van Dyke beardThe almost universally highly regarded Watson held on to the leadership for a few more years[6] but in 1910, at around the time his successor Andrew Fisher was forming the first Federal Labor government to rule in its own right, Watson was leaving parliament. One reason for this decision was to spend more time with his wife, the other was purely financial, MPs in those days were not handsomely remunerated. Watson’s early business ventures were unsuccessful, eg, investing in a South African gold mine, land speculation at Sutherland in the southern districts of Sydney. More stable income was to be had when he became a director of a wool and textile enterprise – he was able to put his prestige as an ex-PM and his political connections to good use as a lobbyist for the business[7].
Into WWI Watson continued to play a behind-the-scenes role in the ALP, allying himself with the new Labor leader and PM, William Morris Hughes. The 1916 Conscription debate, saw both Hughes and Watson on the wrong side of the argument … calling for the introduction of compulsory military service by Australians in the war, a stand bitterly opposed by the great bulk of the Party (also decisively rejected by the public at large in two referendums). In the internecine conflict Hughes factionalised the ALP, defecting in 1917 to form a new (non-Labor) party, the Nationalists and holding on the prime minister-ship. Watson joined Hughes in the new party (both he and Watson were expelled from the ALP for their actions). Watson spent the last part of the war enthusiastically trying to get a soldier settlers’ scheme for returned Great War veterans off the ground[8].
In the 1920s Watson played a leading role in establishing and guiding the NRMA (National Roads and Motorists Association), and in the formation of Yellow Cabs (taxi service), and in the 1930s, AMPOL (Australian Motorists Petrol Company), all of which illustrate the former PM’s interest in motor transport. One of his other interests, cricket, led to him being appointed a trustee of the Sydney Cricket Ground in Australia[9].
Chris Watson’s life journey took him from obscure and somewhat clandestine origins in Chile to a printing apprenticeship in Dunedin, NZ, to labour politics in Sydney and ultimately to the highest political office in Australia during the formative years of Federation. His brief stint in the top job (a mere 15 weeks) and early retirement at 42 from representative politics, leaves him as one of the lesser known PMs but one that nonetheless played a pioneering role in Labor leadership and in the shaping of Australia’s national identity.
Watson’s trajectory after 1916, if you were to be critical, could be seen as one in which he abandoned labour for the business world, and for the party of big business, the Nationalists (a choice of nationalism over social democracy it could be described) … clearly why, despite his achievements, he has never quite made it into the Pantheon of ALP political heroes.
Valpo viewPostscript: When I undertook my day trip to Valparaíso, our tour guide, Adrián, who was equipped with excellent English and organisational skills, had this little technique he used on his tours. If he was taking an Australian group of tourists (as with my one on that particular day), he would tailor his commentary of the places we visit to include a sprinkling of references to Australia (or say to Mexico if that was the case). Such as pointing out the concentrations of imported Eucalyptus Globulus among the indigenous trees in the Andean valley. When we got to the city of the Porteños I casually asked the knowledgable guide if he was aware that an Australian prime minister was actually born right there in Valparaíso. Adrián, clearly someone interested in the wider world, was surprised, even doubting of such a claim. “No, really?!?” he inquired disbelievingly (how could this have escaped the meticulous Adrián!). Immediately he googled it on his iPhone and gleefully confirmed that I was right! Chuffed at picking up such a handy little revelatory fact, he added with a boyish enthusiasm that he would mention it to his next group of Aussie tourists. I laughed and replied, “Don’t worry, the overwhelming odds are they won’t have heard of Watson either“!
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❈ a superfluous distinction of course given that as far as is known, short of a forensic examination of Hansard, Watson was almost certainly the only Australian political figure to be born in Valparaíso ◙ all other Australian prime ministers born outside Australia came from the British Isles ¤ the specific trigger for the government’s downfall was Watson’s failure to secure a double dissolution from the Gov-Gen.
[1] the Scottish myth was sustained throughout Watson’s political career, eg, the (Sydney) Bulletin lavished praise on him when he became the government’s treasurer in 1904 – concluding that “public finances are in safe Caledonian hands”, The Bulletin, 28 April 1904, cited in J Hawkins, ‘Chris Watson: Australia’s second Treasurer’, The Treasury: Australian Government, (Economic Roundup – Winter 2007), www.archive.treasury.gov.au [2] B Nairn, ‘Watson, John Christian (Chris) (1867-1941)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 12, (MUP), 1990 [3] at the same point in time the British Labour Party (BLP) had precisely four MPs out of a total of 670 in the House of Commons, and the first BLP UK government didn’t occur until the 1930s, R McMullin, ‘First in the World: Australia’s Watson Labor Government’, Department of Parliamentary Services, (2005), www.aph.gov.au/ [4] ibid. Reid’s term, similarly, was one of only 11 months … Watson’s and Reid’s terms were characteristic of the early Commonwealth governments – minority rule, composite, multi-party based governments and (consequently) short-lived [5] Hawkins, op.cit. [6] Even when he was PM or Leader of the Opposition, Watson was still highly responsive to his local constituents in Bland (and later South Sydney) and worked tirelessly to address their “grass roots” needs, ‘Chris Watson’ (Australian Prime Ministers), Museum of Australian Democracy, www.primeministers.moadoph.gov.au [7] A Grassby & S Ordoñez, John Watson, (1999) [8] ibid. [9] ibid.