Alternative Editorial: The Era of Self-Sovereignty
Readers of this editorial will know that to be Alternative is to distance oneself from the mainstream news, on principle. We might give the headlines a glance. But they’re largely a foil to the naturally evolving socio-economic-political systems change we chart here, and they rarely report. This is not simply a stepping-aside from ideological content, but from the framing and dynamics within which that content is presented.
Core to the business model of the mainstream media generators and their outlets is the antagonism between conflicting perspectives, or the pain of others' suffering. It's a system that thrives on opposition, absorbing all the available energy for change and leaving power in the hands of the most privileged. (Recent tech has only intensified this process of making ‘cash from chaos’).
So we must acknowledge a rare week when all the UK (but also global) newspapers and radio stations adopted an almost identical tone and frame with the passing of Queen Elizabeth 11. From The Mirror to the Sun, The Guardian to the Daily Mail, all were uniformly sad, respectful and grateful. While none would pretend the polity is similarly unified - there are enough anti-monarchists following each publication - not a single paper chose to polarise the moment by dishonouring the newly departed. Nor, it is interesting to observe, the newly arrived King Charles III - who despite his history of poor media representation has been warmly welcomed so far.
Even so, there is an alternative perspective. Without being for or against the monarchy, it's clear that the age of moral, cultural or even psychological sovereignty over the people has passed. We are no longer required - or able - to fall in under the same beliefs, behaviours or sense-making as the Royal Family, still structurally placed at the top of British society. While constitutionally organised as such, from the perspective of our internal logic, we are no longer ‘subject’ to the crown.
If indeed we ever were. Listening to the plethora of overviews of the life of Elizabeth 11, she saw her job less as leading the way for public opinion, as holding the space wherein the most people could find themselves without controversy. Never the mediator, more the median. In so doing, she could hope to serve the most people - across the many countries of the Commonwealth - as a symbol of their accumulated hopes and dreams.
Our noble commitment and spirit of service
It was a noble commitment: but, out of her hands, poorly activated. Where were the mechanisms to hear directly from those who suffered most directly from the actions of her ancestors? The arrival of Meghan Merkle into her immediate family - via Hollywood - was badly integrated. The overdue transformation of the Royal Family - from post-imperial to responsive and reparative - was put back another generation. It's yet to be seen which branch of Diana's family - William from within the family or Harry from without - will last longer as a dream-catcher of the 'people's imagination'.
Furthermore, Queen Elizabeth's 'spirit of service' while assiduous and committed, was not more noble than those millions of others who also live a life of service with infinitely less resources. Social workers come most immediately to mind as those who, like Elizabeth, are constantly negotiating trust through listening deeply and considering the conditions in which a relationship can be made. Who's to say whether they are inspired or angered by Her Majesty's example? Nobody is asking.
This kind of critique of sovereignty is not simply directed at the Royal Family, but at all forms of authority that sit, constitutionally, above the people. Especially within a democracy that recently awarded all the economic and political power of choice to 0.03% of the electorate.
Yet the difference between the lack of respect for senior politicians, and for senior Royal figures, is palpable. A regular half of the mainstream titles do not hold back in pillorising the Prime Minister of the day (whichever side). So it was quite something to observe the difference in the (let’s be euphemistic) ambivalent welcome for a new UK Prime Minister, days before we witnessed the universally warm welcome given to the newly crowned King Charles III.
Given the difficult history Prince Charles had with the media until this moment of stepping up, we can only assume this is a transference of public love from mother to son. Or is it forgiveness? It's 30 years since the death of his first wife Princess Diana, known as 'the people's princess'. Since then Charles - and both his sons - have done more to follow in her footsteps than prove her wrong: working hard for both social justice and environmental causes as she did.
See this piece in The Independent - and this from Australia - that suggest Charles is too 'woke' to be King. Many others cite his campaigning for the environment as the cause of his popularity.
In the months leading up to this moment however, Charles has been at pains to deny he would continue this way when crowned, in order to carry on the tradition of neutrality set by his mother. But, as close friend and advisor, Founder of Friends of the Earth, Jonathan Porrit intimated, “he would say, that wouldn't he”, as he prepared the way for his accession?
Understanding how soft power can be more pervasive than hard power, we ask: can he really leave that reputation behind? Or more importantly, is he prepared to betray the young generation he took so long to nurture? Either way, we're pretty sure Liz Truss is cursing her luck that she will be facing Charles rather than Elizabeth every week, now that she is dropping green regulations in favour of returning to fracking and other hydrocarbon extractions.
With or without Charles' stated agenda, what changes can be imagined in this new era - whether you care about the monarchy or not? As so many vox pops suggest, most of us have never known a public space without Queen Elizabeth reigning over it. And fifty of those seventy years were of the 20th Century - a time inextricably linked to two world wars, the growth economy, the persistence of the military. All her sons and grandsons had a relationship with the Army. Her passing could signal a moving on from all that, possibly informed by Prince Harry's highlighting of the physical and mental trauma experienced by soldiers.
While the Queen certainly negotiated the beginnings of decolonisation - taking it upon herself to draw attention to the fate of the Commonwealth countries as well as to those parts of the UK ( such as Leicester) where racial integration was working well - she won't be associated in the future with its passing. If anything, her determination to clone her own father to the best of her ability, would only keep her permanently linked to a form of hierarchy - deeply internalised in the culture - that now belongs firmly in the past. When William and Kate (now Prince and Princess of Wales) recently toured in an open top car, waving at the people, they were heavily pilloried.
By contrast, her son Charles had always seen himself as a victim of that system - unable to make his own decisions in work or love. Deeply unhappy to be trapped by convention. Might he be the last monarch that reigns over the British people as an absolute ruler: might he even be the first to permanently change that relationship between Royal and subject? Those who watch closely are already noting how, in his very first moments of occupying the role. he chose to share it with the widest public - possibly opening it out to more criticism, not less. Seeing the six Prime Ministers taking part in the obscure ceremony will cause ripples.
However, our future does not depend on whether or not these obervations are correct. Despite appearances and the underlying myth-making machine now at full throttle, there are alternative ways of looking at the forces and currents at work. They may well come through these old structures, but they need not be led by them. After all, despite all their evident powers, none of the formal institutions that govern us till now have proved stronger than the force of nature leading human civilisation towards extinction. Neither the government nor the Royal Family are in control of a disrupted biosphere.
Whether or not King Charles sees this clearly, correcting that trajectory is not something any monarch would be able to do unilaterally, “from the front”. Opposing forces, easily visible as the fossil fuel economy and the military industrial complex, are ranged against him. Aided and abetted by a media systsem - top down, profit driven, shareholder owned - that amplifies that message.
How these conglomerates trigger our survival instincts - convincing us that short-term solutions are necessary when only long-term solutions can help us now - becomes the battleground. If we, the people, continue to give into the comfortable notion that enabling working and consuming as normal is our priority, we are toast.
Over the past five years at The Alternative Global, we have made it our job to keep drawing attention to the evidence that human beings, given space and time, have the collective intelligence and ingenuity to get us back into alignment with nature. The personal and social infrastructure is appearing that will help us become regenerative in our actions and structures.
However, it may be moving too slowly to meet the deadlines that nature has set - none of us know what is possible right now. Whatever your opinion on our current state, there's is no doubt that the regenerative option - method, education, apparatus, technology, narrative - needs every bit of help and investment it can get to accelerate towards its goals.
No more keeping calm and carrying on
If nothing more, it is King Charles' unenviable task to contradict the very social rhythm his mother set. Her signature response to crises has been to 'keep calm and carry on': she was treasured for her ability to resist extreme reactions or easy polarising. But what is needed now is a stepping-up to hitherto unforeseen challenges, both from the environment and from within our own culture and mind-set.
Without assuming any of the levers of state, King Charles' words and actions can deflect the meaning of responsibility and service away from keeping the flag flying (such as Britain is Great) towards an evolved idea of response-ability. This is what The Prince's Trust set out to do from its inception in 1976—recognising the gifts of marginalised citizens, investing in equipping them to serve the needs of the moment. Not as advertised on billboards by global corporates keeping us on track with the growth economy. But as they appear in your own neighbourhood, town, city and nation to enable resilience and flourishing.
Here, we often describe the progress of nature relying on fractals - the patterns of relationship that appear spontaneously in all parts of the ecological system. King Charles’ has displayed a life-long commitment to becoming authentic, in the face of The Firm. If he can sustain it, this could be echoed in the progress of every citizen - no, longer simply subject - becoming agentic in the face of past structures that shut them down.
This era is less about the sovereignty of the Royal Family, but the self-sovereignty of each one of us as we face the future - including King Charles. In the complex system that is constantly evolving at all levels, this moment of change may go down in history in ways our current media are far from imagining.