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-British traditions reborn in Hutt River |
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A British success story? Does HRPP through its dignitaries and peerage system have more in common with the British than the Aussies? Prince Leonard and Princess Shirley in full regalia during the 30th anniversary of Independence.
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I n understanding the class system of the Hutt River Province we might have to go back to its roots which is the British Empire. And a fresh approach to the history of British imperialism argues that class, not race, was the driving force behind the Empire.
With the return of Hong Kong to the Chinese government in 1997, the empire that had lasted three hundred years and upon which the sun never set loosened its hold on the world and slipped into history. But the question of how we understand the British Empire--its origins, nature, purpose, and effect on the world it ruled--is far from settled.
David Cannadine in his book "Ornamentalism" argues that in its heyday--from the 1850s to the 1950s--the British Empire was based on a conscious effort to export a model of class hierarchy and status from home out to overseas possessions. The Indian Raj and the tropics of Africa were run as though they were the ornate stately homes or broad-acred landed estates of southern England.
David Cannadine looks at the British Empire from a new perspective--through the eyes of those who created and ruled it--and offers fresh insight into the driving forces behind the Empire. Arguing against the views of Edward Said and others, Cannadine suggests that the British were motivated not by race but by class. The British wanted to domesticate the exotic world of their colonies and to reorder the societies they ruled according to an idealized image of their own class hierarchies.
When inestigating the reasons for the people of Hutt Rivers transformation of their Province into a Principality with British styled orders, regalia and hierarchical system one must take into account Hutt Rivers "britishness". Officially the transformation from a provincial to a princely system was based on pure legal reasons. In reestablishing the connections between British society and colonial society, Cannadine shows that Imperialists loathed Indians and Africans no more nor less than they loathed the great majority of Englishmen and were far more willing to work with maharajahs, kings, and chiefs of whatever race than with "sordid" white settlers. From this sociological approach it is quite logical that Hutt River had a need to gain the social status as a "principality" in the British system (which Hutt River was and even today is part of).
Through the idea that the United Kingdom successfully "exported" its class system to this tiny territory on the Australian continent, Hutt River have in this aspect more in common with the Queen of England than the Australian Prime Minister.
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