It’s gonna be a tough few days watching people I know mourn the death of a man born into wealth, born to serve as the head of a fundamentally unjust system, even in the midst of a family scandal over its ties to Jeffrey Epstein; but at least in this moment I can express some joy. Every king died is another straw on the camel’s back to get people asking “why do we even DO this?!” — there are people I know who actually agree with me that the monarchy is unjust, but they’re just attached to Harald’s personality cult nevertheless. Godspeed to every republican agitator in Norway! The old king is dead, the new king yet lives, death to monarchism!

  • BuhbyeLittleGumshoe [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    35·
    10 天前

    I can’t find it because search engines are useless now but. There was an amusing article for a few years back that talked about Norway the way western chauvinist media talks about global south countries.

    Think: The Norwegian regime, rich in oil but harboring a civil society that worries international observers, is dominated by an octogenarian king.

  • SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    24·
    10 天前

    I have never understood how people could mourn a person who they have never met and who has never done anything for them.

    I can kind of understand paradoxical relationships to artists or authors or streamers, at least they do something for you. But royals don’t even do that, the best case scenario is that they keep out of public scandal and spend their life cutting ribbons, smiling and doing small-talk with local dignitaries.

    Why are people so emotional over this?

    • Coolkidbozzy [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      181·
      10 天前

      I have never understood how people could mourn a person who they have never met and who has never done anything for them

      They feel the same way about monarchs as you do about Palestinian children. They delusionally see themselves in the royalty, in the obsolete vestiges of their feudal heritage, instead of as the descendants of peasants who faced oppression by the same boots oppressing the world today. To grasp that the monarchy is a part of the system keeping them poor is a revolutionary act and requires a systemic (marxist) analysis most people have never heard before

    • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      6·
      10 天前

      The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on October 7 told King Harald V to keep his mouth shut, because it’s the ministry’s responsibility to handle condolences for other countries, not the king’s. And so the king kept his mouth shut, as he was basically obligated to do, and indeed the Norwegian state condemned Operation al-Aqsa Flood on his behalf. Harald did however go to the Oslo synagogue for the one year anniversary of Operation al-Aqsa Flood, along with his heir apparent, the current king Haakon VIII. If Harald hadn’t been advised to keep quiet by the very big and expensive PR firm that is the Norwegian state, we can only assume he would’ve personally said everything that the state said on his behalf in 2023, and everything he said for the one-year anniversary, which wasn’t exactly based anti-Zionism.

      I’m assuming you might be referring to this post with a screencap of some Xitter Zionazi accusing Harald of “only expressing sympathy for the Palestinians” with a quote rexeet saying that Harald “may be the greatest king of all time rest in peace”. I reckon the average Xitter Zionazi does not know much of anything about the inner workings of Norway’s political system, and has been seeing red ever since Norway recognized Palestine, so I think this Zionazi’s subtextual attempt to characterize Harald as some sort of rabid anti-Semite who hates Our Good State of Israel™, comes partially from trying to make sense of how Norway could end up recognizing Palestine based on the Zionazis’ twisted and fundamentally idealist worldview, and partially from wanting to do a petty jab at the object of Norway’s ““national mourning”” as a tit-for-tat for the ““slight against Israel”” that was Norway’s recognition of Palestine.

      The average Xitter anti-Zionist also does not know much of anything about the inner workings of Norway’s political system, and is quick to posture and dunk on Zionazis at any opportunity; which explains why the anti-Zionist user in the screencap apparently unquestioningly bought into the Zionazi’s inaccurate narrative just for an easy opportunity for a one-liner.