by SHAMSUL AKMAR / Pic by AFP

EVEN for those cynical of royals and blue bloods, strident critics of British colonialism and its previous hold over its dominions and the Commonwealth, the death of Queen Elizabeth II (picture) will be mourned.

In contemporary annals, the last time such sentiments were felt across the globe would have been the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997.

In their own rights, they represented the “best” of the British monarchy.

Diana was remembered for her international public services, from leprosy to landmines, cancer to HIV/AIDS and the homeless.

Even her private life and affairs caught the imagination of ordinary people — a victim of a gilded cage, of forbidden and unrequited love and such, and her death couldn’t have been more tragic.

Elizabeth II, on the other hand, simply played her role as a queen, a constitutional monarch who inherited an empire which the sun was setting and finally did, all occurring under her watch.

In many ways than not, the Queen provided a benign face to a former colonial force despite it being a legacy much denounced and reviled.

While Diana’s life and death had been mourned, debated and now kept alive as part of mankind’s favoured memories, the Queen had quintessentially represented a ruler that adapted to modern times.

Simply put, she was a feudality that fitted quite well into the trappings of democracy.

Though the British King had been a constitutional monarch since the 17th century, it is only considered a democracy in the early 19th century but in so far as their former colonies are concerned, Malaysia included, it became one when independence was granted to them.

After all, the way they carry themselves and their business in their foreign realms, there was nothing democratic or legitimate in their conduct.

But let’s not digress, and back to the British monarchs and their present-day existence in a modern functioning democracy.

Much as the Queen and members of her family enjoy to a large degree the adoration of the British people, they were not spared the public’s scrutiny of how they conduct their affairs and their mannerisms in carrying themselves.

In other words, much as they were regaled, their regality is not a given and a certain line must not be crossed and if they did, public odium and contempt could be expected.

The British public had shown this in the past and they seem to jealously guard that right to scrutinise and check on the excesses if any on the part of the monarchs.

With both the subjects and Ruler aware of their role, the relationship became symbiotic.

The Queen became the face of her subjects, representing the best of British values and ensuring Britain remained a leading nation internationally.

The grace and regality provided Britain a certain class in international affairs as opposed to other leading republics where their head of states are considered crass and at times even boorish.

In the past, when then Malaya adopted democracy ala Britain or modelled after Westminster, the concept of titular heads was also incorporated into the nation’s monarchy or known as constitutional monarchs.

Most of the Malay Rulers evolved within these confines and had remained titular which in turn made them respectable and at times even adulated.

The sedition laws, though not exactly lèse-majesté, had also been quite effective in containing outright public criticisms of the monarchs.

But the proliferation of IT, the Internet and social media platforms had somewhat diluted the “protections” of the Malay Rulers.

And some of the Royalties, not necessarily the sitting monarch, had chosen to indulge in these social media platforms, which in many ways than not, exposed themselves to greater public scrutiny and of course, inviting public criticisms.

It then becomes an incongruity as the continued existence of the monarchs is of feudal legacy and their active participation in present day democratic tools risked the regards bequeathed to them.

There is a certain degree of contradictions when discussing the Malay Rulers in present day context.

They continue to exist because they are constitutional monarchs and preside above politics, all provisions stipulated in a democratically promulgated constitution.

Within these confines, the citizenry’s expectations are that they represent all that is good about the Malays — their value system, their culture, customs, and, of course, Islam.

The Malay Rulers, when all else fails, are hoped and expected to be the last bastion of protecting and defending the Malay rights and privileges especially when they are being questioned by non-Malays and Malays alike.

To the Malays too, for all intent and purposes, the Malay Rulers will be the symbol and protector of the Malay realms especially when the community feels that they are losing out on the land they call home.

Amid all that, they expect their Rulers to be fair to the non-Malays because the Rulers are the measure of what the Malays want to be, generous, fair, compassionate and all the noble values befitting a Ruler.

They are the Ketuanan Melayu which should be positioned as the protector of Malay primacy befitting their subjects’ proclamation of Daulat Tuanku.

Then, the ugly face of the absolute monarchs of yore, no different than that of the British absolute monarchs, will be erased and the present-day monarchs, being embraced willingly.

And God saves the King.

Shamsul Akmar is the editor of The Malaysian Reserve.