The Queen of Australia represents multiculturalism

Last week, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the first data from the 2011 Census of Population and Housing. After The Age published interpreting articles, one letter writer (mis-)used the blank figures for an attack on the Queen of Australia.

THE census figures demonstrate how totally inappropriate is our head of state. In a modern democracy the head of state should represent the entire population. The Queen as head of the Church of England represents the 17 per cent of the population who are Anglican. Catholics represent 25 per cent of the population. Clearly the Pope would be a more appropriate foreign head of state than the Queen.
Brian Sanaghan, West Preston

Brian is a well-known writer of pro-republican letters to the editors of many Australian newspapers, but instead of assuming that Her Majesty is unfit to be Australia’s head of state, because she is an Anglican and head of the Church of England, he should consider her the most suitable person to represent multiculturalism.

Not only is she married to a husband of Greek origin, she had a mother who was Scottish, a grandmother who was of Württemberg descent and a great-grandmother from Denmark, her husband’s grandmother was Russian. And to top it all: The most interesting genealogical issue of the descent of Her Majesty the Queen is that among her forefathers was the Prophet Mohammed.

The Queen is descended from the marriage of Edmund of Langley, the fifth son of King Edward III, to Isabel of Castile in 1372. Isabel was the daughter of Pedro the Cruel; Pedro the Cruel was descended from the Prophet. The Queen's descent from Edmund of Langley is straightforward. It runs through Edward IV, Edmund's great grandson, to King Edward IV's great grand-daughter, Mary Queen of Scots, down through King James I to the Hanoverian line, and so on to the House of Windsor.

She even has managed to join Martin McGuinness, the leading republican, who was once an IRA commander, in a handshake representing peace for Ireland.

Here's another press release from the ABS: