is that he is elected. monarchy i think is an institutional figure that represents all the citizens. the italian royals, and perhaps more importantly, their supporters, all those people in that cathedral, clearly believe passionately that they have royalty in their dna they have the right stuff to rule. what about countries that don t have a monarchy? could they find somebody with the right stuff to take over a throne? just across the adriatic sea from italy lies the former kingdom of someone who didn t wait to be found. king zog i of albania
watch out, because this is what could happen to you if you re not careful. but instead, it s as if the tolerance of crown prince leka here, even the welcome he has been given, speaks to some deep need that people have for symbols of history and continuity, even a little glamour. it s as if you can rid countries of monarchies but you can t rid people of their desire for social hierarchy, of our need to bend the knee at something, even the unlikely form of a self appointed deposed king. the british are not about to give up their king. charles began life as a georgian, then became an elizabethan. we will see if his carolean reign makes him more like his continental cousins, more open, less grand,
of knock on your door at some point from the fbi because doesn t this all sound a little bit like un american sedition? i m not very particularly worried about it. i guess for the simple fact that i think that this is going to start off small enough so that i ll be dead before it takes off, but. ulysses, how urgent do you think the need is for a king or queen of america? i think we ve seen in politics recently, with the rise of certain pulsive personalities like trump, a lot of people want a king, theyjust don t realise it yet. they want to be ruled. i ll admit this is a long shot, but there have been plenty of long shots in history that have made it. the founding fathers took a long shot, and look what happened. could the monarchists of america be onto something? does the usa really yearn for a king or queen, but doesn t know it yet?
believed monarchs weren t born, but made self made. depending on who you ask, zog was a godlike figure or a devil. a saviour or a tyrant. he was prime minister, then president, then in 1928 he crowned himself europe s first and only muslim king. but he did not have a drop of royal blood. tirana was zog s capital city, but not for long. from 1946-1991, albania was communist. this was stalin boulevard, a place for parades for the people s republic of albania. and now it is king zog i boulevard, which i think counts as a return to prominence for a monarch who was deposed by mussolini in 1939.
was zog good or bad? did he like zog or not? yes, he liked zog. communist leader hoxha is not a popularfigure. zog s grandson, leka anwar zog reza baudouin msiziwe zogu, hopes to win more hearts. he lives in central tirana, just behind a retail development. i can t quite believe i m about to meet the grandson of king zog.