this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2025
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Okay, this made me look up if Australia is still a commonwealth. It is, but who the fuck knew India still was? I'm not the only one who didn't know, right?
fwiw the word "commonwealth" is...essentially meaningless. If you hear someone say commonwealth on its own, they're probably talking about the Commonwealth of Nations as @scholar@lemmy.world described. The Commonwealth of Nations is basically a loose grouping of countries that do various things together. Probably the most noteworthy thing they do together is the Commonwealth Games, a sort of mini-Olympics.
But several other things also use the word. There's the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a grouping of former Soviet states. There's Australia, a country whose full name (in the way the full name of America is the United States of America) is the Commonwealth of Australia (and in Australia, "the Commonwealth" is sometimes used synonymously with "the federal Government"). There are several states in America which are properly termed commonwealths, such as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
India is not a commonwealth, but is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. Charles III is the head of the Commonwealth but not the monarch, he is separately the monarch of some (but not all) Commonwealth countries. Most Commonwealth countries are republics.
Australia is both a commonwealth (in name) and a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, but those are two separate kinds of commonwealth.
To summarise: All commonwealths are commonwealths but not all commwealths are the Commonwealth of Nations and not all members of the Commonwealth of Nations are commonwealths (although some are).
Also fun fact, some members of the Commonwealth are monarchies, but with a different monarch than House Windsor. Like Malaysia.
Lmao, well that explains it! So this is how you remain a monarch in a democracy, hide yourself.