Remember Diana?
I was in London on a brief visit last weekend, which happened to be the tenth anniversary of the accidental death, at the age of 36, of Princess Diana, the divorced wife of the heir-apparent to the British throne. In marked contrast to the outpouring of collective grief back in 1997, the event’s anniversary passed almost unnoticed. The fact that current celebrities’ drug use and fleeting “relationships” attract infinitely more attention of hoi polloi than the memory of the “People’s Princess” proves what we’ve known all along: that “Diana” was a transient popular-culture phenomenon, only as enduring—and therefore as commercially lucrative—as the ongoing spectacle that the living person was capable of providing.
To start with, last weekend Britain did not “come together” to remember and pay tribute to the unfortunate young woman on the tenth anniversary of her untimely death. Those Britons who care about her, one way or another, remain as deeply divided between Diana loyalists and her detractors as they were a decade ago. As the Guardian noted, what should have been a somber occasion for “quiet national recollection” turned into an unseemly public display of personal rivalries with the usual suspects in the Diana “camp” continuing their tirade against anyone not seen to be a fully-paid member of her fan club. The “Dianistas” claimed that the program of remembrances was organized not according to what the Princess would have wanted, but according to what her ex-husband wants. Of course the heir’s current wife, Camilla, eventually decided not to attend the memorial service in the Guards Chapel, even though both her sons, Princes William and Harry, were supposedly in favor of her attending—the latter presumably indifferent to the event’s religious significance in view of his apparent open atheism.
As passions continued to rage, a poll in the Daily Telegraph showed that “respect” for the royal family had fallen to below 50 percent for the first time—a result, the newspaper claimed, of the family’s treatment of Diana. And 43 per cent of Britons still believed that her death was suspicious and not an accident.
The sudden and gruesome death of a woman in her prime, especially mother of adolescent children—William was 15 and Harry 13 at the time—is an inherently sad event. With Princess Diana it had the makings of a real tragedy, in view of her personal unhappiness. Back in 1981 a very young Diana Spencer was nudged into an ultra-visible marriage with an unloving, aloof and eccentric man, 14 years her senior. To make things worse, her husband was infatuated—and adulterously involved—with another woman throughout the marriage. That woman is now his wife.
Condemned to an unsettled private life of loneliness and emotional turmoil, Diana lacked the stamina of her sturdier predecessors who were mistreated by adulterous husbands (notably Alexandra, Princess of Wales, and later Queen of England), or that inner strength which is woven from a strong moral and spiritual fiber.
A decade after her untimely death it is not for us to judge Princess Diana’s private life. But by refraining from comment on her flaws and instances of sometimes very poor judgment one should not condone the decade of automatic sanctification of Diana by the frenzied media pack. Back in 1997, a mythical unity of the global village was conjured through ersatz grief for “the People’s Princess.” Diana’s hurried promotion to pseudo-sainthood was embarrassingly kitschy, and the presence of all the usual suspects on the bandwagon—from Nelson Mandela to Elton John to Michael Jackson—made the banality of the spectacle well-nigh terminal.
Even the blossoming jihadist community in Britain—a state within a state if there ever was one—claimed Diana as one of its own, presumably well primed in her temporal life for Allah’s sensual pastures:
Her loss is only this temporary world’s loss because it is definitely Heaven’s gain. While the world is grieving over her loss, those who know true Islam know that Princess Diana has made it to Heaven at the right time that was destined for her.
Diana’s AIDS related work and anti-land-mine crusade were commendable, of course, but those immune to the collective psychosis knew the truth: had she not been a princess, she would have been nothing; and she became a princess by doing what she must have bitterly regretted doing. Without that fateful “yes” at Westminster Abbey 26 years ago she would have remained a privileged, pampered, unknown nobody. But instead, in the words of a British contemporary, “like over-emotional teen-agers who mourn the break-up of their favorite pop group, we are encouraged to suspend disbelief and join in the false community that weeps and hugs itself in the worship of an icon victimhood.”
The false community of post-modern Britain has moved on, however—to a little girl in Algarve probably murdered by her own eminently middle-class parents, to an 11-year old boy with a Welsh name shot to death, ghetto-style, in Liverpool—with all the horrible teddy bears, plushy hearts, Hallmark cards, and other paraphernalia of a society way past its detox date.
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Sadly I always thought of Diana as rather a hound: the hound & the heir. The hound-apparent and the heir. Or perhaps vice versa, the hound and the heir-apparent. But i'm kind of twisted. Both the hound and the heir let's face it seemed and seem a bit mediocre. Now there's the aged-hound and the heir. Here-here, cheers... Heir-heir, cheers. Poor Diana she was just barking Up the wrong tree. But she did do a bit of good in the vorld. Here-here! Where have all the flowers gone...long time passing...
"... Here-here! ..."
Hear, hear!
said to strongly agree with what someone else has just said
(dictionary.cambridge.org)
hear! hear!
used to show that you agree with or approve of what sb has just said, especially during a speech
(Oxford University Press)
Hear! Hear! - good point. At least I didn't say the hound and the hare. I'm improving, even without a dictionary. Hear! Hear! ... how about hEar, yee, hear yee! the root being Ear. Lend me your eArs. Here-here! though is when you are pointing... like those pointing Hounds... they're indicating : 'boss, here!Here!' And goodness knows, like sweet diana, i ain't royalty... rather nothing but a hound-Dog pointing all the time... here-here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wish my Ears stood up
Let us not forget that the death of Lady Diana Spencer prevented the distinct possibility of a Moslem becoming the stepfather of the second-in-line to the English throne. At the time of her demise Diana was enjoying a "relationship" with Dodi, the playboy son of Egyptian shopkeeper Muhammad-al-Fayed.
It is quite possible that William may not become king until he is well into his 50s. Even if his mother had lived to marry Fayed, it is more than likely that their marriage would have ended in divorce long before William's accession. Still, the very thought of a king of England having a Moslem stepfather is enough to make one shudder. Imagine how such a situation would be exploited by the Left. And given the Islamophilia of Prince Charles one wonders if he will even leave a throne for his son to inherit.
Post #4 states that Prince Charles has Islamophilia. Well....here is Daniel Pipes speculating that he IS Muslim:
http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/119
The Princess joins the ranks of Lincoln and Martin Luther King and a host of similarly dead or "offed" politicians and celebrities. As Western society becomes, or attempts to become, more secular, it conjures up neo-pagan rites to deify its idols. The Prince and the Princess failed in their duty to the Christ in whose name they took their marriage oath, regardless of where their hearts were; in their duty to the British people as very public symbols of their values and aspirations; in their duty to their families, for they like all of us are called to honor our parents; in their duty to their children as well as to their distant offspring; and in their duty to one another. It is not that Christendom or what is left of it has not had a lion's share of flawed princes; but with each new set we should be able to expect that they reach to a higher calling, if they, that is, want to have any legitimate claim to the station in life which they enjoy. "To whom much is given, much is expected."
Rihard Clement - you consider Harrod's a shop? What do you own?
Yes, Mr Hammer, Harrod's most certainly is "a shop", just as Fortnum and Mason is also "a shop". You walk in, you purchase something and then you leave. Lots of immigrants open shops in Britain, mostly Pakistanis on street corners. Harrod's is on a street corner and is owned by an Egyptian. So not only am I saying Harrod's s a shop, I'm also saying its owner is just another immigrant. So put that in your pipe and smoke it!
As for your inane question "What do you own?", I am the proud owner of a British passport, which is more than can be said for your Egyptian friend.
Following on from the interesting link in Mr Ronduck's post, I thought this may be of interest.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/09/nbrown109.xml
That the heir to the throne is thought be forging links with the nation-wrecking Labour Party is very ominous.
What is the point of making a post about a wealthy non-entity who spread her legs for a fat disgusting billionaire muslim arab? You have got to be kidding me.
Taking time out from the hysterical ranting of the screwballs, whackos, dingbats or whatever, the Islamic site Dr Trifkovic links to, Submission.org, is very interesting and informative. It has a section, for example, on terrorism and jihad which sets out, with the help of extensive quotes from the Koran, why Islam opposes killing. The presentation reminds me of several Catholic sites on which Submission may well be based. I've added it to my favourites!
"The Prince and the Princess failed in their duty to the Christ in whose name they took their marriage oath, regardless of where their hearts were; in their duty to the British people as very public symbols of their values and aspirations; in their duty to their families, for they like all of us are called to honor our parents; in their duty to their children as well as to their distant offspring; and in their duty to one another." [etc.] - robert m. peters
Great post above! Sir if more people spoke as you do, I wouldn't have to say much at all [fortunately]. I too am a failure sadly, attempting to make my amends. Part of that is to recognize who stayed the course appropriately, and give them their just recompense. At least some of us yet remember the difference between right and wrong. Others more or less do though need their memories jogged.
Right and wrong have come to mean nothing to a royal house that illegally usurped the throne. Now this has disseminated down into the general populace to the point where Britain and America are unrecognizable even to those of us born in the 1980's.
Credit must be given, however, for the Prince's earnest efforts to reverse the aesthetic and social evils wrought by modernist architecture. Shame on those who pressured him into caving to decadent opinion.
I dont know about British royals turning Moslem, but George Bush is clearly a de facto Muslim.
Watching the movie "The Queen" will give you a good impression of how mad Great Britain went over Diana's death and how the Royal Family was basically bullied into joining the mob mourning her death by a tabloid press eager to shift the blame from its own culpability in Diana's death to a royal family that tired to retain its dignity while everyone else wanted to slobber publicly over a celebrity. Diana's death and the reaction to it is important only in the sense that it was the moment that Britian lost its greatness and became "Americanized."
I am very much in agreement with Robert Peters and Sean Scallon.
Prince Charles and Lady Diana were a bad match. She was an urban girl who pretended she enjoyed rural pursuits, not very intelligent, and steeped in the modern mass culture. Charles was comfortable as a rural tinkerer with intellectual pretentions but very much outside the mainstream culture. As a 31 year old man, he should have known that 19 year old Diana was not a good mate. In days of yore, both would have done their duty, remained married, and made the best of the situation for their country, their children and the House of Windsor. Instead, the world witnessed a Royal soap opera.
It seems likely that within the next ten years, the Prince of Wales will become Regent- Queen Elizabeth will not abdicate for health reasons. When it comes, the reign of King Charles III will be about as brief as King Edward VIII's.
Well,well,well,Prof. Srdjan,
I read it only because I like reading your articles and this time your irony is perfect.
What a pity,the royal family didnt have a member of muslim faith!
Who knows,perhaps with the american democratic means(like bombing of Serbia,Irak,Afganistan............)the late Mr.Dodi could have became The King of UK plus Emirates-more correctly Sultan .
But the democratic Britts,do things more elegantly per car accident-preventing unwanted family.
Well,well,well,Prof. Srdjan,
I read it only because I like reading your articles and this time your irony is perfect.
What a pity,the royal family didnt have a member of muslim faith!
Who knows,perhaps with the american democratic means(like bombing of Serbia,Irak,Afganistan............)the late Mr.Dodi could have became The King of UK plus Emirates-more correctly Sultan .
But the democratic Britts,do things more elegantly per car accident-preventing unwanted family?
“... Remember Diana? ...”
No.