Date: Fri, 5 Sep 1997 07:35:36 +0200
From: Hugh Rodwell <m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se>
Subject: M-TH: Re: A time to Di -- anti-royalism


Chris B points up some insubordinate aspects of popular ideology, even as
it grovels obsequiously before the rich and powerful:

>As I predicted last night, there is a democratic anti-monarchist
>undercurrent in the popular response to the death of Diana. This has become
>much more explicit today. The popular press has criticised the monarchy for
>not being in step with the people.
>
>It is noted that message with flowers are explicitly referring to the
>"people's princess" and some even to the "people's queen". Some people at
>interview are openly saying they are disgusted with the royal family.

Blair of course is putting himself in a very difficult position by aligning
himself with this current, as I mentioned last night. He doesn't want to
choose between the popular tide and the Head of State, but the polarization
could force his hand, and he's on record with both the people's princess
thing and the arrogance of telling the oiks what Her Imperial Majesty is
*really* feeling.


>Despite the cave-in by the royal family about the funeral arrangements,
>none of them dare play a part in the funeral service, read a lesson, or
>whatever.
>
>The queen's unprecedented broadcast tomorrow will probably fail, because
>unlike Diana's interview with Martin Bashir, she does not understand the
>psychology of vulnerability, with which Diana was able to unite with so many.

Now the possibility of the Windsors getting booed or pelted with eggs or
whatever hadn't entered my mind until Chris wrote this, but of course if
the broadcast gets up people's noses anything can happen. That would be a
real turn-up for the book!

On another point, Charles is getting very short shrift as the actual father
of Di's two boys. His position and views are just being ignored. Could this
have feminist implications? A wave of unconscious pressure for women's or
at least mothers' rights? Personally I doubt it. Britain had for way too
long a double female state leadership team, with Liz as Head of State and
Maggie as Prime Minister, and a fat lot of good that did British women. If
the trinity is completed by a new female Great Mother Goddess it'll
probably make just as little difference.

>Some of these frictions are  the normal process of bereavement. At one
>level people are coming to terms with the reality of death and the brevity
>of life in a massive demonstration - Elton John significantly will be
>adapting the song he wrote about the death of Marilyn Monroe, Candle in the
>Wind, for the Westminster Abbey ceremony. And it is normal for feelings of
>anger and guilt to be stirred up by death, and it is normal that different
>people grieve in different ways and at different times and this can be a
>source of division.

Anyone else enjoy the Monty Python sketch about the Funeral Parlour where a
man brings in his dead mum in a sack, John Cleese asks if she was young,
and when he hears she is, he shouts to his colleague in the back: "Oy,
Fred, put the oven on -- I think we've got an eater!"


>But I agree with one commentator tonight on a political level, that
>Saturday will mark the closest the British public have got so far to voting
>for a republic: they are electing their first monarch, posthumously. They
>wanted Diana as their people's queen.

Infants can be very petulant.

>Hugh tries to represent my views as mawkish. I think he shows a sectarian
>lack of respect for the responses of the people, which if listened to *with
>respect*, are not silly.

There are good reasons why people react as they do -- alienation,
fetishism, frustration, exclusion etc. The lack of direct relevance to the
real immediate material interests of the people of the reactions we're
seeing makes these reactions both inadequate and ridiculous, however
sincerely borne they might be subjectively.

I don't see rolling over on your back to get your tummy scratched by
Barbie-Di or Ken-Blair as the adult response of a revolutionary Marxist to
the British election results or this latest drunk-driving incident.

Cheers,

Hugh




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