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| Sunday, 20 February 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Why the Royal soap opera will go on Sunday Essay by Ajith Samaranayake In a revision of Karl Marx, history has enacted for the British Royal Family first a romance, then a tragedy and now a farce. No scene of low farce could have surely surpassed the announcement of the marriage of Prince Charles to Camilla Parker Bowles (he apparently proposed on bended knees) after a long drawn-out affair played out in the vulgar gaze of the tabloid press but we are supposed to greet this liaison between two aging nobles as the apogee of romance in our times. It would be laughable if not for the commentary which it holds out on the values of popular culture and the outmoded nature of the British social hierarchy. Princess Diana The spectacle becomes even more ludicrous when one compares it with the fairy-tale romance stage-managed by the media when this same Prince Charles (then by many moons younger) wed the glamorous Princess Diana making her the Princess of Wales. That romance and marriage did much to rejuvenate the spirits of an England which had suffered an erosion of morale since the dismantling of the Empire and the decline of her status in the eyes of the world. Diana became a national icon and what is more a symbol of elegance, charm an chic in a world being rapidly colonised into the Global Village of the Macluhanite imagination by the overarching influence of television. Fires of passion But now it would appear that even while he was married to his fairy princess the middle-aged heir to the throne had been nursing an illicit passion for the forbidden Camilla. Not even the tragic death of Princess Diana which traumatised the world and the presence of his two grown up sons could apparently quench the fires of passion in the princely heart. So now after suitable interregnum comes the announcement of the marriage, the forthcoming nuptials and all the pomp, panoply and ceremonies of a Royal betrothal. These ceremonies not only make for a picture-book wedding but also form the accoutrements of one of the few Royal traditions which has survived into the present century from the hoary days of kings, queens, knights and tournaments with which English history is replete. Kings, Czars and Emperors may have been deposed in other parts of the world but British Royalty continues to ride to the hounds and occupy the Royal box at the Ascot and the Derby. Democratic and socialist revolutions have dethroned monarchs elsewhere but British Royalty remains albeit as the nominal head of state and in the popular mythology as the one uniting symbol in an otherwise divided society. But the question has often been asked and with good reason too how remnants from a feudal age such as the British Royal family all living handsomely off the taxpayers' money can serve as a symbol uniting the people in a democratic age riven by so many divisions. Do the average man and woman in their council homes identify themselves with the figures from the House of Windsor? What organic link can exist between the Queen and her subjects except for some ancient residue of affection? Does the Queen actually constitute a Mum for the British populace? Secret affair These questions came into sharp focus during Princess Diana's long estrangement from her husband and his family culminating in her tragic death in a motor accident in a Paris underpass, an incident still shrouded in mystery. It was no secret that the Charles-Camilla affair had clouded her marriage as had the Queen's hostility towards her glamorous daughter-in-law. Soon the story-book romance was curdling as the Princess became steadily isolated in a miasma of rumour, gossip and title-tattle. By this time all members of the Royal family had become fodder to the popular press and the whole Royal soap opera was being played out in the lurid glare of the spotlights. Victorian times But obviously all this damaging exposure in the press does not seem to have had any visible effect on the family as Prince Charles' decision would appear to demonstrate. It seems almost as if the Royal family thinks that it leads a charmed life untouched by the gross pressures and prejudices to which their subjects are exposed in the duller quotidian world. True that the world has changed rapidly from the prissy Victorian times of Charles' illustrious ancestor and society has become more permissive. Marriages are steadily breaking down and there are more and more single parents. It would be unrealistic to expect the Royals alone to be immune from divorce and disaster. But yet it appears incongruous that the loyal populace is called upon to applaud the marriage of a widowed Prince to a divorcee while the shades of Diana are still haunting the popular imagination. Cultured man The nuptials, of course, will come as some kind of consolation to Prince Charles who has been waiting in the wings for quite some time now to occupy the throne. But Queen Elizabeth has shown no signs of abdicating in favour of her son not even after the death of her mother, the stately Queen mother whose demise some years ago went some way in recouping the Royal family's dwindling fortunes in post-Diana times. Charles is known to be a cultured man interested in architecture and conservation but he is also surely getting a trifle impatient with his secondary role as the heir to a throne yet to reach his grasp. What all this underlines is the question of the relevance of the monarchy to our times. The concept of the monarchy and the office of the monarch might at least have been in consonance with the more spacious Edwardian and Victorian eras but they appear oddly incongruous when set against our own century. Monarchy Does this space age whose godhead is the computer need a hereditary monarch on the British throne? How does the regalia of monarchy go down in this age of hard rock? Does the new century need a 56-year old monarch with conservative views flaunting the gaudy epaulettes of office? But in spite of all these sling and arrows of the critics the British monarchy is bound to continue. One cannot imagine Prince Charles committing hara kiri or the Firm (as the Royal Family is jokingly called by their countrymen) going into voluntary liquidation. In the past the Labour Party had made menacing noises about abolishing the monarchy but Tony Blair as Prime Minister has been the most accommodating of politicians. Egalitarianism What is more the concept and office of monarchy fits in quite neatly with the whole outlook and mindset of British society. For in spite of all its outward obeisance to democracy, egalitarianism and the common man Britain is a rigidly stratified society where each stratum of the social order occupies a specified place and plays a pre-ordained role. After the Royals come the noblemen of the type lampooned by P. G. Wovdehouse and after them the upper class toffs churned out by Eton and Harrow who occupy the higher echelons of the political structure, the bureaucracy and the city signifying business and industry. In spite of all the democratisation down the years there are still far too many people occupying places at the top merely because of heredity or because they went to the right schools. It is this absurd tableau reminiscent more of the middle ages than the digital age which will ensure the survival of the monarchy. As long as the moth-eaten world of earls, duchesses, garden parties, charity balls and fox hunting continues so will the monarchy. It is no doubt a preposterously outmoded order, the last Jurassic Park not to suffer extinction. |
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