Shine Di

PRINCESS Diana was no Mother Teresa—and she did not think she was. But suddenly on her death the British media began to describe her as something of a saint. Hers was now a life devoted to causes humanitarian. To an extent it was. But this was a media that had looked more at what she wore to a charity event than what the charity was about. Now in a day British media gave more time and space to her charitable ways than it had in all those years she lived. Thousands said with flowers what some said in words. A nation that had considered her something of a loose cannon had begun to canonise her.

Death inevitably invites kindness, but this elevation of Diana into an unlikely saint was saying more about the people than about Diana. It was saying something about guilt over a now victimised princess, about disgust of those newly discovered persecutors of the fine and famous called the paparazzi, about anger over the unroyal injustice inflicted on Diana by the House of Windsor. And the unease was saying something about the future of royalty in Britain. It might well have been saying that Charles might now never be king.

A new sentiment now stands in the way. Diana was made saint by indulgence, not by recognition. It did not matter that the excesses about Diana were unwise, what mattered was that they were heartfelt. The way Britain sees Diana now will determine the way monarchy emerges in years ahead. These views matter, a democracy of sorts has begun to seep into the monarchy. That posthumous title, 'the People's Princess', says it all. She was not quite royalty, not quite commoner. The ambassador of British royalty to the world, yes. But as it emerged through the days of mourning, also the ambassador of the people to royalty. Somewhere in this owning of the People's Princess lies the disowning of royalty.

Flowers were piled high before the stony face of Buckingham Palace in remembrance, but also a little in reproach. Flowers were natural at Kensington Palace where she lived, at St James's Palace where her body lay. But Buckingham Palace was the royal in-laws' home that would never have room for her. For many thousands who came to mourn, she was the princess wronged by this palace. It was a verdict for Diana, too late for her, but not too late for royalty.

These are defining days for the royal family. Questions are being asked about what sort of royalty England wants, and even whether it wants a royalty at all. The outpouring of grief was writing a new course for the future of British royalty, it might even turn out to be the unwriting of its future. And while in Paris the seven photographers allegedly chasing Diana are being investigated for manslaughter, in London it is Buckingham Palace which is under fire.

Before all the tears and the flowers, the gates of the palace stood impressive but closed. "Can't one of them find one word to say about her?" a black woman outside Buckingham Palace was saying to a policeman, who said nothing. "From America to Asia, the whole world is saying how shocked and miserable they are,"she said. "The only people who do not have a word to say about her are this royal family. " The day Diana died a service was held at a church in Scotland where the royal family was staying. In that service her name was not mentioned once. Those mourning for Diana were hearing what was not said, and they weren't liking it. The Express summed up the nation's sentiments when it told the Queen: "Show us you care." And to drive the point home, The Mirror said: "The Queen must show she has learnt from Diana."

바카라 웹사이트But all England got was an expression of pain processed through protocol from a family too royal to look moved. The family said nothing, the household spoke. "The royal family learned this morning with great sadness of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Divine service was later held," read a court circular. Royalty was being proper to itself, not right for a mourning people any more, not right perhaps for its own survival. In upper crusty England, the stiff upper lip remains unmoved. The rest of England is changing, it is becoming almost Indian about these things. (The royalty finally relented and it was announced that the Queen would address the nation on September 5.) E.M. Forster might have found something here to smile about.

SHE came to us like she was one of us," said Vinod Patel, trustee at the Swaminarayan Mandir which Princess Diana visited in June. It was a most un-English visit. She stayed twice as long as she was supposed to. "She prayed with folded hands before the deities, she sat on the floor with children and just talked to them," added Vinod Patel. An elderly lady waved to her from a distance. "She came through rows of chairs to hold my hand and talk to me," the woman said. This was not a royal visit in straight lines to a set plan. Thousands filled the temple at special prayers to mourn her, almost as many as at St Paul's Cathedral.

High Commissioner L.M. Singhvi met Diana recently to invite her to India next year to campaign for AIDS victims. In 1992 she had charmed a whole nation with her thoughtful gestures. Her personal security officer during her Calcutta trip recalled: "She was extremely friendly and inquisitive. When we entered the city, she asked me about its population, the weather, etc. She even requested the outriders to move a bit so that she could see the crowds. And before leaving she told me, 'Your city is beautiful.'"

But six hours before her death she said that from November she would give up her public work for a private life. Either way AIDS patients will not now have a champion who could have brought them attention, respectability and money. Diana might not have had a Mother Teresa-like dedication, but she had glamour which drew money to the cause of banning landmines, to the Red Cross, Help the Aged, to the Leprosy Mission. For the wrong reasons, her presence worked.

Diana was endearingly imperfect, it made her human in a Madame Tussauds-like palace. The House of Windsor came face to face with Diana-ism, and did not like it. She took Kensington Palace to Kensington High Street. Royalty is now in retreat again. "If they fail to heed her lesson," The Guardian wrote, "they will bury not just Diana on Saturday, but their future, too." The impressive facade of traditional royalty now impresses fewer and fewer. A royalty not in touch with the outside world, not in touch with itself is becoming what The Guardian called a "bloodless institution". But majestic Buckingham Palace had a particular problem with Diana. It was going to be hard for a royalty that had taken away her title to say convincingly how sorry it was. And so the unique mourning for a unique person. To own her would be hypocritical, to disown her might be suicidal.

Not all of Diana's popularity translates into unpopularity for Charles, despite her. Charles is "not fit to be King", Diana had said in that famous Panorama interview in November 1995. That remark could become the Diana supporters' decree to royalty. To this constituency of royalists, and it is a large one, a King Charles is a disrespect to the memory of Princess Diana. Charles could have been an acceptable, if unexciting, king. Her death has raised some questions over that kingship. Monarchy has some years of hard바카라 웹사이트 thinking ahead before it can decide to foist on the people a king who is distinctly unpopular with at least vast numbers of people. If there is agreement on a future king, it is on William, too young as yet to be controversial. But six feet tall, 15 going on 16, he is the 21st century king everyone is looking forward to, some time.

There is much public worrying over William and his younger brother Harry, and who might bring them up. The boys, The Guardian wrote, "could face a bleak future raised by a remote father and staid, stuffy grandparents". William and Harry will have lost the natural speech of their mother for the "strangulated vowels of her blue-blood-in-laws". Diana let a kid be a kid. Now William will have to be a king-to-be. Monarchists are looking to their upbringing with a greater role for their nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke.

PRINCE Charles's badly dented drive to popularity after the divorce has hardly been helped by his friendship with Camilla Parker-Bowles. Coming after Diana, only diehard old-fashioned royalists would settle for a wooden king and what one British newspaper said might be his 'diesel-engined' consort. "Maybe the memory of Diana will fade away, and Britain will begin to accept more ordinary people in royalty," said one Diana admirer. But a 'maybe' now hangs over Prince Charles and the throne.

Camilla, whose 50th birthday was celebrated recently by Prince Charles, has been trying to win some popularity of late in her own way, and a little in Diana's way. She is headed the way of charities, becoming patron of the National Osteoporosis Society with a little help from established royalty. More flattering photographs than usual were passed about. On TV, she spoke with tears in her eyes of the loss of her mother and grandmother to the disease. But PR might not have been enough to build up that relationship. And now it is infinitely more difficult. England is far from ready for a Camilla who is stepmother to Diana's children, or the king's consort, let alone queen. In his besieged way Charles might face the question King Edward did earlier this century: kingdom or love? If he marries Camilla, kingdom is unlikely. Says Bob Houston, editor of Royalty magazine: "There is an old-age England about and a new-age England. Tokenistic as it is, the country needs a monarch who can reign over both."