First published in The Sydney Morning Herald on September 1, 1997

The death of a princess

PRINCESS Diana, who touched the hearts of so many in her life, will be mourned deeply and more personally than if she had been just another member of the royal family. As mother of Prince William, 15, and his younger brother Prince Harry, almost 13, the Princess of Wales remained important to the British monarchy even after her divorce from Prince Charles and her exclusion from the royal family. She was, above all, a devoted mother, and her elder son is the future king. But she was also a person ordinary people could feel especially close to.

Even before there was any sign of divorce, she stood out from the rest of the royal family. To the public, she was the monarchy’s new and most attractive face. But as a new focus of attention, she also became a centre of turmoil within the royal family which became increasingly public. By the time of the royal divorce last year Princess Diana had seen all too much of her own private life exposed. Despite that, she retained much public sympathy in Britain and elsewhere. The more her own life was laid bare, the plainer it became that she had been, at the time of her marriage in 1981, a young girl walking into an impossible situation not of her own making. That impression, of innocence abused, has only been strengthened by events since the divorce, such as Prince Charles’s resumption of an old relationship with Camilla Parker-Bowles.

The intense public interest in the life of Princess Diana did not diminish after the divorce. The appetite of the British public for news about the royal family has long been cultivated by the Palace. But in modern times, the ability of the Palace to control news has diminished. When Princess Diana came on the scene she came as a modern woman, independent and with a mind of her own. She in turn relied on that public appreciation of her as her own person to survive the royal divorce. No longer the consort of Prince Charles, she sought to retain some of the functions she had fulfilled when she was a member of the royal family. In this reinvention of herself she had considerable success. Her work for the cause of banning landmines, for example, undoubtedly had a beneficial effect. And in adopting this cause, she was not necessarily following the prescription of public relations advisers. Her stand attracted strong criticism from powerful quarters and required courage to maintain.

IN THE welter of intense reactions to this awful event, one imponderable is the effect it might have on the monarchy as an institution. Australians have their own debate about a republic, but in Britain debate about the future of the monarchy has become increasingly pointed in recent years. Compared with the Australian situation this debate is obviously of much greater consequence. Australia has long been an independent nation, and the issue of the formal survival of links to the monarchy is more symbolic than real. For Britain the possibility of the passing of the monarchy is much more serious. The death of Princess Diana will not precipitate any kind of crisis touching the future of the monarchy in Britain. But it cannot help the monarchy, when the monarchy clearly needs all the help it can get. It will recall all the pain of the princess’s unhappy life within the royal family. Just as in life she was, when she joined the royal family, its most attractive and inspiriting focus, in death she is a powerful reminder of its problems and its uncertain future.

Lamentations for the princess are, inevitably, mixed with anger at the circumstances of her death - and that of her friend Mr Emad Mohamed Al-Fayed and of the driver of the car in which they and a fourth person were travelling. The car crashed while being pursued by Franch “paparazzi”. One of the first reactions to the accident was that of the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, who spoke of the need to question the “aggressive intrusion” of the media into the lives of famous people.

Mr Cook was speaking from the British perspective, where sections of the print media have indeed developed a fine contempt for the notion of privacy. In terms of the actual performance of this section of the British media then, the extreme popular anger at its role is easily understood. That, however, is something remote from Australia. The Australian media are not blameless by any means in the area of privacy. But there is nothing in it to compare with the relentless pursuit of the rich and famous which is the staple of such a large part of the British media and which provides the financial underpinning of the paparazzis’ doubtful trade.