Yes, I know that the dust has settled somewhat since the Queen’s announcement last weekend of an agreement with Harry and Meghan regarding their status and activities in future. But the incident is symptomatic of where our society has come to and why.
Despite the explicit provisions outlined in the Queen’s statement and on the press, the matter remains confused. It is clear that Harry and Meghan are withdrawing somewhat, but then not entirely. They won’t be using the royal titles, but will remain royals with royal titles. That last reflects the confected nonsense which this whole business represents.
The agreement is to last 12 months, I understand, after which it will be reviewed. Very sensible. See how it goes and how it can be improved. Very sensible indeed. Except that the whole business arises from the world of make believe, not the hard world of reality and how things actually are.
It is typical of today’s official, intellectually sanctioned culture by which we are able to reinvent ourselves as we wish, never mind the objective truth.
We can reinvent our sexuality [and please do not interpret that as failing to appreciate that there are real issues for real people – issues we have traditionally refused to recognise]; we can have children even though we cannot naturally have children; and we can wish away children we don’t want, and terminate them; in brief we can begin to make the world in our own image – or at least in the image of the world as we want it to be.
Today we have RIGHTS, and woe behold anyone who gets in the way of our RIGHTS. MY RIGHTS trump everybody else’s rights, of course. Recent events in France are typical of this mindset.
The unions are fighting to the death to retain [conserve!] a State Retirement Pension system against the Government proposal which will ensure far fairer treatment for all. That word “all” includes the many casual and part-time workers who suffer under the present system, and the millions in areas like commerce and agriculture on very low pensions of just 400 or 500 euro a month. The unionised strategic sectors like transport, however, have very generous pension arrangements under the present system and they have no desire to make it more equal. NONE.
Yes we are talking here about the Statist, Leftist PC land of liberte, egalite et fraternite.
It is in today’s suffocating climate of Rights and Reinventing ourselves that we find two young people in their thirties saying they have had enough and want out – or part out.
Meghan of course is a successful actress. She works in the world of make believe. She is also an American, and an American who believes in greater social justice for minorities. Megan is who she is, and was always going to find her new situation difficult.
Harry himself has apparently always been irked by the incredible constraints of being a royal.
Add to this the facts that they are a couple with a baby, and that they are faced also with the massive intrusion of the media into their private lives. It’s enough to make anyone want out.
They have tried to get the media to understand – Meghan gave a very open hearted and real interview some months back in the hope that the media would have some common humanity and allow them their essential privacy. We all know what response her transparency and honesty got her and Harry.
So it is perfectly understandable that they want out. They want to preserve their relationship and their family. Understandable in the extreme.
There is just one problem, though.
They are asking the impossible.
No-one can undo the fact that Harry was born a Prince. No-one can undo the fact that Meghan is a famous actress. The basis of their fame cannot be undone nor denied. And however they see it and however they play it, and whatever understanding and agreement the Royal Family accord them, the facts won’t go away.
The media will always pursue them. Always. They can pretend to be private citizens; they can pretend not to be Royals. But the whole basis of their proposed private future and its financing is predicated on who they actually are, not on who they propose to be or who they want to reinvent themselves as.
The whole world is only interested in Harry and Meghan because he is a Prince – and the whole relationship plays to the ultimate Romantic notion of everyday girl meets Prince and lives happily ever after. That’s the true fantasy and reality of the situation. Reinvention has no part in the actual fantasy at play here. Reinvention would only detract from the basic truth of why anyone should take any interest in them.
Harry can never live as a private citizen. The British government can hardly have the 6th in line to the throne exposed to the risk of kidnap or assassination. He has to be protected, as does Meghan his wife and their royal progeny. In the real world – as distinct from the make believe world cultivated by contemporary intellectual liberal left thinking – there are nasty people out there who will take any advantage they can.
So, I don’t believe in this 12 month trial deal. I fully accept what the Royal Family are trying so hard to achieve, especially as they are first and foremost a family with real concerns for one another.
But it won’t work. Harry and Meghan are trying very hard to stop the pressures destroying their relationship and family. They’d do better accepting the situation and getting on with it, not chaffing under it. Over 68 years, The Queen has shown the way, living out the tried and tested principle:
NEVER COMPLAIN – NEVER EXPLAIN
Even after the Agreement had been announced and a new scenario was now supposed to be in play, what did the BBC do ?
It broadcast the comments of Meghan’s notorious father, comments critical of the young couple. Comments which belong to the realm of family confidentiality.
For the BBC and for the likes of her father, it’s just business as usual. And always will be. For, in the world of media make believe, they can do just as they please because there is a godless, gossip loving audience to lap it all up …
Ray Catlin
for events in France, see
http://expatforbrexit.blog/2020/01/20/reality-at-the-heart-of-the-eu/
Conservatism Institute 