-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Sept. 11, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------

Editorial: Diana

With so much world attention focused on the death of Britain's Princess Diana, what are workers, the poor and oppressed people to make of it all? Undeniably, many in the working class are truly grief-stricken. In large part, of course, this is because the big-business media manipulate mass consciousness on behalf of the capitalist class. The ideology of the ruling class prevails in the matter of whom to mourn just as it does with everything else. And focusing attention on the death of a princess effectively diverts people from the really pressing issues of the class struggle.

Nevertheless, there's more going on here than a morbid, media-driven mass hypnosis. Diana was, within the context of the ultra-rich landed aristocracy and especially the British royal family, a rebel. She was a liberal, even a radical of sorts within this milieu. Early on during the Thatcher years, her pronouncement that something is wrong with a system that creates homelessness infuriated the establishment. She carried out a public quasi-feminist rebellion against the constrictions of the ornamental role into which the royal family tried to force her, and she rejected the long tradition of quietly accepting a royal husband's treachery. She traveled to oppressed communities, visited people with AIDS, prisoners, disabled children and so on. With all this, she created an image as someone at least more human, and somewhat more progressive, than the snooty, snobby, ice-cold House of Windsor.

It's in large part because of this apparent contrast between Diana and the queen's clan that the masses feel a loss. They feel she was different than the other royals. Materially, she was not. Diana was rich as sin in her own right. She lived a jet-setting life of privilege and never even came close to rejecting her class. There is no such thing as a "people's princess"--the very notion, shame on Labor Prime Minister Tony Blair for coining it, is a contradiction in terms. Yet as long as Diana lived, it was possible to maintain the illusion of a beneficent ruling class containing special individuals who "really care about us"--which is how many mourners describe their feelings about her.

In fact, the monarchy is not merely an anachronism in an era of bourgeois democracy. To this day one of the richest families in the world, the Windsors serve to obscure the fact that there is a capitalist class and that this class really rules Britain. The monarchy is part of this modern capitalist ruling class as well as a relic of feudalism. The royals put their ceremonial stamp of approval on the British ruling class's program--whether it's continuing the colonial occupation of Ireland, serving as junior partner to U.S. imperialism in the Gulf War, or busting unions and laying off workers at home--and the capitalists proceed with the business of making profits.

The profit drive, not coincidentally, is the real story behind the paparazzi who reportedly dogged Diana's every step. While an outcry against these photographers builds up, little is said about the billionaire media barons like Rupert Murdoch who are really the force behind them. The media, like every other capitalist industry, are driven to ever more extreme measures in their mad pursuit of profit.

In the wake of Diana's death, public-opinion polls show that for the first time, most people in Britain hold an unfavorable opinion of the monarchy. Some say Diana's death and the way the royal family acted during her life have turned them against Elizabeth, Charles and crew. The monarchy is irretrievably weakened, most observers agree. This is good news--for those who were saddened by the princess's death, and for those who remain unmoved.

- END -

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: ww@workers.org. For subscription info send message to: info@workers.org. Web: http://www.workers.org)

Copyright © 1997 workers.org