Prince Harry and Meghan Markle take on the firm
Le prince Harry et Meghan Markle s'opposent à "la Firme"
THE ECONOMIST
La monarchie britannique a-t-elle atteint un point de non-retour ? Dans leur interview avec Oprah Winfrey, Harry et Meghan ont dépeint l'institution comme raciste, froide et dépourvue d'empathie – des allégations qui, pour certaines, ne sont pas sans rappeler les propos de Lady Diana dans les années 80. Une nouvelle fois sous le feu des critiques, la façade de Buckingham Palace semble se fissurer. Les valeurs de la monarchie peuvent-elles résister à la modernité ?
The British monarchy’s record of absorbing outsiders is patchy. In recent times, it has had one outstanding success (Kate Middleton, Prince William’s wife), several modest successes (including Sophie RhysJones, Prince Edward’s wife) and two stunning failures (Diana Spencer, the late Princess of Wales, and Meghan Markle, Prince Harry’s wife). A few weeks ago the world was treated to dramatic evidence of the latest disaster, in the form of an interview which Prince Harry and Ms Markle—the Duke and Duchess of Sussex—gave to Oprah Winfrey, America’s most famous talk-show host.
2. The revelations in the interview were in part familiar. The loneliness of which the duchess spoke, and the lack of support from within the “firm”, echoed Princess Diana’s experience. “This was very, very clear,” the duchess responded to a question about whether she was having suicidal thoughts. “Very clear and very scary. I didn’t know who to turn to in that.”
The loneliness of which the duchess spoke, and the lack of support from within the “firm”, echoed Princess Diana’s experience.
3. A new factor, and a particularly explosive one, was race. The duchess, herself mixedrace, said that when she was pregnant with her son Archie, her husband had told her there were “conversations about how dark his skin might be”, and she implied that the issue was connected to decisions about her son’s title and security for the family.
4. These revelations indicate what is presumably part of the purpose of the interview.
There has been plenty of criticism in Britain of the couple’s decision to leave the country for California, and of their attempt to retain some of the privileges of royalty while doing so. A prime-time slot with the world’s most famous interviewer—who is also a friend, and attended their wedding—is a good way of putting their side of the story. Such exposure should also enhance their celebrity and popularity, on which their income depends now that they have been financially cut off by the royal family. But it also represents a burning of bridges. For the duchess at least, there will be no going back.
5. Two days after the interview, the palace issued a neutral, conciliatory response: “the issues raised, particularly of race, are concerning… they will be addressed by the family privately.” But it included a carefully worded phrase casting doubt on the notion that the
couple’s account was the objective truth: “some recollections,” it said, “may vary.”
IS HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF?
6. Beyond the sniping, the fundamental problem, with which Princess Diana struggled, is clear. Being a royal is about serving an institution. It does not work for those who crave individual attention. The job requires self-effacement, at which the queen, who has not said a single interesting thing in public in her 70 years on the throne, has excelled. That’s not because she is a boring person, but because she understands the demands of the job. The Duchess of Cambridge, aka Ms Middleton, is, similarly, brilliantly bland. The Duchess of Sussex is not; and her complaint in her interview that while she was a royal she was not allowed to talk to Ms Winfrey without other people in the room demonstrated her failure to grasp the need to subsume individual needs in those of the institution.
7. As it is, the duchess has done the interview on her own terms, and its consequences are exactly those that the palace dreaded. It has exposed the royal family to criticism to which it cannot properly respond publicly without getting into a shouting match that would damage the monarchy further, and it has sharply divided opinion, thus undermining the institution’s unifying role. Younger Britons— along with Americans—are more likely to take the view that the monarchy and the British press are institutionally racist, that the duchess should have been given more support and that she is justified in airing her grievances in public.
8. Older Britons are more likely to be of the opinion that she is an adult who should have thought harder about the job before signing up to it, and that the couple have wilfully and selfishly damaged an institution to which Prince Harry’s grandmother and father have devoted their lives. Britain’s reputation as a socially liberal, racially tolerant country has taken a hit, too.
9. Yet the interview may do the monarchy less damage than the current furore suggests. Earlier, similar troubles did not much dent its popularity. Even during the split with Princess Diana, it barely budged. That may, of course, have a lot to do with the queen. Ironically, given her determination to obscure her personality, she is personally very popular. When she dies, things may look different.