Vered’s Blog

A few days ago Nisandeh, my partner, who normally do not interfere in what I am writing, remarked that he found it quite astonishing that I did not write anything on the 31st of August about Princess Diana due to the fact that it has been 10 years since her untimely death.

Even though I’ve answered him automatically, I had to rethink about this fact. There is no arguing that Princess Diana has captured the hearts of millions. Her life and tragic death are a modern day Greek (British) tragedy. But with all the respect that I have for her, I can’t see Princess Diana as a positive role model for women.

Diana Frances Spencer was born into the British aristocracy, the youngest daughter of Edward John Spencer now the late (8th) Earl Spencer and the late Hon. Mrs Shand-Kydd, daughter of the 4th Baron Fermoy. Her love story with Prince Charles was covered by all the media (as the rest of their lives) and their engagement became official on February 24, 1981 and they married at St Paul’s Cathedral on 29 July 1981, watched by a global audience of almost one billion.

Starting in the mid-to-late 1980s, the Princess of Wales became well known for her support of charity projects. This stemmed naturally from her role as Princess of Wales and also as an interested supporter of various health causes newly arisen in the UK.

Diana is credited with some influence in campaigns against the use of landmines and helping the victims of AIDS. In April 1987, the Princess of Wales was the first high-profile celebrity to be photographed knowingly touching a person infected with HIV. Diana also supposedly made secret visits to show kindness to terminally- ill AIDS patients.
According to nurses, she would turn up unannounced, for example, at the Mildmay Hospice in London, with specific instructions that these visits were to be concealed from the media.

In the year before her death, the Princess was an active campaigner for a ban on the manufacture and use of land mines. In January 1997, she visited Angola as part of her campaign.
in June, the Princess spoke at the landmines conference at the Royal Geographical Society in London, and this was followed by a visit to Washington DC in the United States to promote the American Red Cross landmines campaign. The Princess’s last public engagements were during her visit to Bosnia when she visited landmine projects in Travnic, Sarajevo and Zenezica.

With all this wonderful work one might ask why am I still not seeing her as a great role model of compassion and care?

The reason is very simple. With all her good work, what people identify most in her is her victim role in the royal family.

In a way, Diana was a sacrificial symbol in several ways. First she became the patron saint of victims, the sick, and the discriminated against, the homeless.

Then, partly through her real suffering at the hands of a rigidly formal family trained to play rigidly formal public roles, and partly through her shrewd manipulation of the press, Diana herself projected a compelling image of victimhood.
Women in unhappy marriages identified with her; so did outsiders of one kind or another, ethnic, sexual or social. Like many religious idols, she was openly abused and ridiculed, in her case by the same press that stoked the public worship of her.

This is not a role model I would like to follow.

As always there is another side to the story.

Diana was a tireless charity worker using her celebrity status to campaign for the causes she believed in. She once said she wanted to be a sort of ambassador, “a queen of people’s hearts,” and Prime Minister Tony Blair in his speech, after her death, has names her as: “The People’s Princessâ€?.

This is maybe her greatest contribution. Princes Diana has managed to modernize the stuffy, rigid royal family and bring it into the 21st Century. The People’s Princess had unlocked hearts, reordered values, presided at the triumph of emotional intelligence over cold intellect, of compassion over tradition.

So, maybe after all she is a role model. What are your thoughts?

Have a great day!, Vered