After his tell-all “Spare” and the interview he granted to 60 Minutes’ Anderson Cooper made headlines this week, Prince Harry is once again in the limelight and the soap opera "Prince Harry versus the British monarchy" is back on the air.
His confession that he killed a whopping 25 Taliban fighters during his military service in Afghanistan and that he was neither proud nor ashamed of doing so and described eliminating the targets as like removing "chess pieces" from a board, the tensions he is going through with the royal family he is no longer officially a part of (at least according to a Buckingham Palace statement declaring that he and his spouse Meghan Markle were “no longer working members of the royal family”), particularly the bombshell that he was not even invited to see his own grandmother – who just happened to be the late Queen Elizabeth II – right before she passed... Wow. What a busy week for journalists.
Nevertheless, before writing this piece and researching the subject, I just felt that something was off – I mean, people affiliated with the British royal family are always under the spotlight and the media just loves to cover them but, there is something fundamentally wrong with the global obsession over the dynasty.
What makes them so special? There are literally dozens of dynasties all around the world, just take a look at some other European countries. Sweden is a kingdom. Norway, another one. Denmark? You bet. The Netherlands? Also a kingdom. Spain? No more Franco. Belgium? Chocolate, waffles and dynasty.
Now let me ask you: When was the last time you read any report, any news piece about those dynasties? I vaguely remember some Dutch getting 30 days of jail time back in 2016 for insulting the king – and that’s all. Oh, and I also remember Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf’s statement after the death of Queen Elizabeth II, because he mentioned his blood relation to the late monarch and that’s when I learned that Swedish and British royal families are related.
So, it is clear that we are not losing our minds over other dynasties and we simply do not care about them. Then let’s all ask ourselves that question: What makes the British royals so special and newsworthy?
Alright, alright that’s a cliche and please forgive me for it, but it is a cliche that lives up to the reality even today. In 2023, the empire supposedly does not have any protectorates or colonies overseas anymore. Not officially, anyway.
I mean, can you ignore the royal family's trickery with the “Personal Union” thing – that the British monarch is also separately the monarch of all other countries where they are the sovereign? Doesn’t make sense? I know, but let’s put it this way: King Charles, the current sovereign of the United Kingdom and the British king, is also the Canadian king, the Australian king, the New Zealander king through British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealander dynasties. As if there are multiple instances of King Charles who all head different dynasties in a Rick and Morty-esque universe. I know that there have been many personal unions in history and it is not exclusive to the British monarchy, but it is the most prominent and contemporary example we have.
When you look at the reality though; there is only one King Charles III (his official title) who is the official head of state in the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms – where in practice he has little to no actual power in governance. But still, he is the sovereign of many countries and the sun never sets in the totality of countries under his de jure rule.
Maybe that’s the reason for the relatively overwhelming popularity of the British monarchy compared to other dynasties: the U.K. sovereign is still relevant in the Anglophone world, which the current and sole superpower, the United States, is a part of.
The United States fought a long battle against the British to gain its independence and won, meaning it is not in the Commonwealth anymore in contrast to its northern neighbor. Nonetheless, the cultural ties between the U.S. and the U.K. are so deeply rooted that four U.S. states – namely Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia – are still officially named “Commonwealth” (even though the term is only used due to the fact that it is a remnant of political language from centuries ago) and Hawaii, another U.S. state, still literally has the Union Jack on its flag. So, the cultural influence of the British on the U.S. is alive and kicking even to this day.
When you take into consideration the global influence of the U.S., a country that retains close cultural ties to the U.K. and one that helped topple French as the lingua franca, especially after World War II, you might see why the British monarch – which is nowhere near the level of global impact it had when it was the sole superpower before the American supremacy – is still relevant.
Or maybe it's because the Sussexes choose to live in the U.S. over being the fifth in line for the British throne. Americans love them since they are U.S.-style celebrities. They brought a particularly American take on what Meghan Markle calls a "modern fairy tale." Americans love melodramas and soap operas. As it is now all too obvious, Harry and Meghan are giving everything they have to offer America all of this.
London Bridge is down
Let’s give the devil its due here: the British monarchy is truly fascinating in that it has managed to stick to its traditions over hundreds of years, in the face of a globe that evolves at unprecedented paces.
We observed this fact closely when Queen Elizabeth II recently passed away. It was an event with global ramifications, costing only the United Kingdom a staggering $2.6 billion. The organization of her funeral alone cost $7.5 million in taxpayer money, according to some estimates.
We as humans are evolutionarily hardwired to appreciate and be fascinated with rituals. That might also be one of the reasons for the global obsession with the British royal family – just take a look at how meticulously the late queen’s passing was organized. From the code “London Bridge is down” communicated during “Operation London Bridge” through official channels to all the funeral choreographies all across the Commonwealth, it was truly a globally ritualized period of mourning.
Remember how New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, head of a country over 18,000 kilometers from where the late queen resided, told how she learned about Elizabeth II’s passing?
“I had a police officer shine a torch into my room at 5 a.m. in the morning,” she said.
A police officer shines a torch into your room in the dead of the night – or morning for that matter – just because someone died on the other side of the world.
That’s what the British monarchy really is.
See, the whole debate is not really about Harry, his spouse that is globally hated for some reason other than her mediocre acting in "Suits," and their choice to cut off their ties to the dynasty. It is just the global relevancy of the British throne that is alive and kicking to this day. That’s why it is not even worth going into much detail about Prince Harry’s revelations or his statements on 60 Minutes, those have been already covered wide and large by the mainstream media with an apparently insatiable appetite toward everything British dynasty.
The Britons at the heart of the scandal, on the other hand, look at the issue differently from the rest of the world. On the one hand, there is Prince Harry, who says that "silencing is not an option," while on the other there is a majority that argues not everything has to be shared and that Harry is "oversharing."
Royal historians and experts claimed that Prince Harry's revelations risk discrediting the British monarchy, but interestingly, recent polls demonstrate that the public remains supportive of prominent members of the royal family. The British public disapproves of exposure and dirty laundry. The number of those who say that they are bored with the problems of the royal family and the number of those who are angry that the royal family keeps the agenda so busy in the midst of the health sector workers' strike and the problems brought by the cost of living is quite high.
What really matters is that no matter which side you pick, it’s a dead-end discussion that would yield no real-life results, it’s just celebrity gossip.
It is really comical to even attempt to find some depth or meaning in this conversation. It is just our nature to embrace ritualistic behavior. That’s what the Freemasonry really did; they just stuck to their rituals all these years and managed to create hype around them with the affluent lining up to become initiates – not to say that they do not have any leverage or power in global affairs. It is because the wealthy and powerful are trapped in this hype and the Freemasonry gets more powerful with every member they have.
The same goes for the British monarchy. More hype equals more power and exposure for them, which in turn grants the U.K. more soft power and influence.
What a diplomatic and hereditary P.R. stunt. Well done, U.K. The sun will never set on you, that’s for sure.
*Opinion editor at Daily Sabah
