I see my comments on children inspired a new friend to address the same topic. Cool! He’s a great guy, from what I’ve read of him. As I follow his life (his blog is a little more informative of that than mine is of my life) I am moved, often nearly to tears, by his concern for his spouse.
Well, turn about is fair play, I guess, so today’s post is inspired by Jeremy’s. As I “put pen to paper”, or in 21st Century-ese, fingers to keyboard, I have no clue where this will go, how long it will be or anything. We’ll find out together, I suppose. As such, this will be a two part post.
First, to address one of Jeremy’s “rants”. Yes, what P. Harry did was inconceivably stupid. One expects better of someone of his background. I think. There are few comparisons in the world to P. Harry and his brother. As royalty, so much is expected of them from an early age. Tons more than is expected from just about any other child. In recognition of this, throughout his childhood, the media, for the most part, gave him a lot more privacy than a royal should expect; this was especially true after his mother was killed. Perhaps that wasn’t as good a thing as it was assumed to be. You see, I think he grew up thinking that somehow he was immune to the media’s attention. Perhaps he grew up, even, thinking he was… well… normal. I could wear that stupid costume to the costume party. It would be just as stupid and inconceivable for me. But I could get away with it. The media wouldn’t be there, and even if the same picture was taken of me, the media wouldn’t have purchased it. Who’d have cared?
Maybe Harry, accustomed to being coddled by the press, thought it wouldn’t matter.
Now, mind you, I am in NO WAY WHATSOEVER excusing what he did. It was, as I state above, mind-bogglingly stupid. He needs to apologize. Not to me. And not, really, to the world. But specifically to all who suffered under the iron fisted cruelty of the NAZI party.
But the place to do that is NOT in Auschwitz in two weeks. The palace has that right. You see, when the world commemorates, in a couple of weeks, the 60th anniversary of the liberation of that camp, the focus needs to be on what happened all those years ago. The world needs to address that wrong, remember those who suffered, and reflect on the ongoing genocidal suffering in numerous places today. It doesn’t need to focus on the stupid behavior of a spoiled English royal. That is, however, what will happen on Jan 27 when he shows up. The focus will not be on what happened 60 years ago, but rather what happened a few days ago at a stupid party. And that will lessen both the suffering of millions and of the memory of Auschwitz.
No. Harry needs to go to Auschwitz a few weeks later, when it can be about him and his stupid actions, and stand in the middle of the ovens, or the gas chambers, or on the fields where the barracks once stood and face the cameras and the world and tell the world in HIS own words what happened 60 years ago, why it was wrong, and that what he did was stupid and unthinking and that he is sorry for it. Perhaps a few HEART FELT tears would be a good idea. For all of us should stand in those places, and weep. Weep for the realization that when we promised, in 1945 “Never Again!” we lied. We allowed it to happen again. And again. And again. And it still is happening. We still are killing, or standing by twiddling our thumbs, or perhaps tsk-tsking, as people kill millions of other people.
And then the world needs to forgive him.
On The Road II 