On the death of Prince Philip and the public reaction

Hello guys. Prince Philip the Duke of Edinburgh passed away on the 8th April 2021 - there is a huge gulf between what one sees in the official news outlets and the feelings of ordinary British people. Of course, the coverage in the news has been somber and respectful but I didn't want you all to think that all British people are sad at his passing. I compare this to the situation back in 2015 when Lee Kuan Yew passed away and there was this implicit assumption that the entire nation of Singapore was grieving for his death; that somehow no other reaction existed until of course, a certain chap called Amos Yee came along and that has been extensively covered in my blog already. One thing that did ruffle my feathers was Boris Johnson's statement today that Prince Philip "inspired the lives of countless young people" and my reaction to that claim was, are you kidding me? Nope, he certainly did not inspire me and he had totally failed to connect with the younger generation. Certainly, the only two royal figures that had connected most with the younger generation would be the two princes William and Harry given that they are actually not that old and the public have taken a lot of interest in their lives ever since their mother Princess Diana was tragically killed in 1997 - she was the last royal that well and truly connected with the people, Prince Philip never even came close to that, especially with the younger generation. "When I grow up, I want to be born into an extremely rich royal family!", explain it to me please - so how could that work? 

There is a range of reaction amongst the British public: yes some of the public are feeling sadness and this is evident from the flowers that have been laid in places like Windsor Palace and Buckingham Palace. Some people are feeling the opposite though and are glad that he is dead, whilst many of us are merely feeling indifference - we don't have an emotional response to his passing because we simply were not emotionally connected to him in any meaningful way. Allow me to make a comparison to illustrate my point: less than 24 hours before Prince Philip passed away, one of the richest men in the UK Sir Richard Sutton was murdered. He was 83 and attacked in his own home in a domestic dispute, the murderer who killed him was not a stranger but knew Sir Richard and his wife, who was also seriously injured in the attack. I have come across Sir Richard in the news before in passing, but obviously am not connected to him in any meaningful way since I have never ever met him, we have never crossed paths. As brutal as his murder was, I cannot bring myself to have any kind of meaningful emotional response to his unfortunate death. Thus I am merely reacting to Prince Philip's death in the same way as Sir Richard's murder: I am simply indifferent, I don't have an emotional response. I contrast this to when my former neighbour Hilda passed away, she was my neighbour for 12 years - we weren't that close but my partner and I always kept an eye on her given that she was an old lady living on her own. When she passed away, I did genuinely feel a sense of sadness given that we were emotionally connected to her as as neighbours. After all we knew each other, we were friends - par contre, I can't say that about Prince Philip or Sir Richard. 

After all, Prince Philip comes from royal stock - his grandfather was King George I of Greece and his mother was Princess Alice, great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Back in those days, royals will only marry other royals - the thought of marrying someone who was regarded as a commoner was unheard of and unthinkable until 1936 when King Edward VIII abdicated to in order to marry Wallis Simpson, an American who was not only a commoner, but a divorcee. It suffices to say that European Royals are crazy rich and this is old money, that means people like Prince Philip are given so much wealth that they never ever have to work a day in his life and that this mountain of wealth is so immense that he can't spend it all in his lifetime, he will pass it on to his children and grandchildren, making sure that they can sustain their aristocratic lifestyle for generations to come. In short, the average person in the UK couldn't be further removed from the kind of wealth, luxury and privilege that has come to define Prince Philip's life. At least politicians have to worry about winning the next election and at least make some effort to convince the voters; for those in the royal family, they are born royal - they have struck lottery by being born into the right family, they did nothing to earn that royal title, it was bestowed upon them at birth. Unlike Sir Richard Sutton who amassed his vast wealth through his hotels business, Prince Philip simply inherited his royal title and an insane amount of money - thus by that token, I have far more respect for someone like Sir Richard who had the business acumen to earn his fortunes than someone like Prince Philip, who became rich simply by inheriting all that money without any effort whatsoever on his part. Hence I think young people today are far more likely to be inspired by Sir Richard's success story than Prince Philip's life of his unbelievable wealth and privilege. 

This begs the question, why are some ordinary British people mourning the death of Prince Philip then, despite having no real connection to the royal family? We're talking about ordinary working class folks who don't have much money pledging their allegiance to the royal family and shedding real tears when they learnt about the news. Well, allow me to be cynical, very cynical: meet John, he is your average working class English man. He doesn't earn much at his job, he struggles to make ends meet and provide for his family - they are literally living from paycheck to paycheck. If you look at John's life, he hasn't achieved anything: he struggled through school, performing poorly and left school without any formal qualifications or useful skills to access better paid work. He looks around his community and realizes that his situation really isn't that uncommon, many of his peers have left school under similar circumstances and have taken various low-skilled jobs locally. His financial situation only got worse when he got married and had children - now he has got to try to bring up a family on very little money, oh dear. It is a hard and miserable life for John and his family, I don't like the idea of kicking a man who is already down but John is a loser. What does John and his wife do to feel a sense of pride in their otherwise humdrum lives that are dominated by very long working hours just to earn enough money to make ends meet? A common response is an obsession with football and that's common with the British working classes. 

So John selects a team that is currently doing well and calls it "my team" despite this link being unilateral: John may watch all their matches, spend his hard earned money on their merchandise and even talk about "his team" all the time on social media; when his team wins a match, John celebrates it as if it is 'his' victory. But do the footballers at "John's team" even know he exists? No, they don't. I'm sure they are at some level grateful for his support, but this is not at a personal level - John will never get to meet the star striker or the manager of the club. At best he is a fan, a supporter of the football club. The closest he may ever get to the club is one of their players liking one of his tweets. But for me, there's an acid test to see if one has a unilateral, one-way relationship or if it is a genuine relationship that goes two ways. When my neighbour Hilda died, I attended her funeral and cried there. By the same token,  I had been the one who died, I don't doubt for a moment that Hilda would attend my funeral and yes, knowing her, she would have shed tears at my funeral too. So if someone like John died today, would  the football players at football team he supports feel sad about his death? No, they wouldn't even be aware that he died. Hypothetically, even if someone went out of their way to inform them of John's death, it would be hard for those football players to feel any real grief if they have never even met John before. Instead, only people who have been a part of John's life like his family members, his neighbours and colleagues would be the people who would then show up at his funeral and experience genuine grief over his death. 

So for British people like John who don't have any achievements to be proud about, they may choose to build their identity around their nationality and take great interest in the royal family. It's a free country, people like John are free to love the royal family whilst others like me pretty much just ignore them. It's not like British people are obliged by law to prove how patriotic they are by adoring the royal family. But whilst people like John can cry when Prince Philip died, nobody in the royal family would even notice if John died tomorrow. This is a very one-way relationship where people like John adore Prince Philip but the royals don't even know of John's existence. As of the 9th of April 2021, nearly 150,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the UK and as a nation we have become totally desensitized by the daily death toll. There was a train derailment in Taiwan recently that killed 50 passengers and the whole country went into mourning, the transport minister offered to resign over such a tragic loss of life. In the UK today as I am writing this, 60 people died from Covid-19 and our reaction is actually, "that's still okay, it's a lot better than a month ago." Never mind the royal family or the government, the entire nation has gotten so used to so many people dying everyday during this pandemic - that's why it is somewhat surprising that there was an outpouring of grief when Prince Philip died. You're crying because he died? But what about the other 150,000 people who died during the pandemic then? Are they not worthy of your tears? Oh, you didn't know any of those 150,000 people who died? But did you ever get to meet Prince Philip in person?

I find people like that quite pitiful because they're trying to attach themselves to someone important despite having no meaningful connection whatsoever with this important person. In grieving for this important person (whom they have never ever met before), they are desperately trying to fabricate a connection to this person (when there really isn't one). This reminds me of a bizarre guy I knew years ago - let's call him Hugo (not his real name): Hugo was a geeky historian nerd who would spend his holidays in museums. I don't have a problem with that, in fact I thought it was his way of being intellectual. He had a fascination with the sinking of the Titanic and this was nothing to do with the film that we've all seen, no Hugo knew every minute detail of what happened on that ship. Then one day in 2009, he called me up and he was crying - like he was inconsolable so I rushed over to see what was wrong: it turned out that Millvina Dean had died, she was the last surviving passenger of the Titanic. Hugo had never ever met her, it was not like he was her friend. Instead, he was her 'fan' - he became obsessed with every detail of her life because of her connection to the ill-fated Titanic. I remember sitting there in the room not knowing how to react: one on hand, I thought I had to say something to comfort Hugo. On the other hand, I wanted to react with cynicism and say, "you never knew her, how can you grief over someone you never even met? You may know a lot about her life but she doesn't even know you exist. You don't have the right to react like that over her passing." I bet Hugo would now be grieving over Prince Philip, in much the same way. 

If I may explain, I'm not a complete monster, I wrote a tribute to Keith Flint (of the Prodigy), George Michael and Whitney Houston on my blog when they passed away because their music has been such a massive part of the soundtrack of my life growing up. Even though I had never met these singers, I got to know their music really well over the years so I felt a connection on that basis. Sure, it is only one way but at least that connection was based on the music. But how the hell do you connect to a member of the royal family? Ironically, the one royal that I know the most about is Meghan Markle simply because I was a big fan of the series Suits and after watching nine seasons of Suits, I actually know a lot more about her than her husband Prince Harry. It seems that these royals only really make the headlines when something goes horribly wrong, like when Princess Diana got tragically killed in Paris  in 1997 or that whole Prince Andrew BBC interview catastrophe in 2019 when he lied so unconvincingly. Unlike George Michael who actually created some incredible music, what was Prince Philip's legacy for ordinary British people like me then? Part of the reason why some people still look up to him and offer this mix of obedience, admiration and respect is because these people just naturally defer to authority: they respect everyone who is in charge. So when they were children, they always respected their parents because that was what they were taught to do. They respected their teachers in school as the teachers were in charge in the classroom. By extension of that, they respected the politicians who were running the country and thus the royal family is an extension of that - they are part of the establishment that is a part of this country's culture and heritage. 

One of the key reasons why we feel a great sense of loss when someone like George Michael or Whitney Houston passes away is because they were so talented - when the world loses a great singer, composer, designer, writer, scientist or inventor dies, we mourn the fact that the world has lost someone so incredibly talented, we mourn the loss of their talent. Whitney Houston brought joy to so many with her music and we will never hear her sing live ever again. If Freddie Mercury was still alive today, he would still be making great music for the world. But what real 'talents' do the royals have? Case in point: Prince George of Cambridge is the son of Prince William and the third in line for the British throne - he is expected to become king one day in his lifetime. The young prince is just seven years old today, but there was such a media frenzy surrounding his birth, with newspapers and magazines publishing pages and pages of his photographs when he was just a baby, before he had even spoken his first word. My point is that Prince George didn't have to even say a single word as a baby for the public to become obsessed with him, they were interested because he was royalty - not because he was as talented as Freddie Mercury or Whitney Houston who had the ability to capture our attention and hold it for so many years. Thus when I looked at Prince Philip: apart from being born into a royal family and marrying the future Queen of Britain, what real talent did he have? Because he was royalty, people  often ignored his faults and allowed him to get away with mistakes. Instead of being remembered for his awful gaffes, people dismissed his racist comments that caused grave offense as "casual banter" - he was just another crazy rich royal who lacked any real talent.

There are two ways one could approach this relationship with authority: firstly, we don't get to choose our parents. Furthermore, we don't get to choose our other family members. On top of that, as children, we don't get to choose our teachers and our neighbours are determined by where our parents choose to live. Even as adults, we don't get a say about who ends up ruling over us - even in countries that are democratic, you don't always get the politician you voted for, such is the nature of the election. And if you live in a country with a monarchy, you most certainly don't get to choose who is in that royal family - this is not a reality TV programme like Big Brother where the public can choose to determine who gets to stay in the show. This reality leaves us with a messy mix of people in charge of our lives some of whom are great, others are awful. So what do you do if you're very unlucky in this aspect - if most of those people in positions of authority are quite awful then? So case in point: I've written a post about just how awful his economics teacher is. In my humble opinion, she is so awful at her job she needs to be punished, she has no right to be a teacher - that's why I am having to step in as the emergency tuition teacher to try to plug gaps in his knowledge. However, my entire family (including my husband) has cautioned me against being too vocal about telling my nephew how I feel about his awful teacher. The reason is that they worry my nephew might feel despondent about the whole  miserable situation: he doesn't get to choose his teacher, he can't change the education system and thus reminding him what an unlucky position he is in is only going to destroy any hope he has left about doing well in this subject, under such circumstances. 

So whilst my entire family agree with me that my nephew has been very unlucky in having been assigned the worst possible teacher in the country, I've been 'censored' when it comes to talking about it with him. The reason why I want to talk about it with my nephew (despite not being able to get him a different teacher at school) is because I have a valid point to make: it is not his fault he is struggling in the subject, it doesn't mean he is stupid or lazy - he hasn't been taught properly in the first place. But if we maintain the illusion that his teacher is normal or even good at her job, then he may start to believe that he is either lazy or stupid (neither of which are true). So we are left with a dilemma: so we try to preserve his faith in an education system (that has failed him miserably) or do I try to reassure him that this is not his fault, he is neither stupid nor lazy? Of course, I have chosen the latter which has put me at odds with everyone else in my family, including my Irish husband who most certainly isn't Singaporean and has no vested interest in defending the Singaporean education system. He simply believes that I could do more harm than good if I convince my nephew that his teacher is good for nothing, that the Singaporean education system is failing him and he will learn absolutely nothing in her classes. We're clearly in a no-win situation; I know both my husband and I have valid points to support our respective stances, but neither stance would deliver a perfect solution. So we're merely avoiding the topic with my nephew, focusing on the syllabus whilst they give me the satisfaction of acknowledging that I am indeed right - that my nephew has misfortune of having the worst teacher in Singapore. Well, maybe I'll talk more openly with him about it, after his exams. 

In this story, it is my family who are trying to protect my nephew from the harsh realities of life - that sometimes we have someone in a position of authority who is utterly terrible at their job and we will suffer the consequences of that. Many people will do the same thing when in my nephew's situation - because they are unable to challenge those in positions of authority, they simply lie to themselves that the awful people in charge are actually good or they learn to overlook the problems and merely focus on the parts which they like. You know the saying: even a stopped clock is right twice a day - I'm sure even the most critical cynic would be able to find at least one or two things that my nephew's terrible teacher has done right in the last academic year. I can see my sister doing that with my own parents: as discussed on my blog before, my parents are severely autistic and I had a very difficult relationship with them. That's why I eventually gave up on trying to make that relationship work, moved eight time zones away and we barely talk anymore - don't get me wrong, I am still close to the rest of my family (ie. my two sisters, my nephew and my brother-in-law) but it has been months since I've spoken to my mother properly and a good three years since I've had a real conversation with my father. My sister however, takes this approach to maintain a relationship with my parents: she has managed to build a blind spot bigger than the Pacific Ocean where she conveniently shoves all their faults and then she merely focuses on the things that they do get right, this 'arrangement' allows her to overlook their bad behaviour and that's how she is still on talking terms with them. I can see how she manages to do that but I just refuse to do the same thing - I am sorry but I just can't. 

So how do ordinary British people view the relationship between members of the royal family and ordinary working class folks like John's family? Now you have three options really: you can adore and respect them, you can hate their guts or you can essentially ignore them. It is important to note that Prince Philip has had his share of gaffes over the years, including the infamous incident in 1986 when he made a racist joke in China when chatting to a group of British students studying Chinese in Xian. Oh he was definitely brash and tactless, the incident caused grave offence. I compare that to Prince Harry's rather lackluster performance during the recent interview he did with his wife and Oprah Winfrey, at times coming across as either ignorant, naive or an embarrassing combination of both. Was I surprised though? No, I already knew the story dating back to 2005 when he was such a weak student at Eton that the teachers had to help him cheat during his A level exams, so he could meet the minimum requirement to go to Sandhurst for his military training. The journalist tactfully used the words 'weak student' instead of simply calling Harry downright stupid. But such is the nature of the aristocrats in our society, even if they are 'weak students', they get to bend the rules that the rest of us have to follow and even if they were downright stupid, it doesn't matter because they are already inheriting so much money from their parents they really don't need to work, so their stupidity is but a moot point. Most of us have to work to make money, you know, to pay the bills, put food on the table, pay the mortgage - all of those mundane things and we hope we win the genetic lottery so we can earn more money for a better life. However if you were so insanely rich that you don't need to have that kind of relationship with work, then your intelligence or stupidity for that matter really doesn't matter that much. 

If someone like John is unfortunately so stupid he flunks out of school and ends up working a poorly paid job, stacking shelves in a warehouse so he is using his muscles rather than his brains to make a living, then that would have a massive impact on the quality of his life because of how little he earns, But if a royal prince is stupid and lacks basic social skills to know how to behave in public, guess what? You can't fire them or 'dethrone' them, that's because they inherited that title, it is their birth right and meritocracy goes right out of the window. Compare this to America, where they have never had any kind of royal family - the real kings and queens are those who are able to wield the most influence over ordinary Americans and they actually have to very work hard to amass that level of influence. Take someone like Beyonce for example, when she speaks, America listens. She has 170 million followers on Instagram whilst Joe Biden, the current president, has just 18.1 million followers on the same platform. Indeed, celebrities like Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez and Cristiano Ronaldo have far more influence amongst ordinary people in the UK compared to our politicians and the royal family because of the way most people have stopped receiving their news through traditional sources like the BBC and are instead getting a very customized feed through their favourite social media platforms. This explains why many younger people like myself simply don't feel this connection with the royal family - contrast this to much older folks who were brought up in the pre-internet age with very limited choice when it comes to the media they consume and the mainstream media was very respectful to the royal family, without ever questioning the royal family's place in our society. 

Thus for John, the question is why the government is spending so much money on the royal family instead of helping ordinary working class folks like him who are struggling to make ends meet? After all, the British royal family is one of the richest families in the world, yet they still get millions of taxpayers' money every year and of course, whilst the Queen pays some income tax, it is entirely voluntary. She is completely exempt by law from paying income tax but realizing how bad that would look, she has started to pay a little - it is a gesture like a discretionary tip on her part. I'm sure people like John would like to say to the treasury office, "my family is having a really hard time this year, can I pay less taxes? Can I decide how much tax I can actually afford to pay this year?" No, ordinary folks like John don't get a choice in the matter - ironically, part of John's taxes would be given to the royal household and as insane as that sounds, that's just the way things are here. If John started to question how messed up that is, it would only make him even more depressed as there's just no way he can challenge or change the system. So a way people like John deal with it is to simply embrace this system by pledging his undying love and allegiance to the royal family as part of his British identity, claiming that he would gladly give his last ten pounds to the Queen even if that meant making his family go hungry. This was the kind of mentality that have kept the monarchy in place over the centuries, this stems from the concept of the divine right of kings - that it was 'God' who has placed them there, thus obeying the king was tantamount to obeying God, as you're obeying the one the one chosen by God to rule over you. In pledging his allegiance to the royal family, John has found a way to reconcile himself with this arrangement that he has no say over and that's how he makes peace with his difficult situation.

In contrast, I am a rich person who is resourceful enough to be cynical - that is not a luxury that John has. The poorer you are, the more dependent you are on the government and those in positions of authority to help you out. By the same token, the richer you are, the less likely you're going to receive any handouts from the government - as a relatively rich citizen, I pay a lot of taxes and get relatively little in return. So I can be as critical as I want about the government and those in positions of authority, knowing that I really don't need anything from them. I can take care of myself and my family. John however doesn't have that luxury; if the government is benevolent, he would get the help he needs to make ends meet. If the government is uncaring, well then he and his family are well and truly screwed. Thus it is completely understandable why people in John's position would hope for those in government and authority to be benevolent but just because John hopes for a good outcome doesn't mean he is going to get what he needs. However, given that John really doesn't have the power to change the situation no matter how terrible it may get for him and his family, he then simply goes into complete denial and convinces himself that everything is great - that he can put his faith in people like Boris Johnson and Prince Philip, that the rich and the powerful elites in this country do care about people like him and his family. Of course, John desperately wants this to be true, hence he tells himself that it is true and disregards any evidence to the contrary - that's why someone like John can turn out to be extremely loyal to someone like Prince Philip. 

Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate the royal family - I merely view them as just another insanely rich family in the UK (of which there are plenty I assure you), the only difference is that other rich, aristocratic families tend to have a much lower profile. I believe strongly that respect should be earned rather than demanded on a unconditional basis. As a private citizen in the UK, I am not obliged by law to respect the Queen, Prince Philip or our prime minster Boris Johnson - this is quite unlikely a country like North Korea where you could face very harsh punishment for simply criticizing the Kim regime. Even a seemingly democratic country like Thailand has one of the world's harshest lèse-majesté laws making it illegal to criticize the monarchy. Contrast that to the UK where our freedom of speech allows stand up comedians to go on BBC prime time entertainment programmes and mock members of the royal family; or the USA, where left-wing talk show hosts spent much of the last four years gleefully mocking every aspect of Trump's presidency. Nonetheless, if I knew of someone who was upset about Price Philip's death, say if I stumbled upon someone paying a tribute on social media - I would simply not comment on the issue. But one of my friends (ironically, also a Philip) commented on Facebook, "he was very old and in ill-health, he was in and out of hospitals constantly, on top of that there's a pandemic at the same time. I get it that you people are feeling sad that he has died but why should his death somehow come as a total shock? Come on. Surely this should have been anticipated by most people who were aware of his age and his health condition." Oh boy, my friend Philip got so much hate on Facebook for being 'disrespectful and distasteful' that I chose not to join that discussion. I thought he did have a fair point but clearly his friends didn't agree with him - go figure!

That's it from me on this topic, I just didn't want my readers to look at the news reports and think that we're all in mourning here in the UK. Some people are of course but the rest of us who are not mourning are simply choosing to not say anything for now because we don't want to ruffle any feathers. Quite the opposite, the lockdown ended on the 12 April and I've been to the gym for the first time since December 2020 and I'm happy. I'm sure the royal family are sad at his passing but I'm so far removed from them that I have no emotional response. So, what do you think? How do you feel about the passing of Prince Philip? Are you sad that he has passed away? Why do you think there's such an outpouring of grief in the UK for him? Why do you think people like me are somewhat hesitant to point out that I have no emotional reaction to his death? Why do you think ordinary working class poor British people like John may be remarkably loyal to people like royal figures like Prince Philip, who are clearly so ridiculously rich and privileged that they are completely out of touch with ordinary British working class folks like John? Please do leave a comment below, many thanks for reading.