“Breeding” Does Mean A Lot To Some

Independent headline:

Mohamed al-Fayed: The outsider

The paper’s Paul Vallely then explains:

It is hard to feel sorry for Mohamed al-Fayed, but then it is also hard not to. When a child dies, it leaves a parent with a grief so profound that it is hard for others to begin to comprehend. But the father of the man who died alongside Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997 seems to have been driven so distracted that his bereavement has taken him into realms where most of us cannot follow…

…al- Fayed’s cultural and religious background as a Muslim is a significant factor. He is not alone in his conspiracy theories. Within days of the crash, sinister stories were circulating in newspapers throughout the Arab world and being repeated by political leaders such as the Libyan president, Colonel Gaddafi. Diana had been murdered to ensure that she didn’t marry a Muslim. It all played into the same mindset that later led a large proportion of Muslims to tell UK opinion pollsters that they did not believe their co-religionists were involved in the 9/11 or 7/7 attacks.

Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. The tabloids reported how Prince Philip had made no secret of his feelings about his former daughter-in-law’s liaison with Fayed Jnr, referring to him as an “oily bed-hopper”. The Royal Family was reported to have had a meeting at Balmoral to which MI6 presented a special report on the Fayeds. Similar sources leaked to Diana’s most recent biographer, Tina Brown, that the princess “had no intention of marrying Dodi Fayed but had a dalliance with him merely to annoy Charles and the Royal Family”…

Mr Vallely doesn’t choose to delve into what he means to infer with his ”out to get you” observation.  However, given that in the preceeding sentence he had just been discussing suicidal mass murder carried out in the name of a major religion, perhaps it might also be said that just because you’re a target of some people’s dismissiveness and disdainfulness . . . doesn’t mean that they’re out to murder you:

…The first time she took Chas down to meet her parents, you should have seen their faces! After lunch her father took her aside and said: “Your mother’s a bit worried. What does Chas actually do for a living?” Bells had laughed and assured them he wasn’t a drug dealer. The revelation that he had a title seemed to do much to soothe their fears: her father emerged garlanded in smiles and offering invitations to this and that, even on to his boat.

Chas’s real name is Constantine Charles, which Bells discovered in Ibiza last year when she saw his passport. She finds it wickedly funny – especially as he goes mad whenever she mentions it!…

Far more likely, regardless of how much liquid capital you bring to the party, title-lacking you will always remain essentially just a diversion and source of amusement.  And perhaps, given the circumstances, condescending irritation.  But little more.  

Which is probably another reality that gets some “outsiders” who are determined to be accepted in that realm so riled up.  Yes, Islam was probably a factor in Egyptian Mr al-Fayed’s (and his son’s) perpetual “outsiderness”.  However, one must also never forget that most Christian British are not hugglingly accepted into the exceedingly small world either. 

How many British actually have friends named “Bells” and “Chas”?  (And “Chas” of Chas & Dave does not count.)  And remember, even she who is by most accounts very close to the eldest son of the future king, infamously has evidently endured potshots — …they would derisively whisper “doors to manual” when Kate Middleton, 25, arrived, a veiled jibe at her mother being a former airline stewardess… – about her own family’s lack of so-called “breeding”. 

How many outsiders truly stand a chance of being accepted in a strata which looks down on someone who could be a future queen?  Or, indeed, could ever hope to fit into a world which possesses a similar, forward-thinking, intellectual dynamism like this?:

…If Ben were to voice a wish in public – let’s say at a fundraising luncheon at Highgrove – it might be that travelling by plane be banned…

Yes, it honestly beggars belief how anyone could NOT crave to be part of that world of expansive thought and serious contemplation.