Cry God for England, Harry, and Sanity Gorge

Oh dear, a mini royal's upset the applecart again in a big way, thanks to too much exposure to that gleaming example of tabloid behaviour (not), The Sun

It's open season again, it seems, for public figures to be the object of villification and public humiliation in the media. The continuing human cost of nature's most awful actions in the Far East has given way to a globally-reported revulsion about the third in line to the UK throne making an extremely bad choice of costume for a private party. Prince Harry was the headline-maker this week, in the wake of Thursday's picture of him wearing a Nazi uniform to a "natives and colonials" fancy dress bash last Saturday.

Now I hope I have a reasoned but sensible approach to the legacy of history. If I didn't, I guess no sane academics would ever have awarded me an A' Level and a degree which both included much study of the horrors of Nazism. I've also studied my fair share of the vile behaviour of unelected figures of authority- viewed from today's perspective- at many times in British life through the centuries. But, like respected columnist Simon Jenkins speaking on the Today programme yesterday, I can't help but think that sanity is leaking away in the coverage this story is receiving and indeed it is not being kept in proportion. As Jenkins points out, it is the same sort of attitude which haunts our "compensation culture" which seems to have so vilely been imported from the former colonies (ironic reference intentional!).

The "final solution" of Nazism was an aberration, a despicable act of a madman's regime which even sixty years later it is hard to believe could ever happen. We said it must never happen again, yet it did in Rwanda, Cambodia and in countless other equally repressive regimes to this day. Rightly,though,commemorations and coverage this January are focussing on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, the death camp most committed to collective memory as an example of the worst excesses of human hatred and scapegoating. The camp now stands still, and properly, as a memorial of an estimated 2 million acts of barbarity against Jews and others, which sane minds can scarcely conceive as man-made.

Be that as it may, the extent of the atrocity does not justify the acres of newsprint consumed in the stone-throwing at an, admittedly privileged, boy barely out of his teens for an error of judgment and perhaps the failure of his post-war eyes to appreciate the strength of feeling his choice of costume would provoke. Even without the counsels of Trinnie and Susannah, he ought to have known what not to wear, but all 20 year olds do silly things and make mistakes their elders might not. It's part of the process of growing up. We say and do daft things before the process of maturity causes us to think better of it.

Let's bring a bit of logic into this. Harry was wearing a uniform representing a period in history, but unfortunately for him the history of living memory. Would there have been the same fuss though if he had come dressed as one of the army of Genghis Khan, Atilla the Hun, Ivan the Terrible, or any other equally brutal figure from the distant past?

Most wearers of Nazi uniform were professional or conscripted soliders, just like our own armies who had to face up to the reality of ending other human lives in the course of war. I hate war, it's despicable, but it's a reality and seemingly part of our human condition. Even Jesus Christ said "you will hear of wars, and rumours of wars". Offensive though the Swastika is, and the ideas it stands for, of itself it stems from a much earlier period of history. Symbols of themselves are harmless: it is the use and association that is made of them that causes so much grief and suffering.

Soldiers fighting in the theatre of war in Nazi uniform, according to the conventions of war, were not the same as those who mercilessly slaughtered innocent fellow human beings in gas chambers in Central Europe. They may well have been as oblivious to the "final solution" as the allies claimed to have been to the atrocities of Auschwitz, Belsen and others. The uniform of itself is not what gives offence, it is the associations.

As I have echoed many a time in this blog of late, all human life is precious and deserves dignity. Whether the number involved is 2 or 2 million, to wear any uniform connected with slaughter in time of war will be offensive to some- as offensive as Harry joining the British Army maybe as he is due to soon. It's been said that few other lads of Harry's age would choose to wear a Nazi uniform, but then it's probably only these "aristobrats" as one writer memorably called them this morning who would dream of having a "Natives and Colonials" party.

For sake of consistency, I know I have to justify these opinions against my distaste to the portrayal of Jesus in the Jerry Springer "opera" last week on BBC TWO- which continues to cause controversy even after transmission. That led even to the very public resignation of a committed Christian producer at BBC Radio Three this week. But we are dealing here with matters of the head and the heart, not the swastika. What does Prince Harry actually think of the Nazis and the ideas they stood for? Does he even understand or know about them, or is he as ignorant of them as so many in our society are today of the equally brutal but world-changing events of the death of Jesus?

If Harry is a closet Nazi, we need to be concerned and rightly so about his political views. But is anyone seriously suggesting that? If not, then his bad choice of party attire- I can't help thinking of the tale of the Emperor's New Clothes here- is no more a serious news story than if he'd played Herod in a school nativity. There are far more important, pressing and enduring issues in the world to deal with than the antics of an adolescent scion of an heir presumptive. Maybe the world's press should instead be focussing on a comedian portaying a woman vicar, aiming to "make poverty history", which got minimal exposure on Thursday thanks to Sun-stroke. Isn't that what really
matters?