Yes, Prince Harry’s recent donning of a Nazi uniform to a fancy-dress party was a blunder of magnificent proportions. Not so much because a naive young boy cannot be expected to display significant lapses in sensitivity and good taste; no, Harry’s failure must also be partly attributable to those around him — and even the attitudes of a society as a whole.
We are talking, after all, of a young man who, in all of his 20 years, must have become accustomed to a crew of advisers matching the staff complement of any South African parastatal to counsel him on the finer points of etiquette for any occasion. Why on earth did nobody stop his appalling choice of outfit?
Perhaps their laxity is forgivable, though. After all, the little prince was attending none other than a ”natives and colonials” party. (Yes, that’s right. This nugget of information was hidden — like so much plunderable gold ore — in the last line of the newspaper article I read, but there it was.)
If such a PC blunder is undeserving of comment, these advisers may have reckoned, then the prince’s outfit must surely also be acceptable. Perhaps royal servants are accustomed to the sense that aristocrats live by a different set of rules to the rest of us. Far from being offended by their cultural insensitivity, perhaps the sense is that we should be grateful for the attention, any acknowledgement, from these Very Important People.
Media comment has, so far, been mainly, and rightly, about the stupid young prince’s reaction to the invitation rather than on the invitation itself. But one must ask how the PC armada that currently steers the world can so comprehensively exclude England’s finest party planners?
What kind of a smug buffoon hosts a ”natives and colonials” party anyway?
Can you imagine Germany’s first families and friends getting together for a ”Tom & Jerry” shindig? (Serving Anschluss cocktails, perhaps. A sausage with mustard gas, anyone?)
No. Germany’s historical shame is not the stuff of fancy-dress parties, at least not in the public domain. Why, then, can one of modern history’s biggest and most aggressive colonisers afford to treat its shameful history as a joke?
Surely this is taking historical revisionism too far.
”Colonialism was no big deal,” their attitude suggests. ”And, anyway, it’s so much fun going native!”
Let’s imagine the natives of their imagination, since we didn’t crack the nod to the party. (Of course, I apologise in advance for the stereotyping of the English upper classes’ party-going behaviour that is about to take place.)
It is 7.30pm in a lofty ballroom. Elderly men dressed in white safari suits with long trousers, curled moustaches and gin and tonics are milling about. Early, conventional, they are the staid guests. The unadventurous colonials.
But what’s this? A collective intake of breath as in walks a clutch of bright young things. One has an Afro wig on, exaggerated, garish blood-red lips, and a plastic bone-shaped nose-ring dangles precariously from the owner’s sweaty proboscis. He’s accompanied by a pale mini-raj barely out of school and a — very bright — sari-wearing little lady covered in enough bling to deplete that gold ore.
The next group throws up horse-faced creations in animal skins and spears, bad hair hidden under Australian cork hats with stuffed-sheep-and-handcuff ensembles, and men in kaftans and elaborate headgear of vaguely Eastern and African descent.
Assorted Chinamen with chopsticks in their hair, blocked noses and Karate Kid outfits mingle with flashes of actual kente cloth obtained (at a very reasonable price, really) from the Notting Hill carnival last year, and not a trace of irony anywhere.
If the 200 toffs barely out of (public) school were interested, they would discover no need to be limited to such painfully obvious costumes. A browse through Flagspot.net would list for them no fewer than 100 territories that Britain once colonised, tantalisingly set out alphabetically for the convenience of any fancy-dresser with ambition.
(Of course, pre-Nazi Germany was an enthusiastic collector of colonies, too — if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be living in South Africa today. And Hitler pursued Lebensraum at such a rate, he could be called a brief pre-World War II colonial power. So I suppose Prince Harry’s outfit wasn’t inappropriate, at least on that level.)
Perhaps the internet trawlers would discover that the natives are not so revolting, after all. That their cultures are not so easily distilled into the abstractions of teenaged English minds. They might, even, be briefly overwhelmed by the immense part their motherland played in shaping the destinies of these countries, usually with devastating economic consequences that are still our sad heritage.
And that is why we ”natives” care what you ”colonials” wear to your parties.
I suggest we make a deal: you wear what you like to your parties. Break any PC rule in the book. Patronise us at will; we’ll develop a ”sense of humour” about it.
In exchange, we ask merely this. Cancel Third World debt. While you’re at it, when you’re visiting our countries as tourists, stop behaving like colonial overlords. Stop ordering drinks in extra-loud voices when your funny accent is misunderstood. Don’t shout, ”No ice! NO ICE!” as if you’re terrified of contracting HIV from your first sip. (You’ll survive.)
Stop conducting Anglo-German World War reconstruction battles over the sun loungers at hotel pools. (Learn to share.) Stop wearing khaki-on-khaki-over-khaki and rounding off your outfits with empty-pocketed photographers’ jackets. (You look ridiculous.)
Stop expecting prompt service and your euros and pounds to open all doors for you when we are treated with suspicion and disdain by customs officials in your countries. (You never asked for a visa the first time you entered our countries.)
Stop queuing everywhere, ”reserving” seats on empty buses for your friends like you’re in primary school. (It’s annoying.) You’re behaving as if you own the place. And you really don’t, any more.