Exactly one month from today I will forfeit my identity for an entire year. Though I will be surrounded by Gothic architecture, it will bear no resemblance to the Wonderland that you and I know as Duke University. The sport over which much blood and tears are shedDthough no benches burnedDwill not be basketball, but rather rowing or rugby. And the notorious rivals will hail from Cambridge rather than Chapel Hill.
Next month I will begin my one-year stint as an Oxford student, and with me I will take a countless number of questions of a cultural and academic nature, the most intriguing of which will be answered in this column. But because I still have a month before classes begin, I would like to discuss instead a topic wholly a propos to my voyage overseas: the death of Princess Diana.
This tragic event has struck as many hearts as it has newsstands around the world, and the subject of determining who is responsible for her death has become so controversial that Oliver Stone has probably already begun writing his next screenplayDmost likely portraying the royal family as the brains behind the accident.
However, it appears that the world has come to an entirely different, yet just as unlikely, conclusion: Mr. Paparazzi did it, in the tunnel, with a camera. That the press should be blamed for Diana1s death is completely nonsensical; however, it should be totally expected, for as usual a scapegoat must be quickly found to relieve the hearts of the bereaved and to ensure that 3justice2 has indeed been served.
Let us take a quick look at the facts. A security agent who worked at the Ritz Hotel was told to drive Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed to a secret location after dinner. This agent had been drinking beforehand and his blood alcohol level was three times the legal level. This same man then taunts the paparazzi as he drives away saying, 3You won1t catch us this evening!2 The limo driver speeds away well above the legal limit with the paparazzi in hot pursuit and crashes in a tunnel, killing all but one lone passenger.
So naturally it was the paparazzi1s fault that the limo driver was piss drunk and breaking the speed limit when he crashed. I don1t think so. Who allowed this man to drive the limo in the first place? Whoever it was must surely share part, if not all, of the blame.
Security expert or not, drunk is drunk and this person was in no condition to drive a carDespecially one carrying the world1s most famous princess.
Despite such flagrant violations of the law, however, the local authorities seem to agree with the public that the press is still to blame for the accident.
Some say it was the bright flashing lights from the paparazzi1s cameras as they drove alongside the limo that made the driver crash. Yet there is no evidence that the paparazzi was taking pictures or even close enough to get a good shot.
Think about it: a Mercedes limo versus a scooter? And even if the scooters were close enough to take pictures, I imagine it would take a very talented individual to maneuver a bike going more than 50 mph (at least) while snapping photos.
Others, however, blame the photographers for not helping out at the scene of the accident as required by French law. Now, how many cardio-thoracic surgeons do you know who do freelance tabloid photography on the side? The absolute last thing a person in a car accident needs is for an untrained individual to yank them out of the car.
Editors of the tabloid journals, who are essentially the bosses of the photography bounty hunters, are under heavy fire as well. Their overzealous infringement of privacy and alleged lack of ethics are also being cited as a cause of this tragedy. After all, the editors are responsible for paying the photographers, right?
Wrong.
The people who line the pockets of the paparazzi are the same people who march to the supermarket in droves to pick up the latest tabloid trash. Ironically, many of the people who now blame the paparazzi probably fall into this category. Thus, in arguing their point they are essentially implicating themselves as accessories to murder.
Sometimes an accident is just that, and the only person we can blame is a lady as famous as Princess Diana herselfDLady Luck.
Rod Feuer is a Trinity junior.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.