Prince Not-So-Charming?

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PA via AP Photo Does Prince Harry’s “Paki” video prove he was born with a silver foot in his mouth, or does the media just not get the joke?

Is Prince Harry a virtual Paki-basher? The News of the World, suddenly an arbiter of multicultural manners, has posted on its website excerpts of Harry’s “racist outbursts”—a self-mocking home video made in 2006 when he was in military training at Sandhurst.

The uproar over a royal halfwit’s casual relationship with a camcorder is tabloid PC at its most cynical. It’s also an opportunity to unpack the very nature of contemporary taboos. Profanity has been redefined, but there is a catch. These new taboos—based on the sacred cows of identity, human rights, and equality—are as hypocritical as the ones they’ve replaced. And there is more at stake.

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Harry—third in line to the British throne—didn’t just refer to one of his mates, Ahmed Raza Khan, as “our little Paki friend.” He also said “like a raghead” while filming a friend who happens to be wearing some fabric—a small mosquito net or towel, it’s hard to tell—on his head. In another segment of the video diary, he pokes fun at his grandmother the queen, then talks about, of all things, his ginger pubes. He mocks not only his heritage but the raison d’etre of the military, though I’m not sure the latter was entirely conscious. According to NOTW, he can also be heard at various points in the video saying, “All is good in the empire.” (Yeah, right.) This crucial, ironic flourish is missing from the online excerpts—too bad we can’t see the entire video for ourselves.

I was never an admirer of Princess Diana’s progeny, but now I’m starting to wonder if this video might be the work of an idiot savant turned idiot subversive.

I was never an admirer of Princess Diana’s progeny, but now I’m starting to wonder if I underestimated the Spencer genes. Perhaps Harry should have been sent to art school instead of a military academy? This video might be the work of an idiot savant turned idiot subversive.

The prince has brilliantly—albeit inadvertently—spotlighted the fact that the modern British army is not all that concerned about the indignities suffered by actual human beings who get called ragheads. If it were, the last eight years would have been rather different for people in Afghanistan, where Harry has been posted, and in Iraq (deemed too dangerous a location for the royal recruit). “Raghead” is simply a public-relations headache for the Ministry of Defense because it would like to recruit more Muslims and look more progressive.

In fact, if you’re a peacenik who feels that brown-skinned people ought not to be co-opted into policing each other for the benefit of Western colonizers, you might view Harry’s video as a useful bit of propaganda: “See how racist the British army is? Stay out of it.” But words and meanings are slippery. If you’re an equal-opportunity hawk, Harry’s comments portray the jocose, insulting atmosphere of the military as splendidly inclusive: If a potential monarch’s pubic hair is fair game, why not Pakistani identity?

The response from the Ministry of Defense and the Equality and Human Rights Commission has been predictably theatrical, with everyone—especially the MoD spokesman—falling into character. “This sort of language is not acceptable in a modern army.” This is life—and 21st-century damage control—imitating Gilbert and Sullivan. Harry (“Fuck me, you look like a raghead”) is channeling the HMS Pinafore’s Captain Corcoran (“Why damn me, it’s too bad!”), who then provokes a parody of outrage: "Did you hear him? Did you hear him? He is swearing! He is swearing!"

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