MEDIA STUDIES
Why, sadly, Mohamed Al Fayed must accept a share of the blame
STEPHEN GLOVER
At the beginning the media blamed itself. It was taken as an article of faith that the paparazzi were directly responsible for Diana, Princess of Wales's death, and therefore that the tabloid press bore a heavy burden of guilt. As the week advances it is becoming increasingly diffi- cult to hold to this position. The paparazzi who took photographs of the crashed Mer- cedes were lower than vermin. But, notwithstanding the charges against seven of them, it is by no means clear that they made it crash.
Of course, the press is far from being off the hook. If there had not been paparazzi outside the Ritz, Henri Paul, the wildly ine- briated driver of the car carrying the Princess, Dodi Fayed and a bodyguard, would have had no reason to drive at 120 miles an hour through the centre of Paris. We can be sure too, I think, that if there had been no crash, if the world had gone on as before, the British tabloids would have carried pictures of the Princess and Dodi sitting in their car. The paparazzi (and by association the British tabloids that publish their pictures) were complicit in the accident; but they cannot be held solely responsible for it.
I have been contemplating these last few days the character of the playboy, a figure of whom most men stand in some envy. He is enormously rich, though not usually as a result of his own exertions, since he works irregularly, if at all. He is popular because he is genial and generous, and holds out the possibility of a life which superficially seems much more alluring than our own. He has a string of girlfriends, and can sometimes fall in love, but does his best to avoid the constraints of marriage. If he should succumb, it will seldom be for very long.
To a remarkable extent Dodi Fayed con- formed to this description. He seems, by all reports, to have been a charming and delightful man. He was certainly wealthy and he would appear not to have worked all that hard. And in one final respect he brilliantly lived up to the requisite image: his love of motor-cars. When he was 15 he was given his own Rolls-Royce, complete with chauffeur and bodyguard. It was the embryonic playboy's starter-kit. Almost as soon as he could drive, he acquired the mandatory Ferrari, and soon he had built up a veritable fleet of fast cars.
For the playboy a fast and glamorous automobile is the essential tool of his trade. It establishes to himself and his girlfriends that he is above the common ruck. He can get away faster, arrive more quickly, an avatar in a world of dull, earthbound crea- tures. The car is the thing by which he lives, and sometimes dies. It is the vehicle in which he may sacrifice himself to his tute- lary gods. Aly Khan, until this moment the most famous playboy of all, who married Rita Hayworth and had affairs with many beautiful women, died in 1960 in a car crash in — of all places — Paris.
Dodi, of course, was not driving the doomed Mercedes 5280 but he was, or should have been, the responsible person on board. Henri Paul was a senior employee of his father, Mohamed Al Fayed. Accord- ing to some reports, other staff at the Paris Ritz recognised that Paul was drunk before he set off on his final journey. Dodi seems not to have noticed. Again, according to some reports, Paul taunted the paparazzi outside the Ritz that they would be unable to catch him. He should not have been driv- ing that motor-car.
Why did Dodi permit himself and the Princess to be catapulted at suicidal speeds through the centre of Paris? His defenders will say on account of the paparazzi. But a whole battalion of paparazzi in hot pursuit would not have justified such behaviour. Quite apart from the dangers that this maniacal driving presented to the occu- pants of the Mercedes, others were need- lessly put at risk. Indeed, it seems that the accident may have happened when the Mercedes swerved to avoid a car in front which may have been travelling some 80 miles an hour slower.
We'll probably never know for sure why Dodi did not tell Paul to slow down, but I think we may hazard a guess. Playboys do not let up on the gas. The fast chase, pur- sued by paparazzi, actually or mythically on `You don't have to answer that.' your tail, is really the ultimate trip. Dodi was no longer a run-of-the-mill sort of play- boy; he was the most famous playboy in the world with the most famous woman in the world. Of course he did not want to die, still less the Princess to be killed, but such was his scale of values that it would not have occurred to him to say what you or I or any non-playboy would have said to Henri Paul: for God's sake slow down; it doesn't matter if they take a photograph; they know where we're going anyway.
Three weeks ago I defended the tabloids which had published pictures of Dodi and Diana in the South of France. When I heard of their deaths early on Sunday morning, allegedly at the hands of paparazzi, I momentarily cursed that piece. But now I think I was probably right. Those photographs established beyond doubt for the first time that the Princess was enjoying a close relationship with an Egyptian play- boy. The point was not that Dodi was a bad egg. Far from it. It just didn't seem an ideal relationship for the mother of our future king, partly because he was a playboy with a playboy's values, and partly because he was the son of an extremely controversial fig- ure, Mohamed Al Fayed.
Mr Al Fayed has lost his son, and must be broken-hearted. But as the employer of Henri Paul he must accept a degree of responsibility for what happened. He did not care for the Princess quite as he might have done, and it is no excuse to say that Paul was a reserve driver who was not expected to drive that evening. He was, after all, the deputy head of security at the Ritz. The Princess must have felt she was safe in such a person's hands, but she was mistaken.
When Dodi was alive Mr Al Fayed regarded his son as a fitting companion for Diana. This was perhaps understandable enough. What father does not think his son good enough for a Princess? He nurtured the relationship, having thrown them together in the hope that it would flourish. It was the fulfilment of a dream which the enemy of the British establishment had long cherished. In truth, Dodi was not the ideal consort for the Princess, and Mr Al Fayed was at fault in believing that he was. The former wife of a future king and the mother of another future king should not have been speeding round the streets of Paris with a drunk at the wheel and a play- boy by her side.
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