Remembering Diana

Today is the eighth anniversary of the death of Diana. Back in 1997, such was the intensity of the reaction to her passing, we probably gues...

Today is the eighth anniversary of the death of Diana. Back in 1997, such was the intensity of the reaction to her passing, we probably guessed that future anniversaries would be huge national events, where the wailing and mourning would begin anew. But it did not turn out that way8230;

Strangely, the closest thing she left to a legacy was the reaction to her death. That heady Diana week was debated and analysed more closely than anything the princess herself ever said or did. For some, it was a moment of collective madness, when the usually sensible British lost their heads8230;

For others, it was a breakthrough in our collective life, marking a transition that has proved durable. The public emoting which seemed so shocking eight years ago has become commonplace now 8212; visible most recently after the July bombings8230;

And yet a larger thought is prompted by a look back to the summer of 1997 through the lens of 2005. Suddenly it seems clearer what the Diana era itself, the 1990s, was all about. It was hard to tell at the time, but now the 1990s have a definition as sharp as the swinging 60s or the greedy 80s. They were the no-worry 90s.

For, viewed from today, the 1990s look like a kind of holiday, a pause between two eras of anxiety and conflict8230; the 90s began with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and ended with the fall of the twin towers in 2001.

In other words, that decade was the hiatus between the cold war and the clash of civilisations. Before the 90s, the world was caught in a stand-off between east and west that seemed destined to bring armageddon. After the 90s, the world has become locked in a new confrontation of east and west, with Islam replacing Communism as the great menace8230;

In the post-1945 era, we lived in fear of a third worldwar and a nuclear winter. In the post-9/11 era, we tremble at the prospect of suicide killers on a double-decker bus. Fear is the constant.

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In the 1990s, we were granted a break from such angst8230; Of course, that was not true everywhere. The 1990s saw the bloodletting of Bosnia and the genocide in Rwanda 8212; and the world did not stir. But that was surely for typical, 1990s reasons. No one saw either of those wars as part of a larger, existential threat. They were seen neither as battles against a Soviet menace, as they might have been before, nor as fronts in a war on terror, as they would be later. They were waved aside as regrettable troubles 8230; nothing to do with us8230;

That time is past now; we live today in a new age of anxiety. But the Diana years were the lull before this storm, and even if we no longer miss her, we can be forgiven for missing them.

Excerpted from an article by Jonathan Freedland in 8216;The Guardian8217;, August 31