Yesterday, we witnessed what I think is a seminal moment in British history.
Students who were in London to protest against the trebling of university fees by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat (ConDem) coalition attacked the limousine carrying the heir apparent, Charles Windsor, and his wife, Camilla Shand, as it was en route to a musical show. Nothing very serious happened: the students, chanting "Off with their heads", threw white paint on the black limousine and broke one of its windows. Nonetheless, Mr Windsor and Ms Shand were clearly shaken, as you can see from the photograph below.
I do not normally approve of violent protest, except in the most extreme of circumstances where repressive governments have left their subjects no choice but to resort to violence. In these instances, violence can be a catalyst for positive change. But in countries where other avenues for change exist, albeit ineffective ones such as in the UK, violent protest can be a slippery slope that incrementally corrupts the political culture and eventually supplant civil society institutions and actions.
Be that as it may, I think the attack on the Charles-Camilla limousine might be an indicator of a subtle, positive change that is unfolding in British society, almost imperceptibly.
Those of us foreigners who have lived in the UK for many years will know that one of the most debilitating, crippling blights in Britain is deference. It has its origins in socio-economic class divisions but in modern Britain it has a numbing, paralyzing effect on people, making them docile, inert and servile in the face of adversity and injustice. The native Britons are, by and large, deferential towards the rich, the powerful, the police and, above all, the royal family. They love the royal family in times of plenty and hardship, even though that family, which is filthy rich, is a virulent parasite on the public purse, even in these times of austerity, annually sucking up millions of pounds of taxpayers' money.
But it would seem that all this might be about to change, for how else are we to interpret the sight of white, middle class, educated native Britons attacking the limousine of one of society's demigods, Charles Windsor, the so-called "crown prince", and his second wife, Camilla Shand?
To paraphrase and slighty misquote that archytpical Briton, Winston Churchill, this may not be the beginning of the end of the British disease of deference but it is, perhaps, the beginning of the beginning of the end.
If that is so, then the native Britons should celebrate rather than reflect on, and apportion blame for, that white-paint-and-broken-glass moment.
