Ten years since the tragic death of Princess Diana on August 31, 1997, in Paris, the world is still talking about her and about the greatest funeral of the century, probably of all history. While still under shock, people are still asking questions, a sure answer to which will probably never be available.

While it may not be so important to provide a sure answer to such queries, as they would never alter the stark reality of her sad loss to her country and to the world, it is most important at this juncture to reflect on the message which Diana has bequeathed to us at the cost of her own life.

The first and most obvious message we receive from Diana's tragic death is about the role and purpose of the media in general and of journalism in particular. Many have said and written that it was the press, or rather the irresponsible use of it, that killed Diana. Especially in later years, as we know, she was constantly being haunted by photographers and reporters who did not refrain from using aggressive tactics in order to intrude into her own private life.

The purpose of the noblest profession of journalism should be to educate and inform readers, and not to propagate scandal and titillate the natural urge of the masses to satisfy their appetite for vulgarity and sensationalism. Here we have the most famous and admired woman in the world being pushed to death at the age of 36 in a terrible accident mainly caused, as they say, by the paparazzi and their greed for publishing stories which had to do exclusively with her own private life. Who says that people in public life had lost their right to privacy, and that the readers have a right to be informed about the private life of public figures?

I was surprised to read, a few weeks after the tragedy, what a most reliable and level-headed journalist in Italy, Enzo Biagi by name, had written when commenting on Diana's tragedy. "The real killers of the Princess," he wrote, "were not the paparazzi, whose job is to give to the public what they like most. But the people themselves who are eager to read such reports and provide a market for them". If such a way of reasoning were correct, then we would have to conclude that the drug users who create a demand for drugs are more to be blamed than the drug barons and pushers who provide them. Is not the morbid urge for voyeurism also an addiction, perhaps more serious and base than the one for drugs?

Diana's atrocious death should arouse at this time the conscience of journalists and media producers and make them aware that, rather than fulfilling a duty towards society, they are often contributing towards the gradual moral and cultural degeneration so characteristic of the world of today.

As someone has written, Princess Diana's tragic death highlights the need of a code of ethics for journalists and those involved in the dissemination of information. The collective right to be informed has to be balanced with individual rights, including the right to privacy.

A second message which has come to us all through Diana's tragic death is about the importance of genuine love in one's life. We all remember the splendid celebration of her wedding to Prince Charles. It had all the semblances of a fairy tale. And a tale it sure was. Now we know that she had married the wrong man. A man who never loved her and who simply used her as a palliative to secure an eventual heir to the throne. Diana did in fact provide an heir (and a spare one too, as somebody wrote).

Everything seemed to have fitted in nicely into its place. But not Diana. Besides discovering that she was being betrayed, she realised, in spite of her efforts, that she could not possibly fit into the rigid protocol and the choking demands of the royalty. Genuine goodness often becomes a threat at the opposite end of the moral spectrum.

In spite of it all, she ended up being more royal than the royals themselves, because she had discovered the secret of remaining human and humble after reaching the apex of her popularity and placing herself at the disposal of those who needed her, while accepting a divorce which she never wanted.

The fact is that she really needed a royal title to be a "Queen of Hearts", or a princess whose nobility transpired in her desire to become available to those who needed her love and magic smile. When talking about her children Diana made it clear that, in spite of the rigid surroundings and the demands imposed by the Windsors, she wanted them to have "an understanding of people's emotions, of people's insecurities, of their hopes and dreams".

As she herself had once put it, "the biggest disease the world is suffering from this day and age is that of people feeling unloved". This lesson she herself had learned at her own expense, and she is now imparting it to us, a lesson which arouses in us the deepest admiration for her because we see ourselves in her, in her insecurity, in her anxious desire to please and be loved.

Diana's sudden death, as we know, was soon followed by that of Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Diana and Teresa had much in common, and yet they were so different. The former died in her prime and was a model of beauty and elegance, the latter was frail and poor and had reached an advanced age after a whole life dedicated to the Lord.

But both of them were charismatic personalities and had mutual admiration for each other; both of them had gone out of their way to be at the service of the sick and the poorest of the poor. Both losses made us sad, only the shock was not there in the case of the holy woman. Their message to the world, however, was substantially the same.

Diana's simple and yet rich personality, her extraordinary beauty which was more than skin deep, her message of generous love and service to humanity, will remain with us, I am sure, for yet many years to come. As Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister put it at the time: "Diana's life was sadly touched by tragedy, but she herself has touched the lives of so many with joy and comfort".

Diana's message now lives on in the form of commemorative charities and projects set up to help those in need. She has blazed forth as a star whose light was that of "a candle in the wind", but which will continue to shine in the hearts of many.

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