By Sarah Bigelow
Let her go.
Ten years after her tragic death in a Paris underpass, Princess Diana remains a reluctant specter in the mainstream media. Whenever it seems that she might finally get the tranquility she so longed for in life, someone inevitably conjures her spirit back again.
This time, the sorcerers come in the form of a London jury, participants in a High Court inquisition into the death of the People's Princess. The inquiry is another page in the burgeoning epilogue to Diana's fairytale turned Gothic horror - this time the jury must determine whether her death was a mere accident or a carefully planned and executed murder.
The circus began last Thursday, when the jury watched a security tape of Diana's final minutes at the Paris Ritz. They also heard testimony from Mohamed al Fayed, whose son, Dodi, died with Diana in the early hours of Aug. 31, 1997. Al Fayed claims the couple planned to announce their engagement the next day. Moreover, he insists that Diana was pregnant with Dodi's child.
If these claims aren't inflammatory enough, consider this. Al Fayed believes that Diana and Dodi's deaths were actually a murder plot orchestrated by none other than Prince Phillip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II.
But juries cannot make decisions by security video and bombastic testimony alone, so earlier this week, the jury took a fieldtrip to Paris. Like Mideval pilgrims, the group of 11 followed Diana's last steps from the Ritz Hotel to the Pont de l'Alma, the underpass where Diana's car crashed a decade ago.
In the late '80s, Diana likened her situation to that of a character on the soap opera, "EastEnders." Little did she know, 20 years later, her death would become more of a melodrama than her life ever was.
The years since Diana's death have passed like the pages of a particularly outrageous mystery; every time it seems she'll finally be left alone, the plot contorts once again and becomes even more convoluted. Maybe the world is afraid to let her go, worried that she will be forgotten.
But imagine her sons who must once again relive the nightmare of her death. Imagine old wounds torn open only to be salted by allegations of pregnancy and murder. Imagine being told that your mother had been killed at the word of your grandfather.
Enough is enough. Diana's life was rocky, her death was sudden and tragic, but her death should not become a farce. What does it matter if she was pregnant or if she was going to marry Dodi al Fayed? Diana deserves to rest in peace, but she won't if the world continues to exhume her looking for deep, dark secrets.
It's time to end the soap opera and allow Diana the peace she never had while living.
Sarah Bigelow is a senior ?English major.
