Sympathy turns to scepticism as courtiers whisper princess does not do her duty

[kskiska]

Source: Times Online

Japan's Imperial Family faces a crisis of legitimacy because of growing discontent with the absence from public life of Crown Princess Masako, senior courtiers in the Imperial Palace fear.

Five years after she gave up public duties because of depression, sympathy for the Princess's plight is giving way to scepticism about the seriousness of her condition - and to anxiety about what her continuing indisposition will mean for the monarchy when her husband, Crown Prince Naruhito, succeeds to the Chrysanthemum Throne.

For the first time respectable commentators are openly discussing what was once unthinkable: the possibility of an imperial divorce.

(snip)

When the Princess ceased her official duties abruptly in 2003, the Imperial Household Agency (IHA) first announced that she was suffering from shingles. When The Times reported that she was also being treated for depression, the IHA denounced the article as indecent - only to confirm two months later that she was suffering from an “adjustment disorder”.

The public reaction was one of sympathy for the Princess, who gave up a career as a diplomat to marry Prince Naruhito in 1993. She struggled to conceive a child and, after undergoing fertility treatment, suffered a miscarriage. The couple's only child, Princess Aiko, was born in 2001 but, as a girl, is ineligible to ascend to the throne. The birth of a boy to the Crown Prince's younger brother in 2006 solved the succession problem for the time being and eased some of the pressure on Masako. She still carries out very few official duties on the grounds that doctors have advised against it.

Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5010291.ece

[Democat]

1. Am I the only who clicked on this thread thinking it was about Palin?

:rofl:

[JDPriestly]

2. No, Democrat.

[XemaSab]

3. no

:P

[Hekate]

6. I totally thought this was going to be about Ms Prophecy!

:rofl:

[Liberal_in_LA]

7. lol. I thought it was going to be a Palin thread also.

[timtom]

8. Amazing!

Me too!

[CoffeeCat]

4. You'd have to be DEAD not to be depressed...

...in that situation.

Depression is anger turned inward. She's pissed.

She was a diplomat, and now she's a caged bird.

She's grieving, over the loss of herself--and her life.

I hope that someday she frees herself.

[Hekate]

5. Total agreement. That has got to be an awful life for anyone not raised in slavery. "Adjustment ...

... disorder" my chrysanthemum butt.

Hekate

[snake in the grass]

17. She's not a caged bird...

...she's a caged incubator.

[JoaquinD]

9. Imperial Crap

I have always hated the "Imperial Families" from all these once "honored by heaven" nations in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. They are ridiculously out of date, out of touch, govern nothing and useless to the country in any real crisis. Figure heads who wear the most expensive clothes, smile and wave, show up at hospitals and charities, but do absolutely nothing to help daily problems...nor are they expected to do so.

Who gives a damn about the Queen? Or the Empress?

It's true, Masako had a real and important life as an American-educated diplomat, working and struggling for change. My wife is Japanese and most of the educated Japanese feel that she made the biggest mistake marrying into the royal family...simply to do what? To have a son for the throne. Talk about being fucking used.

You know she regrets her life. As a diplomat in the U.S., she had friends, parties, and could do anything and express herself as an American. In Japan, the code of conduct is strict and unyielding. The woman is still a second-class citizen of sorts. She lost all her power, her influence and her freedom under the scrutinizing eyes of the press, the royal family and the government.

I will give Princess Diana and her son Prince Harry credit for they tried to do something with their titles...not just appear in glamor and tabloid magazines. Diana worked for children and the movement against landmine warfare; Harry went to war and was willing to stay on the front lines until he was pulled by the royal family. At least he showed balls.

In the end, it's a sad and depressing story for Masako who will never be the American-influenced and lively person again until she divorces Naruhito and the Imperial system all together. She's still young enough and can have a great life by "coming home"...coming back to America.

[Karenina]

10. Her story always saddened me.

FREE PRINCESS MASAKO!

[HamdenRice]

11. I read an article about the royal "lifestyle" in Japan a few years ago

and it makes the British royal family lifestyle look like free love hippiedom by comparison. It was truly awful. And worse, we don't know the half of it because there are all these bizarre secret Shinto religious duties they have to carry out to make the rice grow and the sun rise, etc. Sheer lunacy.

The proper role of royals has been pioneered by the royalty of smaller European countries, like Spain's heroic Juan Carlos, and the "middle class royals" of northern Europe, as well as some of the royals of Africa -- Nelson Mandela, prince of the Xhosa, the recent Kabaka of Uganda and the Kgosi of Botswana.

Somehow the Japanese royals have to do what the others have done -- give away most of their possessions and become emobodiments of certain national values, not ceremonial monsters.

[Hannah Bell]

12. give away most of their possessions >>

huh?

[HamdenRice]

15. That's what the royal family of Botswana did to usher in democracy

They gave away all their wealth (mostly in the form of cattle, which the royal family had used as patronage) and decided to engage in democratic politics.

[yardwork]

13. Spain's heroic Juan Carlos?

[HamdenRice]

14. King Juan Carlos effectively ended the fascist dictatorship

Maybe you have to be of a certain age?

If you were politically aware in the mid 1970s, you witnessed King Juan Carlos end over 30 years of fascist dictatorship in Spain under Franco, standing down the falangists, legalizing the socialist and communist parties, thwarting an attempted fascist coup and counter-revolution, and ushering in democratic government in Spain.

He's about as good a king as it gets.

[onager]

16. That was incredibly brave.

As I remember, he made a public speech and said something like: "If you want to bring back Fascism, you will have to (literally) do so over my dead body."

I was seriously disappointed when one story involving a king turned out to be untrue. That's the one about King Christian of Denmark wearing a yellow star during WWII to protest Nazi treatment of the Jews.

In that case, the truth is even better than the legend:

http://www.snopes.com/history/govern/denmark.asp