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Sunday 19 October 2008
Crown Princess Victoria
and Daniel Westling
- a royal relationship in public limbo -
In
Britain, the relationship between Prince William and Kate Middleton is
constant fodder for speculation in the red-tops. While the future king
may indeed have found his bride, nothing points to a wedding in the
foreseeable future and wisely so! Time is still on the side
of the two 26-year olds, and the Windsors are painfully aware that
there is no room for mistakes this time!
A
similar scenario is unfolding in Sweden, where the Swedes think it’s
time Crown Princess Victoria got married! She has a long-term
boyfriend and at 31 the biological clock is ticking faster and faster.
As it turns out, the public aspect of her relationship with 35-year old
Swedish commoner Daniel Westling is anything but plain
sailing.
Not
quite the right stuff!
Crown
Princess Victoria met Westling in 2002 after another compatriot Daniel
(Collert) had pulled out of their long relationship, unable to cope
with the pressure. Westling was the owner of the gym where Victoria
worked out between her royal duties. From a middle class home in
inconspicuous Ockelbo north of Stockholm, he seemed an unlikely suitor
of the popular heir apparent, even less so in his signature denims and
trucker cap. At best the Swedes thought that Victoria was on
the rebound from Collert and just needed some easy-going
company.
However
Victoria and Daniel embarked on a proper relationship. For the first
few years the couple played hide and seek with the media and in true
royal style. Victoria duly dismissed any attempt to probe the
relationship. Daniel Westling looked after his business as usual and
kept a low profile. Eventually he ditched his informal denims
for an upmarket sartorial style and began escorting Victoria to the
society weddings of her friends. By then the relationship had reached
the average “make or break point”, and it dawned on the Swedes that Mr.
Westling could be a non-negotiable part of Victoria’s
life.
It was about the same time rumours hit the headlines that the King
deemed Daniel Westling unsuited as royal marriage material due to his
mediocre education and poor conversation skills! No one ever
corroborated the King’s harsh judgement, but neither did the royal
court ever issue a denial! Next thing information leaked from somewhere
that Westling was taking language lessons and that he was in the
process of being groomed in various subjects by top notch “professor
Higgins-type “ professionals. It goes without saying that none of this
was officially confirmed!
Your
royal highness Westling?
Since
then there have been heated debates on the suitability of Daniel
Westling, who has yet to win over many of his compatriots.
Those
mainly ruled by their feelings are divided in two camps: The majority
of the younger Swedes seem to favour the liaison: “Victoria should
marry for love” they say, like her father did when he married German
commoner Silvia Sommerlath in 1976. The older generations - still
remembering the cast-iron
Standesbewusstheit of the old Bernadottes - are
giving Westling’s middle class credentials a thumbs down.
The
more analytically inclined argue that Daniel Westling could spell the
end of the Swedish monarchy: The royal mystique will be eroded and the
symbolic value suffer accordingly. Add to this petty debates about
Westling’s future title and style and the concern that the
patrilineality of the Bernadottes will terminate with the issue of
Victoria and Daniel! The fiercest opponents of the match even demand
that Victoria renounces her place in the line of succession in favour
of one of her siblings. Not that it would make much
difference; both Prince Carl Philip and Princess Madeleine
have commoner partners, albeit with a higher social background and
education!
The
public service channel SVT recently aired a documentary “Your royal
highness Westling” in which a group of high-profile Swedes
gave their views on the role of the monarchy and on the ramifications
of a Victoria-Daniel match. Not surprisingly their opinions mirrored
those of the general public. Editor Per Svensson thought (or
hoped?) that the King is trying to wear out Victoria’s patience! The
author Jan Guillou played with the idea that the future of the monarchy
should rely on the support by the lower classes rather than the
aristocracy and the bourgeoisie!
While
there are plenty of opinions and comments on the match in the public
domain, it is almost impossible to discern what is based on mere
speculation and what is based on facts. As always in these
matters there’s a total news black-out from the royal court in
Stockholm!
Maybe
Crown Princess Victoria herself gave a clue when she was cornered by
Swedish tabloid Expressen at the Paralympics in Beijing. She
was reminded of a three year old “wait and see” comment and asked
whether there were any recent developments. The Crown
Princess replied:
“No,
there isn’t, however I hope that there will be. I think there will
be!“. Nothing but polite noises of course and yet, this is
probably the nearest the media ever got something which can be
interpreted to the effect that an engagement is under way. Rather
surprisingly Victoria added that her father had been unfairly treated
(regarding Westling) and that she wished she could
write an article about the proceedings herself!
There
is more to Sweden than meets the eye
The
royal love story unfolds in a nation, which for a long time liked to
present itself as a politically correct welfare state, shaped by many
years of now bygone labour rule. However Sweden is a country of
contrasts beneath the smooth egalitarian surface. For a country of 9
million inhabitants, Sweden has fostered a disproportionately big
number of innovative technocrats and artists. It is the womb of
successful companies such as Volvo, Saab, Bofors (arms manufacturer),
Ikea, Ericsson, Husqvarna and H & M. It is the place
to go if you can afford a K�nigsegg, one of the most
expensive cars around. The Swedes are almost teutonic in
their focus and efficiency, and of the three Scandinavian populations
they are the most international in their outlook. It is the land of
many wealthy families and of an extensive nobility. The upper strata of
the Swedish society have a reputation of being upright and stylish, and
the gossip magazines reveal that the Stockholm social scene makes its
Danish and Norwegian counterparts look boorish in
comparison.
The
Bernadottes, descending from an upstart French marshal, have been the
figure heads of Sweden for almost 200 years, albeit with varying
success. Many Swedes were sceptical when the dyslectic playboy heir
acceded to the throne in 1973, and he was widely believed to be the
last incumbent of the royal palace in Stockholm. The tide began to
shift after his wedding and as it turned out, King Carl XVI
Gustaf - a few gaffes aside - and Queen Silvia have mastered
their ceremonial roles to perfection. They are said to have accepted
Westling because he is a good influence on Victoria. The problem
however, is that the King doesn’t want to jeopardize the restored
popularity of the monarchy, and right now he seems stuck in a
catch-22: He could be damned if he doesn’t consent to a
marriage between Victoria and Daniel and he could be damned
if he does!
Facts
….. and an educated guess!
The
facts to go by are:
The
couple have been together for six years.
The
couple appear together at private or “semi-private” events.
Daniel
Westling has undergone a substantial make-over.
Daniel
Westling attended a private dinner-dance in connection with the King’s
60th birthday celebrations in
2006.
Daniel
Westling attended the Danish Crown Prince Frederiks 40th
birthday bash in May 2008 .
His
then introduction to the Danish regal couple would never have happened
had it not been endorsed by the King of Sweden.
Daniel
Westling has moved to quarters on the Drottningholm estate, the main
private royal residence.
Daniel
Westing has never uttered one single word to the media about his
relationship with Victoria.
One
way of overcoming Westling’s ordinariness would be to take
him apart, exchange a few bits and then put him together again! Or
rather to create an air of mystique around him! This is where
the 1909-theory on the “Rite of Passage” by ethnographer Arnold van
Gennep fits in:
First
there’s the separation phase! According
to van Gennap the finer points of this move depend on the actual event,
be it a physical change from one place to another, a ritual
preparation, the stripping of status symbols and marks of identity.
While Westling still runs his luxurious “Master-Training” gym the
private individual has been taken into seclusion a long time ago. As I
see it, Daniel Westling entered the separation phase when he
changed his appearance and began improving his general level of
education. It was completed by his move to
Drottningholm.
The
second stage is the
liminal phase, when the actual transition – the engagement
and the wedding takes place. This phase is ruled by rituals and
traditions in order to protect the subject, who has yet to establish
his or her new identity. Westling is waiting to enter this
phase.
The
third phase is that of
incorporation when the subject is reintroduced to
the society in his/her new identity and capacity! In other
words: You insert a relatively ordinary middle class guy in the one end
and out of the other comes Prince Daniel of Sweden, the Duke
of V�sterg�tland, or whatever his title will be!
The few facts there are to hold on to suggest that the relationship of
Crown Princess Victoria and Mr. Daniel Westling is way past
the point of no return, and that the road map to a royal wedding has
already been prepared by the palace.
The
Swedish Royal family usually favour short engagements.
A
summer wedding in 2009 could be realistic!
I just
won’t bet on it!
- Viv Rosendahl
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