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This week, Prince William and Kate Middleton sought to re-establish their credentials as the royals focused on the environment, by announcing “Earthshot,” a multi-million dollar “Nobel Prize” for the environment.
On the other side of the world, the rival court of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is focused on social justice, filming an interview with Malala Yousafzai, the Afghan woman who survived being shot in the head as a child by the Taliban for going to school, which will be released on Sunday to mark International Day of the Girl.
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The stage is thus set for another intriguing iteration of the showdown between the warring families; this time—to use a word that used to be much bandied around Kensington Palace—around the nature of the “impactful” work both courts are engaged with. (For a change, this royal battle could have universally positive results, spurring all concerned to work for the the benefit of many millions of people.)
While Kate and William have gone for the big-picture glamor, Harry and Meghan clearly see their path as getting involved in the on-the-ground detail.
For instance, the conversation with Yousafzai, to be released on the Malala Fund’s YouTube Channel Sunday, focuses on the ongoing challenges that women and girls around the world face in accessing education, a Sussex source told The Daily Beast. The source added that the Malala Fund estimates that 20 million secondary school-aged girls who should have returned to the classroom will not now do so as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
It’s an astonishing and tragic statistic, and few right-minded people would argue that having Meghan and Harry flying the flag for equal rights and justice for girls is anything other than a good thing.
But the efficacy of charitable, philanthropic and activist initiatives, as experts in this field know all too well, depends on the principals’ ability—centered around their fame and public presence—to cut through to the general public.
It is a complex calculus, and one which William and Kate’s initiative also seems to have managed to perfection. The “Earthshot” prize fund has captured public attention not least because the purse is a staggering £50 million ($64.54 million).
There will be five million-pound winners a year for the next 10 years, which will reward “evidence-based solutions to the biggest environmental problems the planet faces.”
Each year, the prize will have five self-consciously ambitious category winners: protect and restore nature; clean the air; revive oceans; build a waste-free world; and fix climate change.
William cannily captured the attention of parents everywhere when, launching the award with a series of live TV appearances, he said that he had to turn off a recent David Attenborough-fronted TV show about extinction because it made poor Prince George too sad.
Speaking to Sky News to mark the launch, William said that whilst watching the documentary about extinction, his son told him: “I don't want to watch this any more.”
William said: “He’s 7 years old and he’s asking me these questions already, he really feels it, and I think every 7-year-old out there can relate to that.”
It was a textbook example of how to make relatable an initiative that could otherwise easily have been criticized as ineffective elitist posturing (which, to be fair, it was in some quarters, not least by Harry himself who, some months ago, took a swipe at “giving out prizes” as a way to tackle the climate crisis when he was duped by a prank call). The Earthshot Prize is understood to have been in gestation for well over a year.
Meghan and Harry’s work, including the Malala interview, will not deter their haters, particularly those in the British media, who will likely wheel out the tired charge that their wealth and privilege means their interventions are just more lectures from 1-percenters. (Do their critics think a world in which the rich and powerful were disqualified from caring about equality would be a better place, one wonders?)
But the fact is that global equality for girls is exactly the kind of meaty, broad-brush, serious ‘political’ cause that Meghan has long yearned to impact, and was so frustrated at being silenced on by the royal establishment.
There is no doubt that becoming global activists for social justice is the destination to which Meghan and Harry have been heading inexorably towards since the Royal Foundation, which had jointly represented William, Kate, Harry and Meghan, broke apart in acrimony in 2019.
The two camps fought furiously to claim their philanthropic turf in the wake of the schism.
The Daily Beast reported at the time that Meghan and Harry were expected to take on the work identified as “empowering communities,” while William and Kate claimed the conservation and nature gig.
Social justice and equality has the advantage of not just being something Meghan passionately believes in, but also something she can prove she has always believed in, thanks to her successful teenage letter writing campaign to a soap company that had a sexist advertising tagline.
Conveying her authenticity without alienating less woke audiences is the delicate challenge that Meghan now faces.
It was interesting to read this week that Victoria Beckham was reported to have been advising Meghan on how to cope with the negativity she and Prince Harry have experienced in recent months.
A source, speaking to Closer magazine, said: “Vic has always benefited from showing the public the ‘real’ her. She’s urged Meghan to shut down the critics and prove her authenticity by showing the side only her loved ones get to see and to reveal the real her.”
Meghan said recently that she knew what it was to “not have a voice.” She was right; the British monarchy has thrived by suppressing the personalities of the individuals who staff it.
Now, Meghan feels she has her voice back, and with it the precious ability to actually be herself.
It will be interesting to see, in 10 years’ time, whether a straight-talking Harry and Meghan, focused on the granular detail of quotidian social oppression and injustice, will have proved themselves more effective agents for global change than their ermine-clad in-laws handing out big checks at glamorous awards ceremonies.
