Harry the Duke of Sussex will deliver the keynote address at the U.N. General Assembly's commemoration of Nelson Mandela International Day on July 18th in New York. He doesn’t deserve to give the speech. The fact that he has been chosen to give this speech indicates how he continues to benefit from many unearned privileges he supposedly rails against.

In the interest of fairness, I’ve tried to compare the lives and achievements of Harry and Mandela in the hope of discovering any important common factors that may have led to Harry being selected for this prestigious role.

Fame

• Nelson Mandela is an African and global world celebrity because of his historical achievements: his brave attempts as a young lawyer to challenge his country’s racist laws, his endurance and strength during his long imprisonment, his wisdom, his forgiving heart, and his inspiring leadership once he was freed from prison and became President of South Africa.

• Harry is known to many throughout the world principally because he is the son of the future king of England, and was, at one time, second in line to the throne, married a black woman, frequently publicly undermines his family, and questions the continued existence of the royal family after his grandmother’s passing.

Racial discrimination

• Nelson Mandela suffered many injustices due to the segregationist policies enacted by the ruling National Party of South Africa because of the brown skin he was born with.

• Every single opportunity that has come Harry’s way has come because of the name he was born with. There is no recorded or verified instance of Harry ever being physically abused, verbally assaulted or being prevented from joining or benefiting from any social or business opportunity purely because of the colour of his skin.

Fighting racism

• Aged 21, Harry, then an officer cadet during a military exercise in Cyprus, videotaped himself racially abusing a fellow cadet, Ahmed Raza Khan. In the video clip, Harry can be heard saying, “Ah, our little Paki friend Ahmed.”

• In the same video Harry can be heard saying: "It's Dan the Man. Fuck me, you look like a raghead.” Note: Raghead is army slang for Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.

There is no need to list Mandela’s lifelong anti-racist efforts.

Anti-semitism

• In 2005 Harry wore a Nazi uniform to a party held to celebrate the 22nd birthday of a friend.

• Mandela had close personal and political relationships with many Jews: In 1942, Lazar Sidelsky, went against the apartheid customs of the time and hired young Mandela as a law clerk at his Johannesburg law firm. During the “treason” trials in the 1950s and ’60s, two of Mandela’s leading counsel - Israel “Issy“ Maisels and Arthur Chaskalson - were Jewish. Cyril Harris, the chief rabbi of South Africa from 1987 to 2004 gave a Hebrew blessing to Mandela’s marriage, on his 80th birthday. To say nothing of Denis Goldberg, a Jew, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in isolation alongside Mandela at the Rivonia Trial 1963.

Loyalty and honour

• Mandela, as a political activist, organiser and leader understood the necessity of protecting his associates, not spilling ANC secrets or contradicting ANC propaganda, sticking to the ANC party line and never bashing friends and family or even former friends who turned into foes.

• Harry has established himself as a man who will regularly trash his relatives in public and copiously spill family secrets and private conversations to anyone who can afford his fee.

Prison

• Nelson Mandela spent 25 years in prison because of his political activities fighting apartheid.

• Prince Harry has never spent a single day in prison for any political activity.

Hm.. Nope, still not convinced. Harry has never been oppressed because of his race, never been part of any social movement that placed his freedom at risk, never served any jail time, and wasn’t forbidden (unlike thousands of people before him) from marrying the woman he loves because of her different ethnic background — and yet this spectacularly underwhelming man has been chosen to give a speech celebrating the most revered African social revolutionary of the 20th century. If this doesn’t prove that White Privilege actually exists, then I don’t know what does; and it would be hard to argue against the all too obvious reality that Harry resides - gladly, resplendently, unrepentantly, without any humility or self-awareness - upon the highest mountain peak of this odious phenomenon.

There are numerous other minor connective tissues between Harry and Mandela of course

Both Mandela and Harry come from Royal lineage

• Mandela was a member of the royal family of the ruling Thembu clan. After his father’s death when he was 10, Mandela was accepted by the family of the Regent of the Thembu.

• Prince Harry, as a member of the Windsor family, was born into wealth and comfort and raised at Kensington Palace in London, and Highgrove House in Gloucestershire.

Both Mandela and Harry attended elite schools

• Mandela enrolled at Fort Hare University in 1940,. Presidents Kaunda of Zambia, Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and Nyerere of Tanzania, interim President of Uganda Lule, and Botswana Prime Minister Sir Seretse Khama all attended this university. Mandela served as an articled law clerk in Johannesburg in 1946.

• Prince Harry was educated at London's Jane Mynors' nursery school and the pre-preparatory Wetherby School, and attended Ludgrove School in Berkshire. After passing the entrance exams, he was admitted to Eton College.

Neither Harry nor Mandela appear to have much love for academic affairs. Mandela failed to complete several educational courses (let’s face it he had more troubling issues. - such as freeing a country, on his mind), although he received many honorary degrees during his lifetime.  While Harry was accused of receiving help from his tutors (and the claims appear to have some substance) to pass exams required to get into Eton.

Princess Diana

• Mandela met Princess Diana on numerous occasions.

• Diana is rightfully still acknowledged to this day for her brave visionary work highlighting the danger of uncleared mines in form African war zones.

And finally

The simple answer to all of this may well be that the UN believes if it had selected an African dignitary, political leader or celebrity to deliver this speech, no one would care enough to watch.

Despite his failings,I still like Harry. Go figure.

samjhere@icloud.com