By Cara Anna, NAIROBI Kenya
Upon taking the throne in 1952, Queen Elizabeth II inherited millions of subjects around the world, many of them unwilling. Today, in the British Empire’s former colonies, her death brings complicated feelings, including anger.
Beyond official condolences
praising the queen’s longevity and service, there is some bitterness about the
past in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and elsewhere. Talk has turned to the
legacies of colonialism, from slavery to corporal punishment in African schools
to looted artifacts
held in British institutions. For many, the queen came to represent all of
that during her seven decades on the throne.
In Kenya, where decades ago a
young Elizabeth learned of her father’s death and her enormous new role as
queen, a lawyer named Alice Mugo shared online a photograph of a fading
document from 1956. It was issued four years into the queen’s reign, and well
into Britain’s harsh response to the Mau Mau rebellion against colonial rule.
“Movement permit,” the
document says. While over 100,000 Kenyans were rounded up in camps under grim
conditions, others, like Mugo’s grandmother, were forced to request British
permission to go from place to place.
“Most of our grandparents were
oppressed,” Mugo tweeted in the hours after the queen’s death Thursday. “I
cannot mourn.”
But Kenya’s outgoing
president, Uhuru Kenyatta, whose father, Jomo Kenyatta, was imprisoned during
the queen’s rule before becoming the country’s first president in 1964,
overlooked past troubles, as did other African heads of state. “The most iconic
figure of the 20th and 21st centuries,” Uhuru Kenyatta called her.
Anger came from ordinary people. Some called for apologies for past abuses like slavery, others for something more tangible.
“This commonwealth of nations,
that wealth belongs to England. That wealth is something never shared in,” said
Bert Samuels, a member of the National Council on Reparations in Jamaica.
Elizabeth’s reign saw the
hard-won independence of African countries from Ghana to Zimbabwe, along with a
string of Caribbean islands and nations along the edge of the Arabian
Peninsula.
Some historians see her as a
monarch who helped oversee the mostly peaceful transition from empire to
the Commonwealth,
a voluntary association of 56 nations with historic and linguistic ties. But
she was also the symbol of a nation that often rode roughshod over people it
subjugated.
There were few signs of public
grief or even interest in her death across the Middle East, where many still
hold Britain responsible for colonial actions that drew much of the region’s
borders and laid the groundwork for many of its modern conflicts. On Saturday,
Gaza’s Hamas rulers called on King Charles III to “correct” British mandate
decisions that they said oppressed Palestinians.
In ethnically divided Cyprus,
many Greek Cypriots remembered the four-year guerrilla campaign waged in the
late 1950s against colonial rule and the queen’s perceived indifference over
the plight of nine people whom British authorities executed by hanging.
Yiannis Spanos, president of
the Association of National Organization of Cypriot Fighters, said the queen
was “held by many as bearing responsibility” for the island’s tragedies.
Now, with her passing, there are new efforts to address the colonial past, or hide it.
India is renewing its efforts
under Prime Minister Narendra Modi to remove colonial names and symbols. The
country has long moved on, even overtaking the British economy in size.
“I do not think we have any
place for kings and queens in today’s world, because we are the world’s largest
democratic country,” said Dhiren Singh, a 57-year-old entrepreneur in New
Delhi.
There was some sympathy for
the Elizabeth and the circumstances she was born under and then thrust into.
In Kenya’s capital, Nairobi,
resident Max Kahindi remembered the Mau Mau rebellion “with a lot of
bitterness” and recalled how some elders were detained or killed. But he said
the queen was “a very young lady” then, and he believes someone else likely was
running British affairs.
“We cannot blame the queen for all the sufferings that we had at that particular time,” Kahindi said.
Timothy Kalyegira, a political
analyst in Uganda, said there is a lingering “spiritual connection” in some
African countries, from the colonial experience to the Commonwealth. “It is a
moment of pain, a moment of nostalgia,” he said.
The queen’s dignified persona
and age, and the centrality of the English language in global affairs, are
powerful enough to temper some criticisms, Kalyegira added: “She’s seen more as
the mother of the world.”
Mixed views were also found in
the Caribbean, where some countries are removing
the British monarch as their head of state.
“You have contradictory
consciousness,” said Maziki Thame, a senior lecturer in development studies at
the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, whose prime minister announced
during this
year’s visit of Prince William, who is now heir to the throne, and
Kate that the island intended to become fully independent.
The younger generation of
royals seem to have greater sensitivity to colonialism’s implications, Thame
said — during the visit, William expressed his “profound sorrow” for slavery.
Nadeen Spence, an activist,
said appreciation for Elizabeth among older Jamaicans isn’t surprising since
she was presented by the British as “this benevolent queen who has always looked
out for us,” but young people aren’t awed by the royal family.
“The only thing I noted about
the queen’s passing is that she died and never apologized for slavery,” Spence
said. “She should’ve apologized.” - AP
No comments:
Post a Comment