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.
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.
Anger came from ordinary people. Some called for apologies for past abuses like slavery, others for something more tangible. 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.
“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. 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.
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