Queen Elizabeth II inherited millions of subjects around the world upon taking the throne in 1952. Many of them were 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.“Movement permit,” the document says.
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.
Cyprus 1957 - Violence flares anew as angry Turks take revenge for the slaying of a Turk policeman. they set seventy fires in the Greek section of Nicosia before British troops clear the streets. There was some sympathy for the Elizabeth and the circumstances she was born under and then thrust into. “We cannot blame the queen for all the sufferings that we had at that particular time,” Kahindi said.
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