The world slipped into mourning when queen Elizabeth was pronounced dead. With the London Bridge down, even foes like Vladimir Putin sent messages of condolence to the royal family and the people of Great Britain.

As expected, shock waves rippled through the entire African continent and even the New York Stock exchange took an abrupt stop to pay last respect to her Royal Majesty.

Buckingham palace was flocked with people of different shades of color and from different walks of life. Tears were shed and flowers laid at the palace ground.

The world’s most influential royal family had taken a heavy hit from the icy touch of death and in accordance with formalities and sheer sense of humanity, people and nations expressed their deepest sympathies to the royal family, the people of Britain and the new Monarch, King Charles III.

But it would seem Elizabeth II was not loved by all as pretentiously portrayed across mainstream Western media. 

Whereas many took turns to express their heartfelt condolences to her and the royal family, the departed monarch had to embrace sour remarks from those who felt she supervised an inhumane, murderous and psychopathic colonial past where slavery was the norm and respect for non-whites was not even a thought.

In this article, we examine the other stream of “condolences” coming the late Queen’s way.

Kenya

Some Kenyans have not forgotten the gory crushing of the Mau Mau revolt in 1950s. This was a war between the Kenyan Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), the so-called Mau Mau movement, and the British imperial machinery. Many Kenyans were killed in this struggle by authoritarian British colonialists.

The sore seems to have healed generally but still had impregnated pus seething with unchecked temperature, waiting for the appropriate day to burst.  And the Queen’s pumped up humanity has served as the emotional trigger.

There are some Kenyans who feel the Queen’s departure is over dramatized, especially by survivors of Colonialism and modern day imperialism. 

Some Kenyans took turns to smite the inflated reputation of the Queen. Gitu Wa Kahengeri, a 98 year old Kenyan man lamented that the British took his land, his birthright.

“They occupied my land; my birthright,” he said.

He added that he was arrested by British soldiers, beaten and denied food for several days. 

Gitu Wa Kahengeri joined the Mau Mau revolt at the age of 17 to fight the imperialists. 

Another Kenyan, Hardi Yakubu – a pan-Africanist, told the German television DW that the British Monarch’s legacy cannot be rosy only. He believed the British has a chequered history that comprises imperialism and exploitation.

“The British Monarchy is not something a glorious institution, the British monarchy that Queen Elizabeth led and represented is not something to be celebrated,” He added.

The Kenyan author, ShailJa Patel catalogued the savagery and barbarity of the British Empire under the Queen’s reign. 

She penned that “fifteen months after a young girl climbed into a tree one day a princess…and climbed down the next day a queen, the entire Aberdares region was declared off-limits for Africans. Orders were set in place to shoot Africans on sight.”

According to Patel, “Some survivors of rape, castration, starvation, forced labour, and torture in Britain’s colonial gulag in Kenya are still alive. They never got the apology they asked for.”

South Africa

South Africans also cried foul of the sympathetic messages poured out to a Queen who reigned a kingdom that bullied, maimed, killed and looted the weak. 

Apartheid has left indelible mark on most South Africans; a state of living where black Africans were reduced to sub-human standards.

South Africans also cried foul of the sympathetic messages poured out to a Queen who reigned a kingdom that bullied, maimed, killed and looted the weak. 

Apartheid has left indelible mark on most South Africans; a state of living where black Africans were reduced to sub-human standards.

Moreover, the Queen was accused of having stolen a huge diamond from South Africa in 1905 which all calls to return the loot fell on the deaf ears of the Queen. 

The South African opposition political party (EFF) released a statement that said that her members mourn not the Queen’s demise because the Queen’s death is a reminder of the ordeal their country braved in their history

The statement read that:

“to us her death is a reminder of a very tragic period in this country and Africa’s history.”

“If there is really life and justice after death, may Elizabeth and her ancestors get what they deserve,” proclaimed the statement

Nigeria

In Nigeria, some bemoaned the British support for a military dictatorship in the 1960s that decimated the Biafra rebellion in the Eastern part of the nation. In that war, Igbo officers had launched a revolt in 1967 which precipitated a 3 year civil war that claimed the lives of more than a million people, largely as a result of chronic famine.

Igbos living abroad added their voice of discontent to the mix. 

Uju Anya, an Igbo professor in the United States, wrote on Twitter that,

“If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star.”

Although her comments garnered over 67,000 likes, her University – Carnegie Mellon University – distanced itself from her claim. The university called her outburst “offensive and objectionable”.