King Charles goes to Kenya and blasts critics with excuses for colonialism

In the end, the king didn’t do it: he didn’t take off his crown and he didn’t sprinkle ashes on his head. The gesture that many British activists expected from Charles, to acknowledge the sins of colonialism and express repentance on behalf of the United Kingdom, did not arrive. In fact, in a speech in Nairobi during his state visit to Kenya, the sovereign limited himself to simply expressing his “great pain and regret for the evil” of the British Empire during the fight for the African country’s independence, without however formally apologizing for colonial abuses. “The mistakes of the past are the cause of the greatest pain and the deepest regret,” said King Charles, hoping to “meet some of those whose lives and communities have been so seriously affected” by past abuses, but taking advantage, since they did not did it. formally apologizing, distances itself in some way from events such as the Mau Mau revolt, in which thousands of people were killed and tortured in the 1950s, before independence, whose independence marks its 60th anniversary this year.

On the other hand, a formal apology must be decided by government ministers, not the king. And Kenyan President William Ruto nevertheless praised Carlo’s courage in facing such “uncomfortable truths”. The Kenyan head of state told the monarch that the colonial regime was “brutal and atrocious towards the African people” and that “there is still much to be done to achieve full reparations”. An alarm bell that must have sounded very loud in the sovereign’s ears. That if he truly admitted the wrongs of colonialism, he would surely also understand that an apology would open the door to reparations.