The Colonial Undertones of Queen Elizabeth II’s Death: Africa Speaks

The death of a public figure is loaded with a story of reactions. The spotlight of 2022 falls on Queen Elizabeth II’s death, which has sent shock waves around the world, attracting varied reactions. Eulogies have been pouring in from different parts of the world. However, there are colonial undertones related to her death that stem from Africa. Africans’ reactions toward her death can be described as expressions of emotional scars that were inflicted by colonialism. She was viewed as a symbol of colonialism, a planned and intentional domination of the original inhabitants of a territory/region by the settlers (Borocz, 2012; Veracini, 2010). Thus, the purpose of this article is to examine the colonial undertones in question. It is important for states and political movements down to individuals to understand the dynamics of these reactions as they imply the direction that must be taken to rise above the Queen’s death.

In this article, I describe colonialism and decoloniality as the central concepts guiding these reactions. This is followed by describing reactions toward the Queen’s death from different contexts of Africa. The selection of the contexts was based on the sources of information undertaken in the search that was conducted. In addition, I considered external contexts to Africa which deepened my understanding of the issue. Lastly, I reflected on the varied reactions and attempted to give a futuristic direction about this issue.

Colonialism

This theory of colonialism will help us understand Africans’ reactions toward the Queen’s death. According to Borocz (2012: 229), colonialism is both a practice and a worldview. In its practice form, colonialism denotes the settlers’ domination of a society on whose territory or region they set foot with such intention (Borocz, 2012:229). As a worldview, colonialism denotes the global geopolitical, economic, and cultural doctrine that is rooted in the worldwide expansion of West European capitalism that survived until well after the collapse of most colonial empires (Borocz, 2012:229). Colonialism is meted in a territory or region that is defined as a colony. Colony, as a concept is derived from Latin colonia, which means outpost or settlement. Borocz (2012:229) further views colonialism as:
a principle of imperial statecraft and an effective strategy of capitalistic expansion that involved sustained appropriation of the resources of other societies, regions of the world for the benefit of invention emerging from the 15th century onward.
Veracini’s (2010) perspective of colonialism illuminates it as an external project, thus stating that it was carried out by the colonialists who come from overseas with an intention of establishing themselves in a territory that does not belong to them. Borocz (2012:229) outlines the processes that characterise the acts of colonialism, which include but are not limited to

• Encounter and repeated contact between the Western “discoverers” and the rest of the world, typically involving invasion, conquest, strategic genocide, the relegation of local rulers to subservient roles, and, eventually, some form of settlement by West Europeans.
• The surveying and scientific analysis of the geography, resources, peoples, and customs of the colonies, with the explicit intent of facilitating resource extraction and/or unequal exchange through forced trading.
• The imposition of extractive enterprises, such as plantations, mining, and other forms of raw-material-yielding activities, and the deployment of non-free “native” labor in such enterprises.
• The systematic destruction of indigenous industries to transform the colonies into captive markets for European goods.
• Triangular trade (the hawking of European commodities in Africa, enslaved people to the Americas/the Caribbean, and plantation products to Europe).
• The establishment of modernization projects, such as the construction of elaborate transportation and information infrastructures, the introduction of private property on land, specific forms of taxation, and colonial law with the purpose of enabling the extractive and disciplinary apparatus of the colonial administration.
• The forced transfer and circulation of enslaved or indentured labor between colonies, or between regions within the same colony, disrupting culturally articulated modes of interaction between nature and people, and creating buffer populations between the colonizers and the locals.
• Creation of collaborationist/comprador colonial elites, mass education systems, and public cultures that systematically facilitated the explicit alignment of ideas such as knowledge and progress with Western civilization, thereby producing the illusion of European superiority and the normalization of colonial relations.
• Continuous and systematic framing of colonized populations as the backward, inferior, dehumanized “other” of the enlightened European/White “self,” and the use of the discourse of scientific racism to this end.
• In later phases of colonialism, warfare using colonial populations from one colony in armed incursions against other (potential) colonies.
• Prevention of the access of colonial subject populations to Europe.

The above processes can be understood against the backdrop of Borocz’s (2020) idea about the intentions of the usurp settler, i.e. to displace indigenes; expropriate their land; extract wealth from it; establish a new political order; claim sovereignty and destroy that of indigenes; create a new society of settlers; exterminate indigenes through numerous strategies such as war, forced labour, forced migration or pogroms, and contagious diseases); importation of especially Africans to work the expropriated lands. The marks of these colonial activities are very much evident in Africa, especially in the former colonies of Europe.

Borocz (2012:230) categorises colonialism according to political-economic, social-institutional, and representational-symbolic fields of domination, which are perfectly interconnected to achieve its mission. In terms of the political-economic field, Western Europe originally showed a miniature system of trade compared to the vast Afro-Eurasian trade system. Borocz (2012) states that in 1000-1500, Africa and Asia had a total economic output of humankind of 75%-80%, while Europe had 9%-18%. However, the onset of colonialism shrank the economy of Africa and Asia to 64% while Western Europe’s economy grew to about 23%. By 1913, Western Europe intensified its colonialism in Africa and Asia, causing their economies to decline to less than 28%. Since then, Western Europe has dominated the global economic market with its capitalistic system of trade. Curtis (2016) relates this domination to the extraction of massive resources, including mineral deposits in Africa and their transportation to Europe the by-products of which are sold back to Africa at exorbitant prices.

The two processes that accelerated Africa’s and Asia’s economic decline are colonial value transfer and the devastation effect. Colonial value transfer involved the transfer of resources from the colony to the metropole, slave exploitation, and a tilted system of taxation and manipulation of currency rates. Currency manipulation is still a problem in Africa, with many African states trading in foreign currency instead of their own local currency. This adds to the non-strengthening of local currencies and the maintenance of dependence by African states on Western Europe. Goods and services are mostly priced in American dollars, which causes the unaffordability of these services by the locals.

The devastation effect involved the destruction of social, legal, political, post-industrial, agrarian, and other technological structures of the colonised society, including imperial warfare; displacement or murder of significant portions of populations; destruction of local technologies, circuits of trade, and indigenous societies’ economic institutions; forced importation of Western European products; and imposition of alien legal schemes to the local ones. Curtis (2016) argues that this has introduced a new technology-based colonialism which further plunges Africa into the circle of poverty. Gumbo and Mapotse (2020) show how the system of mining that Western Europe introduced in South Africa frustrated indigenous mining systems in the region. Failure to seek solutions that can integrate indigenous mining and review mining rights adds to poverty which is ravaging the lives of the poor majority in this country. The authors are of the view that the Western European mining system affects the conceptualisation of the subject of Technology Education. Learners are denied opportunities to learn about indigenous alternatives.

Regarding the social-institutional field, indigenous educational, legal, religious, political, and cultural institutions and public and private spaces were transformed into a system that favoured colonialism. Three main forms of institutionalisation which accounted for human displacement are the large deployment of the workforce such as soldiers, administrators, and social scientists from Europe; the capture and sale of human beings as chattel slaves from Africa and Asia; and bonded and convict labour to work in plantations, mines and building of infrastructure. Colonies were also treated as experimental sites in terms of policing, the law, education, medical science, and technology. Borocz (2020) writes that a race-based system of biopolitics treated difference as the natural and immutable sexual exploitation of indigenous women and forced the male and female slaves to mate to reproduce the labour force. Currently, African states are making effort to free themselves from the mistreatment of women including their economic freedom. The democratic project of South Africa is poised to achieve this.

Representations were mainly targeted at the conversion of the colonised people who were labeled as savagery or heathen and racially inferior human beings. Representations happened as part of the project that was conducted by the intellectuals. For instance, the European social sciences established branches in colonies with the intention of studying colonised societies through the discursive framework. The aim was to report the colonised people back in Europe as eternal (fixed in time and unfit for a change), feminine, sensually erotic, weak, inefficient, and inferior.

Borocz (2012:233) concludes that:
Since the contemporary world is a direct heir to the colonial-imperial order, especially to the logic of the overseas empires centered in western Europe, the legacy of colonialism in all its dimensions – political-economic, social, and symbolic – has become an integral part of the common history of humankind, explained partly by the powerful presence of colonial patterns of representation in modern Western European public cultures. These factors gave colonial ideas a life of their own so that even those areas of the world that had no direct experience of either the colonised or the coloniser have not escaped the moral, intellectual, and aesthetic impact of colonialism.
This is because colonialism is a structure, not an event – it continues to configure power relations wherever it sets in (Borocz, 2020). The prevalence of these problems and social injustices in Africa is a motivator for Africans’ reactions to the queen’s death. I finalised this article while I was in Ethiopia. My numerous visits to this country brought to my attention the colonial influence on the country, even though it was briefly colonized. The colonial system has penetrated the world in one or another form.

Decoloniality

Decoloniality may be defined in terms of the struggle against capitalism and environmental destruction, the regeneration of ancestral knowledge, and the reconstruction of sovereignty for peoples now dispersed in cities (Borocz, 2020). However, according to Borocz (2020:56), “without the recovery of land and full sovereignty, decolonization does not make sense”. South Africa, for instance, is battling with the issue of land that was dispossessed by colonialists from its rightful owners, the Indigenous people. The cruelty of this issue is in the imbalance between land allocation and Indigenous people compared to the Whites – to date, the minority Whites (with small families) enjoy big patches of land while the majority Blacks (with extended families) are cramped in small pieces of land. The question is: What can one do without the land or with petty land units? The land is a habitat for people, mineral deposits, fauna and flora, etc. Therefore, mining, agriculture, construction, etc. are impossible without the land. Furthermore, the impetus of decolonisation lies in reclaiming epistemic rights, destruction of Eurocentrism, and de-Westernisation (Borocz, 2020; Mignolo, 2011).

Borocz (2020) argues that knowledge is power and, therefore, it will set free the colonised people. This hugely implicates the education systems that were set by colonialists in developing contexts, which were meant to make indigenous people subservient to colonial masters and promoted route learning because they were conceptualised without considering indigenous knowledge systems. Hence, decolonisation can also be viewed as a resistance against the injustices inflicted by colonialists on indigenous people (Gumbo, 2020).

These issues highlight Africans’ disquietude to the passing of the Queen.

Africa Speaks

Africans who directly or indirectly experienced colonialism including those in Diaspora aired their reactions to the passing of the Queen in different media. As stated in the introduction, they viewed her as a symbol of the Western colonial system in the developing nations around the world, the majority of which are Indigenous people, “she was the symbol of a nation that often rode roughshod over people it subjugated” (PBS NewsHour, 2022). The Times (2022) succinctly records: “but while leaders around the world paid solemn tribute to the late monarch, some observers reflected on how the British Empire’s suppression of independence movements complicated the Queen’s legacy.”

The Times further records Karen Attiah stating that “black and brown people around the world who were subject to horrendous cruelties and economic deprivation under British colonialism are allowed to have feelings about Queen Elizabeth. After all, they were her ‘subjects’ too.” Attiah represents groups who found it uneasy to bridle their feelings about the Queen’s death due to the colonial undertones that it carried.

The Africans could not hide their anger considering the colonial violence which included the looting of their stuff. In the Kingdom of Benin, hundreds of objects were looted and kept in the British Museum in London; vast quantities of other treasures were also looted in 1897 from the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin (PBS NewsHour, 2022).

Even the political movements who rose against colonialism reacted. The Kenyan Freedom Fighters, Mau Mau expressed: “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” (PBS NewsHour, 2022). While praises are noted for the Queen, one cannot be blind to the bigger shadow that follows her as expressed by the colonised masses who felt that she did not do enough to fight the atrocities of colonialism. PBS NewsHour (2022) thus records that the Queen’s death casts a bigger scope than just praises:
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.
Hours after the Queen’s death, Mugo tweeted thus, “most of our grandparents were oppressed, I cannot mourn” (PBS NewsHour, 2022). This shows how pain-sticking colonialism is as its legacy of atrocities continues to maul the feelings of the oppressed. In South Africa, the release of Chris Hani’s killer, Janusz Walus from prison on parole aroused black people’s anger – it goes to show how incidences that carry colonial undertones destabilise the feelings of those who have suffered and continue to suffer the effects of colonialism. Repeated incidents such as this, which are motivated by racial tension linked to colonialism always stir reactions in people who have suffered colonialism. Blacks feel that Walus has not yet told his story about the killing of Hani nor disclosed his collaborators. Chris Hani was the leader of the South African Communist Party, the alliance of the African National Congress. Some members of these political parties are determined to resist the release of Janusz. This is one of the many incidences, among which are racial attitudes of former Whites-only schools where former toward acceptance of black children, including the ill-treatment of those who are enrolled in those schools.

Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) in South Africa was also unequivocal on the death of the Queen. It decided not to mourn her death as it claimed that her death is a reminder of a very tragic period in South Africa and Africa. EFF stated that South Africa’s interaction with Britain has been a painful experience, death, dispossession, and dehumanisation of Africans.

“But we're a different generation”

This is a profound reaction to the Queen’s passing away by Sibulele Steerman, a university student from an impoverished township, Cape Town whose remarks can be understood as representing the youth locally and abroad. This claim lies close to Stephanie Busari, who argues that some young Africans are expressing images and stories of their own elders, who endured a brutal period of British colonial history during the Queen’s long reign (CNN, 2022). But the colonial undertones span the period far beyond her reign, hence, Busari’s statement should be viewed in that light. This supports Professor of communication, Farooq Kperogi at Kennesaw State University in the U.S., who argued that the “Queen’s legacy started in colonialism and is still wrapped in it” (CNN, 2022). According to Kperogi, “it used to be said that the sun did not set over the British empire. No amount of compassion or sympathy that her death has generated can wipe that away” (CNN, 2022).

Behind Busari’s reaction is wrapped up in a movement pass story sourced from Twitter, which is related to her grandmother’s experiences with colonialism, and is a reason not to mourn. A movement pass was a colonial document used to prevent the Kenyans’ free travel under British rule in their own country in Africa. In South Africa, it was termed a movement permit – it limited the movement of black people in cities; if they overstepped the specified times in the permit, they were arrested. A permit was a dump pass twin, which was specially designed for Black people for movement control purposes. These documents were the instruments of apartheid (a localised version of colonialism in South Africa) enshrined in the brutal policy which ravaged the lives of black people. Busari claims that the youths’ refusal to mourn is an expression of “the complexity of the legacy of the Queen, who despite widespread popularity was also seen as a symbol of oppression in parts of the world where the British Empire once extended” (CNN, 2022).

According to Steerman, “my grandmother liked the Queen. But we're a different generation” (BBC News, 2022). This is an indication that young people in South Africa see the unfavourable conditions that their lives are faced with through colonialism. This is attested by her reaction: “I wouldn’t say I don’t like the Queen – no, no, no. But my everyday reality is [affected] by the impact of colonisation” (BBC News, 2022). She related the activities of colonialism, such as the looting of the South African diamonds that are in the Crown Jewels in London, including the largest Cullinan diamond that was given to King Edward VII on his 66th birthday by colonial officials.

The South African youths’ voices feature well in the politics of the country, which shows their non-ignorance about colonialism which dates back to the 1976 uprisings against the oppressive education system that was meted to black people by the apartheid regime of the time. Lately, their anger against colonialism had been brewing until it burst through #FeesMustFall of 2015-2016. While the campaign was about the demand for free education, it soon became clear that the underlying issue had to do with coloniality and colonialism. Mignolo (2005) differentiates between coloniality (i.e., the physical amenities on campuses that represent colonial figures, e.g., Cecil John Rhodes’ statue, and colonialism (i.e., the cognitive conditioning or epistemic violence that is expressed through colonial educational systems and curriculum). But for the purposes of this article, I do not worry about these differentiations. My thinking is that there is a thin line between coloniality and colonialism. The encounters of Europeans with the indigenous (black) South Africans can be explained through cognitive manipulations for the colonialists to gain access to their physical amenities. In some instances, there was forceful disowning of the people of their belongings to achieve their cognitive dependency. It is in this light that the students attempted to dismantle the colonial statues on university campuses as they affected their cognitive functioning negatively – they could not identify with the images of the oppressors. This was a window into the curriculum that they received which is still colonial to a greater degree, hence, institutions of higher learning are called upon by the current educational authorities to indigenise/Africanise/decolonise their curricula.

The South African government is also implementing the project of defacing some colonial establishments such as replacing the street names of colonial masters in cities with African names. Whether this is right or wrong to do, we should judge for ourselves. But these colonial names make colonialism appear as if it is still alive in the country.

Beyond the shores of Africa, young people reacted in a similar way to the Queen’s death. In Jamaica, for example, a youth activist, Nadeen Spence stated that “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” (PBS NewsHour, 2022). Spence continued: “The only thing I noted about the queen’s passing is that she died and never apologized for slavery” (PBS NewsHour, 2022).”

The Queen’s death, therefore, presented the moment to condemn colonialism. Other contexts where people’s livelihoods were downtrodden by colonialism reacted in the same manner.

Africa’s voice echoed from elsewhere also

Prof Sandy O’Sullivan, from Macquarie University in Australia tweets thus: “For those saying we should be magnanimous about the passing of the queen, a reminder that the queen inserted herself into the lives of Indigenous people here multiple times. She wasn’t a bystander to the effects of colonisation and colonialism, she was an architect of it.” (The Guardian, 2022).

For these external voices, the Queen’s death marked the resurfacing of their stories; the voice of the Maori people of New Zealand, Smith (1999) regards such stories as indigenous people’s decolonial stories. The expectation was that 70 years of the Queen’s monarchy presented an advantage for her to do more to dismantle the shackles of colonialism – she was in an influential position. The question is whether one chooses to side with the system in place, keep a middle ground, or take an unpopular decision for which one is prepared to suffer and sacrifice. The latter is resounded in Mandela’s trial declaration, that he has fought for Africans’ liberation and he was prepared to die for it. We currently get the same sense in Prince Harry and Meghan’s taking a bold step to challenge the royal system in favour of the oppressed masses.

The Middle East showed a few signs of public grief over her death as “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” (PBS NewsHour). The attention now turns to the newly appointed monarch, King Charles III, to ‘correct’ British mandate decisions that oppressed Palestinians (PBS NewsHour).

“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” (PBS NewsHour).

Favourable reactions

These reactions are mainly from world leaders and other renowned personalities who paid tribute to the fallen Queen. They acknowledged her leadership, humanitarian work around the world, and her role in the Commonwealth. The Queen’s leadership in the Commonwealth is among the main reasons behind the favourable reactions that she received. Reuters (2022) reports some of the leaders’ tribute to her. The U.S. President, Joe Biden and Jill Biden claimed that she was a trusted icon, comfort, and pride of Britons in whose historical books her legacy will loom large. The Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi referred to her as the stalwart of this time in the sense that her leadership was inspiring to her nation, and that she was a model of dignity and decency in public life. Furthermore, the New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern described her as a much admired and respected monarch, a mother and grandmother to Britons. Even some African leaders hailed her. For instance, the South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa described her as a remarkable person, an extraordinary and globally famous figure to be remembered by many; according to the Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari, she completes the story of modern Nigeria as an outstanding leader in terms of her dedicated service to her nation, the Commonwealth, and the world. These leaders provided a positive picture of the queen. They spoke as statesmen who kept the tangent of diplomatic relations with Britain.

Reactions from her country

I followed the proceedings of her memorial as they were broadcast on TV and noticed the many who were touched emotionally and cried, attesting to the fact that the nation had a special fondness for her. The Nation was completely magnetised by the Queen’s passing on. The Britons’ condolences are echoed in their leaders’ statements. The Prime Minister, Liz Truss describes the Queen as the rock of Britons in the sense that her leadership made the country flourish (The Time, 2022); the Former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson tweeted thus: “This is our country’s saddest day. In the hearts of every one of us, there is an ache at the passing of our Queen, a deep and personal sense of loss — far more intense, perhaps, than we expected” (The Time, 2022).

Do we let bygones be bygones? A brief reflection on the reactions

Forgiveness

The colonial undertones in the Queen’s death did not only attract the reactions of African people (other contexts included also) but their verdict regarding forgiveness. The unavoidable question that confronts humanity is whether, despite the evil of colonialism, the oppressor and oppressed can tolerate/forgive each other. Drawing from the Scriptures, Jesus confronts his disciples with a matter of forgiveness: “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18:22). I raise this matter because of the philosophy of Ubuntu/Botho that characterises Africans, which is based on the principles of unity, community, respect, etc. – and I opine that Botho includes forgiveness. It should be noted that our decolonial story (Smith, 1999) does not mean the exclusion of forgiveness, otherwise, it would be impossible to associate Africans with Botho.

Africans have surprised Europeans with their warm welcome, showing their forgiving heart. The inverse is that this does not mean that we should not tell our decolonial story. Also, the colonialist should not take advantage of the colonised’s Botho – when the Europeans first set foot on the African continent, they manipulated the Africans’ Botho, oppressed them, and exploited their resources. There is a quest in Africans to hear the confession of the colonialists. Walus’ issue attests to this quest.

Ayodele Modupe Obayelo from Nigeria, where stuff was looted, extends a message of forgiveness, acknowledging the Queen’s reign that brought an end to the British Empire in African countries (BBC News, 2022). According to Obayelo, ensuring the end of British colonies in Africa was the right initiative. Obayelo declares: “As colonialism later crumbled and gave way to independence and self-rule in what had been [overseas British] territories, the former colonies became part of a Commonwealth group of nations with the Queen at its head she worked tirelessly to keep the group together over the years” (BBC News, 2022).

However, the irony that confronts the Queen’s leadership service is that the young seem to be the ones who confess and forgive instead of the elders. Maziki Thame, a senior lecturer at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica notes the sensitivity of Prince William to colonialism when he expressed his “profound sorrow” for slavery (PBS NewsHour, 2022). William took a bold step to face the other direction, becoming a decolonial symbol.

The elders’ role in facilitating forgiveness

In Africa, Botho is unfathomable without the guiding role of the elders. It is part of the communities’ education in raising their youth. The #FeesMustFall of 2015-2016, volatile as it was, stopped after a few elders intervened by addressing the students. Regarding the Queen’s death, President Uhuru Kenyatta overlooked the past troubles and referred to the Queen as “the most iconic figure of the 20th and 21st centuries despite his father, Jomo Kenyatta having been imprisoned during the Queen’s rule before he became the country’s first president in 1964” (PBS NewsHour). Kahindi also states: “We cannot blame the queen for all the sufferings that we had at that particular time” (PBS NewsHour). She could be viewed as a symbol of colonialism, but what these icons seem to suggest is to leave the matter to the Creator to judge. Colonialism is far bigger than an individual – it is a system of aggrandizement perpetrated by colonial masters over centuries on indigenous people. It neither starts with an individual nor ends with an individual. While the Queen’s death carries these colonial undertones, we should tackle the big animal (the system) rather than the individual. There is some degree of maturity that rises to “eldership” in William, i.e., the condemnation of the colonial system. He rises above the real elders who choose to be reactionaries (i.e., resistant to transformation). He chooses this sacrificial service over the pleasures of royal riches.

Bridging the polarised reactions

The reactions discussed in this article are polarised between the statesmen and political movements, and between the elders and the youth. In this section, indications are that the camps can be brought together by a unifying philosophy of Botho without ignoring the reality of the living legacy of colonialism that should be confronted continuously. The political movements’ reactions should be understood as a front against the system more than an individual. It is here that a combination of their strong views and the statesmen’s reactions find synergy. Regarding elders and the youth, one sees a balance of reactions that is first forged by elders as they call on the Botho heart in the youth (confer with the case of #FeesMustFall in South Africa), the same happens with the youth understood through William – the colonialist and colonised can reach out to one another and chart their way forward.

Bridging the polarised reactions

The reactions discussed in this article are polarised between the statesmen and political movements, and between the elders and the youth. In this section, indications are that the camps can be brought together by a unifying philosophy of Botho without ignoring the reality of the living legacy of colonialism that should be confronted continuously. The political movements’ reactions should be understood as a front against the system more than an individual. It is here that a combination of their strong views and the statesmen’s reactions find synergy. Regarding elders and the youth, one sees a balance of reactions that is first forged by elders as they call on the Botho heart in the youth (confer with the case of #FeesMustFall in South Africa), the same happens with the youth understood through William – the colonialist and colonised can reach out to one another and chart their way forward.

Unfinished business

There is a huge decolonial task to be done still. The unfavourable socio-economic conditions that colonialism brought to Africans and indigenous people are real. The British colonies gained independence, but they are not yet free socio-economically. There is technological violence seen through the establishment and capitalistic organisation of services that still fill the pockets of colonialists with reaches. The transformational task is not for the colonised people only; the coloniser must respond by showing a willingness to share the wealth, otherwise, there is no commonwealth in the Commonwealth Association. Commonwealth, also known as the British Commonwealth of Nations, is an international association of the United Kingdom together with states that were previously part of the British Empire and its dependencies. The membership criteria, the adjective British in the name and dependencies were problematic, especially to the former colonies who took membership.

Paint and Renade (2018) relate the critical role that India played that saw the review of the criteria, for instance, the dropping of the adjective British to accommodate the non-European states. Initially, membership in Commonwealth was determined based on allegiance to the British monarch. But from the 1920s, non-European states joined the association and the membership rose quickly. This created a demand for the review of the nature of the Commonwealth ultimately. The role played by India in this review was informed by its viceroy, a separate secretary of state in London, its own army, and foreign policy. Therefore, when India became a republic in 1949, it reviewed its membership in the association due to the association’s rules. The April 1949 deliberations in a meeting by the Commonwealth heads of government in London saw the review of some of these rules, such as the dropping of the adjective, British in the association’s name, leaving the name as Commonwealth of Nations, or Commonwealth as it is commonly known currently. India then decided to keep its membership.

It is in this light that a commonwealth is unrealisable until the colonised people begin to enjoy the wealth, otherwise, a commonwealth only remains idealised for the colonised. Care should therefore be taken not to perpetrate colonialism through the Commonwealth. By commonwealth, I do not only mean the accumulation of physical wealth but all the critical aspects pertaining to human life that colonialism succeeded to plunder over centuries – all sectors, especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Colonialism is very much entrenched in STEM projects and services that disfavour indigenous people because industrialisation is skewed toward the Western conceptualisation of the concept (Gumbo, 2018). It is unfinished business until indigenous knowledge systems and practices are acknowledged and integrated into human development projects. This hugely implicates education and training.

Education and training

At the core of fighting colonialism are education and training. Higher education institutions must not just train teachers on the subject matter and how to teach but they should empower them as transformation agents as well. This way, teachers will in turn train students as critical and creative thinkers who will interrogate the stuff being taught. Students must not be afraid to critically engage with the subject matter. Again, the business is unfinished if students are taught away from their cultures. Curriculum planning must be centred on African indigenous knowledge systems and expand to other knowledge systems so that Africans can be graduates who will participate in the global context informed by who they are and where they come from. There is a need for teachers to declaw themselves from cognitive colonial conditioning and not despise their own culture and knowledge systems. They should not mimic the primitiveness of indigenous knowledge systems which was inculcated by Westerners. Teachers who are of Western descent must be prepared to and show a willingness to learn African worldviews so that they cannot impose their own worldviews onto indigenous students. They should be prepared to learn along with their students.

Conclusion

There are colonial undertones in the Queen’s death that have been expressed by Africans and other voices globally. They polarised between statesmen, politicians, elders, and the youth as expressed through the tributes and reactions. This article managed to highlight these tributes and reactions. I have considered the opposing views. I do not leave the reader suspended but provide directions about the issue in the section preceding the conclusion. The contribution of the article is that, as much as the Queen’s death seems to have reopened fresh reactions to colonialism, the reacting groups down to individuals should see a big picture, that of the colonial system rather than an individual. That way, our energies can be combined in the spirit of Botho, to fight the legacy of colonialism. This is critical for the transformation that Africa and other affected contexts by colonialism would like to achieve. It is also critical to collectively engage in a decolonial project that would ensure commonwealth in a true sense to be enjoyed by all.

References

BBC News. (2022). Queen Elizabeth's death stirs South Africa's colonial memories. 16 September 2022. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-62892735

Borocz, J. (2012). Colonialism. In Anheier, H.K., Juergenmeyer, M. & Faessell, V. (Editors). Encyclopaedia of global studies, pp. 229-234. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Borocz, J. (2020). Decolonial theories in comparison. Journal of World Philosophies, 5: 43-60. CNN. (2022). Cloud of colonialism hangs over Queen Elizbeth’s legacy in Africa. 10 September 2022. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/10/africa/colonialism-africa-queen-elizabeth-intl/index.html

Curtis, M. (2016). The new colonialism: Britain’s scramble for Africa’s energy and mineral resources. London: War on Want.

Gumbo, M.T. (2018). Addressing the factors responsible for the misunderstanding of Technology Education with other subject fields. Perspectives in Education, 36(1): 128-144.

Gumbo, M.T. (2020). Indigenising technological pedagogical content knowledge in Open Distance Learning. Africa Education Review, 17(4): 72-86.

Gumbo, M.T. & Mapotse, T.A. (2020). Indigenous mining and its criminalization: Implications for Technology Education. In Gumbo, M.T. (Ed.). Decolonization of Technology Education: African indigenous perspectives, pp. 111-130. New York: Peter Lang.

Mignolo, W.D. (2011). The darker side of Western modernity. Durham & London: Duke University Press.

Pant, H.V. & Ranade, A. (2018). Modi and CHOGM 2018: Reimagining the Commonwealth. RF Issue Brief, 238: 1-8.

PBS NewsHour (2022). ‘I cannot mourn’: Former colonies conflicted over Queen Elizabeth II’s death. 11 September 2022. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/i-cannot-mourn-former-colonies-conflicted-over-queen-elizabeth-iis-death

Reuters. (2022). Queen Elizabeth's death: Reaction from world leaders. 9 September 2022. https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/queen-elizabeths-death-reaction-politicians-officials-2022-09-08/

The Guardian. (2022). Condolences and condemnation: Indigenous people and people of colour react to the death of Queen Elizabeth II. 9 September 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/10/condolences-and-condemnation-indigenous-people-and-people-of-colour-react-to-the-death-of-queen-elizabeth-ii

The Times. (2022). How the world is responding to news of Queen Elizabeth II’s death. 9 September 2022. https://time.com/6211821/queen-elizabeth-ii-death-world-reactions/

Veracini, L. (2010). Settler colonialism: A theoretical view. Great Britain: Palgrave MacMillan.