Queen Elizabeth’s Death Renews British Empire Debate in Africa

NAIROBI, Kenya — Though Queen Elizabeth II was revered by many in Africa, her death also reignited a different sort of conversation — one that touched on the legacy of the British Empire and the brutality the monarchy meted out to people in its former colonies.

In a younger generation of Africans growing up in a post-colonial world, some lamented that the queen never faced up to the grim aftermath of colonialism and empire, or issued an official apology. They said they wanted to use the moment to recall the oppression and horrors their parents and grandparents endured in the name of the Crown.

“You can look at the monarchy from the point of view of high tea and nice outfits and charity,” Alice Mugo, a 34-year-old lawyer in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, said. “But there’s also the ugly side, and for you to ignore the ugly side is dishonest.”

It is while young Elizabeth was on an official tour of Kenya, in 1952, that she learned of her father’s death and that she would become queen. The clampdown on Kenyans, which began just months after the queen ascended the throne, led to the establishment of a vast system of detention camps and the torture, rape, castration and killing of tens of thousands of people.

Those mourning the queen’s death, Ms. Mugo said, were not aware of how her government took basic freedoms from millions of poor and Black people.

Similar sentiments were echoed by a South African political party, Economic Freedom Fighters, which said in a statement that it would not mourn the queen, “because to us her death is a reminder of a very tragic period in this country and Africa’s history.”

The queen, they wrote, was the “head of an institution built up, sustained and living off a brutal legacy of dehumanization of millions of people across the world.”

But for some across the continent, the queen was an admirable figure who represented continuity and balance in a changing world.

In Ghana, tributes for “Maa Lizzy” were shared on Twitter.

“I grew to admire her over the years, just watching how she carried herself, and her commitment to what she committed to at 25,” said Yemi Adamolekun, the executive director of Enough is Enough Nigeria, a network of organizations promoting good governance. “She just kept at it and I think there’s a lot to be admired in that regard.”

African leaders mourned the queen’s passing and offered condolences to Britain and her family.

Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s president, wrote on Twitter that “The story of modern Nigeria will never be complete without a chapter on Queen Elizabeth II, a towering global personality and an outstanding leader.”

William Ruto, Kenya’s president-elect, called the queen’s leadership of the Commonwealth “admirable.” Even though the association, which was born out of the embers of the British Empire but has lost much of its earlier glory, it has attracted new members like Rwanda, Gabon and Togo, which have had no colonial connections to Britain.

Abdi Latif Dahir reported from Nairobi, Kenya; Lynsey Chutel from Johannesburg; and Elian Peltier from Dakar, Senegal. Ben Ezeamalucontributed reporting from Lagos, Nigeria.