Elizabeth II: relatively on the great facet of historical past

Revealed on : 09/10/2022 – 08:48

Virtually unanimously, Africa hailed, and relatively vibrantly, the reminiscence of Elizabeth II, whose nation was, of all of the colonial empires, the one with the biggest variety of possessions in Africa. All gained independence after the accession of the younger queen to the throne in 1952. How then to clarify these virulent criticisms directed in opposition to her, when everybody acknowledges her for having labored tirelessly to ascertain peaceable relations with the Africa?

Many African peoples have, buried of their collective reminiscence, wounds of repression and different brutalities inflicted by colonization, British or in any other case. Regardless of time, this previous can nonetheless rekindle resentment, and when resentment arises, the sense of nuance fades.

Nevertheless, when one approaches a life like that of Elizabeth II, any evaluation is distorted, since one persists in together with in an inseparable complete the character, his life and his origins. To be born a princess, and even to finish up a queen, doesn’t make you, ipso facto, responsible of all of the crimes of colonization and even of your ancestors.

Throughout her very lengthy reign, her ethical sense typically pushed her to distance herself from the manager, even to antagonize a Prime Minister on sure main points. On this constitutional monarchy, she appears to have at all times taken care to not be on the fallacious facet of historical past. So was she for the sanctions in opposition to racist South Africa; in opposition to the seizure of energy by an boastful segregationist minority in Southern Rhodesia, and eventually for the independence of Zimbabwe. She even refused to despise a Kwame Nkrumah ostracized by the British authorities.

His life, greater than ever, is an open e book, which we leaf by means of in worldview, and Africans, relatively than on the lookout for inconceivable deliberate violence in opposition to their peoples, can be higher suggested to query the coherence and the sincerity of the admiration that a lot of their leaders appear to have for him.

Why is that ? Would not these leaders have the suitable to admire him, too?

They’ve all of the rights. However some peoples could also be disturbed to listen to their leaders enlarge the virtues attributed to the late queen, whereas in their very own practices of energy, they’re at odds with these values. Earlier than being cherished by the world, Elizabeth II knew the way to make herself cherished by her individuals. Particularly by his dedication, his concern for others and his skill to stay throughout the limits of his constitutional prerogatives. As a result of there are limits, even to the facility of a queen! And it’s on the scrupulous statement of those limits that freedom and democracy are based mostly, in a long-lasting means.

The populations subsequently count on extra from their leaders than to see them roughing up the texts within the nation, slicing down the legal guidelines, and dishonest in an effort to confiscate all of the levers of energy, by attributing to themselves, if obligatory, the prerogatives devolved to the counter-powers then , then, to current themselves to the face of the world, to sing the praises of Elizabeth II.

Africa has all the identical had, for practically 1 / 4 of a century, its personal mannequin, a buddy, furthermore, of the late queen: Nelson Mandela!…

Sure ! And a few African leaders nearly begged for his visits, and typically received them. However, typically, it was simply to reap the benefits of his aura, with out in search of inspiration from it, in a wholesome emulation. What number of Mandelas, even approximate, has Africa produced since 1990? What number of leaders can declare the integrity of this man, his spirit of sacrifice, his sense of the overall curiosity and all these values ​​which justify that the world, immediately, mourns Elizabeth II, because it mourns Mandela once more, whereas others, barely swallowed up by the earth, are erased, forgotten for eternity!