In the end the king did not do it: he did not take off his crown and sprinkle his head with ashes. The gesture that many activists responded to by Charles III. Waiting to acknowledge the sins of colonialism and express repentance on behalf of the kingdom did not materialize. In fact, in a speech in Nairobi during his state visit to Kenya, the sovereign limited himself to expressing only his “great pain and regret at the wickedness” of the British Empire in the struggle for the African country’s independence, although without formally agreeing to do so do apologizes for colonial abuses.
“The injustices of the past are the cause of the greatest pain and deepest regret,” King Charles added, hoping to meet “some of those whose lives and communities have been so gravely affected by past abuses,” but accepting this as Was not the case Although he formally apologizes, he somehow distances himself from events such as the Mau Mau uprising, in which thousands of people were killed and tortured in the 1950s before independence celebrated its 60th anniversary this year.
On the other hand, formal apologies must be decided by government ministers, not the king. And yet Kenyan President William Ruto praised Carlo’s courage in facing such “inconvenient truths.” The Kenyan head of state told Charles that colonial rule had been “brutal and cruel to the African people” and that “much remains to be done to achieve full reparations.” An alarm bell that must have rung very loudly in the ruler’s ears. That if he actually acknowledged the mistakes of colonialism, he would surely also have understood that an apology would open the door to reparations.