King Charles III’s visit to Kenya is a step towards reckoning with colonial sins

The visit by the British monarch King Charles III to Kenya this week was an encouraging sign that the world’s most expansive imperialists are slowly coming to terms with their colonial sins.

While Charles said there was “no excuse” for colonial-era abuses, he stopped short of actually apologising, explaining that he wanted to “deepen my own understanding of these wrongs”.

Those wrongs would include the brutalities meted out by the colonial authorities during the Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950s, and which saw executions, torture and arbitrary detentions of those considered as rebels.

Yet, the British influence is still strong in Kenya and the country remains a committed member of the Commonwealth.

There have been calls for reparations for the colonial crimes, but that is regarded by London as impractical, expensive and precedent-setting.

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In actually acknowledging the negatives of the past, though, Charles was listening to the pain of Africans who still feel deeply about the injustices they suffered, even as some accept that colonialism helped spur development of the continent.

Here in South Africa, we need to have similar conversations if we are to tackle the legacy of colonialism and apartheid … and we need to listen to each other with open minds and open hearts.