King Charles III was always an earnest and affable fella – even though his interminable 70-year-long wait as the Prince of Wales to succeed his mom Elizabeth II would’ve tested the patience of Job!! So, now that he’s King at last, how’s he doing?? Well…he’s certainly pierced the veil that the Monarchy have tried to place between us and them, to create the illusion that they aren’t mere mortals!! Just think of how he defied all odds to marry his present wife, Camilla!! The course of true love never runs smooth for King or Commoners!!
Anyhow, Charles just visited his former African colony of Kenya – where his mother had been visiting when she heard she’d become Queen!! And it should be of great interest in the Caribbean, where we’ve taken the lead in demanding reparations for that “crime against humanity” – slavery. Now, we should remember that, a decade ago, Britain paid out some £20M to 5200 Kenyans who’d been imprisoned and tortured during the 1950s in the Mau Mau Rebellion to recover lands seized by them. But what we have to note is that the British Government merely said they “deeply regretted” what had occurred then, and they were compensating persons who’d actually been hurt.
Like the Caribbean, the Kenyan Governments – including that of the present President, William Ruto – insists that Britain should actually APOLOGISE and pay REPARATIONS. Regret ain’t enough – either morally, and evidently legally – to justify reparations. And so we witnessed Charles III telling his Kenyan hosts, at a lavish State banquet in his honour in Nairobi, of his ‘greatest sorrow and deepest regret’ at Britain’s ‘abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence’ during the Colonial era.
He continued gushingly and earnestly, “It is the intimacy of our shared history that has brought our people together. However, we must also acknowledge the most painful times of our long and complex relationship. The wrongdoings of the past are a cause of the greatest sorrow and the deepest regret. There were abhorrent and unjustifiable acts of violence committed against Kenyans as they waged, as you said at the UN, a painful struggle for independence and sovereignty – and for that there can be no excuse.”
Sounds quite contrite, doesn’t it? But there wasn’t that full apology demanded by survivors of the brutal incarceration, torture and killings to justify the reparations from the British Government!! Pres Ruto, however, pointed out that Britain and Kenya could not ‘live in denial of history’, and highlighted the ‘displacement, dispossession and disenfranchisement of native Africans, paving the way for a brutal colonialism’.
He made it clear that the £20 million so far paid out by Britain in compensation to victims of torture and repression was inadequate. £1 billion’s more like it!! Hell, yeah!!
…over a grand banquet!!
The British might’ve granted independence to Kenya, but at the state banquet for Charles III and Camilla, the Kenyans demonstrated they were still adept at things British!! The royal couple were treated to a lavish eight-course menu: *Beetroot and goat cheese foam with hazelnut crumble/ *Cream of roasted butternut, chestnut and truffle soup/
*Malindi lobster and seared seafood ravioli-flavoured bisque/*Watercress and stilton salad with candied apples and walnuts/*Palate cleanser: lemon and raspberry sorbet/*Pan-seared salmon with Champagne beurre blanc/*Beef Wellington, chateau potatoes and minted asparagus (with chicken Wellington for the high table)/*Dessert symphony: A visually stunning dessert platter with miniature portions of Kenyan and British-inspired honey cake, carrot and walnut square, Earl Grey tea crumble and sarova chocolate cake!!
While Ruto sported a spiffy suit with a bow-tie, his wife, First Lady Rachel, had a gown inspired by the Kenyan flag!! As was gushingly reported, she “effortlessly rocked” in the gown tailored perfectly for her!!
Ah, well…
