Queen Elizabeth death: Former colonies conflicted over British Empire's invasions

The Duchess of Kent, seated center on dais, reads a message from the Queen of England in the Parliament House at Accra, Ghana, in 1957. Photo / AP

Upon taking the throne in 1952, Queen Elizabeth II inherited millions of subjects around the world, many of them unwilling. Today, in the British Empire's former colonies, her death brings complicated feelings, including anger.

Guarded by members of the Lancashire Fusiliers, police and loyal Kikuyu spearmen, suspected members of the Mau Mau are questioned near Gilgil, Kenya, in 1953. Photo / AP

Beyond official condolences praising the queen's longevity and service, there is some bitterness about the past in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and elsewhere. Talk has turned to the legacies of colonialism, from slavery to corporal punishment in African schools to looted artifacts held in British institutions. For many, the queen came to represent all of that during her seven decades on the throne.

Two lorry loads transporting Kikuyu people arrive at a reception camp outside Nairobi, Kenya, in 1954, after 5,000 British troops and 1,000 armed police rounded up around 40,000 men. Photo / AP

In Kenya, where decades ago a young Elizabeth learned of her father's death and her enormous new role as queen, a lawyer named Alice Mugo shared online a photograph of a fading document from 1956. It was issued four years into the queen's reign, and well into Britain's harsh response to the Mau Mau rebellion against colonial rule.

Members of the Lancashire Fusiliers, King's African Rifles, Kenya Police and Kenya Police Reserve and Government Officers, force the evacuation of Kikuyu men, women and children. Photo / AP

"Movement permit," the document says. While more than 100,000 Kenyans were rounded up in camps under grim conditions, others, like Mugo's grandmother, were forced to request British permission to go from place to place.

A member of the Mau Mau, wrapped in the blanket in which he was sleeping, is held at gun point during a roundup at 2:30 am, in the Nyeri district of Kenya. Photo / AP

"Most of our grandparents were oppressed," Mugo tweeted in the hours after the queen's death Thursday. "I cannot mourn."

Some of the many Kikuyu tribesmen who were detained as Mau Mau suspects after the forced evacuation of Kikuyus accused of squatting on European farms in the Thomson's Falls area, Kenya. Photo / AP

But Kenya's outgoing president, Uhuru Kenyatta, whose father, Jomo Kenyatta, was imprisoned during the queen's rule before becoming the country's first president in 1964, overlooked past troubles, as did other African heads of state. "The most iconic figure of the 20th and 21st centuries," Uhuru Kenyatta called her.

With hands raised, Agustinds Efstathios, 22, climbs the mountainside from his EOKA hideout in1957, under the gun of a British soldier of the Duke of Wellington regiment. Photo / AP

Anger came from ordinary people. Some called for apologies for past abuses like slavery, others for something more tangible.

Greek Cypriot youths, some with bandaged heads, stand outside a hospital in Famagusta, Cyprus in 1958. Their injuries were received in the round up operations conducted by the British. Photo / AP

"This commonwealth of nations, that wealth belongs to England. That wealth is something never shared in," said Bert Samuels, a member of the National Council on Reparations in Jamaica.

British security troops of the Wiltshire regiment, stationed at Agyrta camp in Kyrenia Mountains of Cyprus, search villagers in Ayios Nicolaos in 1958, during Christmas patrol . Photo / AP

Elizabeth's reign saw the hard-won independence of African countries from Ghana to Zimbabwe, along with a string of Caribbean islands and nations along the edge of the Arabian Peninsula.

Robert Mugabe takes the oath of allegiance to Zimbabwe in a solemn moment at the Zimbabwe independence celebration in Highfields on April 18, 1980. Photo / AP

Some historians see her as a monarch who helped oversee the mostly peaceful transition from empire to the Commonwealth, a voluntary association of 56 nations with historic and linguistic ties. But she was also the symbol of a nation that often rode roughshod over people it subjugated.

Jawaharlal Nehru salutes the flag as he becomes independent India's first prime minister on Aug. 15, 1947, during the Independence Day ceremony at Red Fort, New Delhi, India. Photo / AP

There were few signs of public grief or even interest in her death across the Middle East, where many still hold Britain responsible for colonial actions that drew much of the region's borders and laid the groundwork for many of its modern conflicts. On Saturday, Gaza's Hamas rulers called on King Charles III to "correct" British mandate decisions that they said oppressed Palestinians.

Guerrillas who fought a war for seven years rejoice as they leave the stadium in Zimbabwe's capital Salisbury (present-day Harare), following independence celebrations. Photo / AP

In ethnically divided Cyprus, many Greek Cypriots remembered the four-year guerrilla campaign waged in the late 1950s against colonial rule and the queen's perceived indifference over the plight of nine people whom British authorities executed by hanging.

The British army dynamites stone houses in an Arab town in northern Mandatory Palestine. Photo / AP

Yiannis Spanos, president of the Association of National Organization of Cypriot Fighters, said the queen was "held by many as bearing responsibility" for the island's tragedies.

Huge portraits of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Ghana's President Kwame Nkrumah are displayed in Accra in 1961, as the city prepares for the arrival of the British monarch. Photo / AP

Now, with her passing, there are new efforts to address the colonial past, or hide it.

India is renewing its efforts under Prime Minister Narendra Modi to remove colonial names and symbols. The country has long moved on, even overtaking the British economy in size.

"I do not think we have any place for kings and queens in today's world, because we are the world's largest democratic country," said Dhiren Singh, a 57-year-old entrepreneur in New Delhi.

There was some sympathy for the Elizabeth and the circumstances she was born under and then thrust into.

British outposts in Acre district operate machine guns against Arab rebels in Acre, Mandatory Palestine, in 1939. Photo / AP

In Kenya's capital, Nairobi, resident Max Kahindi remembered the Mau Mau rebellion "with a lot of bitterness" and recalled how some elders were detained or killed. But he said the queen was "a very young lady" then, and he believes someone else likely was running British affairs.

"We cannot blame the queen for all the sufferings that we had at that particular time," Kahindi said.

Thousands of flag-waving youngsters cheer as Queen Elizabeth II and the her husband Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, ride through the Kaduna racecourse in Northern Nigeria in 1956. Photo / AP

Timothy Kalyegira, a political analyst in Uganda, said there is a lingering "spiritual connection" in some African countries, from the colonial experience to the Commonwealth. "It is a moment of pain, a moment of nostalgia," he said.

The queen's dignified persona and age, and the centrality of the English language in global affairs, are powerful enough to temper some criticisms, Kalyegira added: "She's seen more as the mother of the world."

Mixed views were also found in the Caribbean, where some countries are removing the British monarch as their head of state.

Jamaican school children greet Queen Elizabeth II at the National Heroes Monument in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1983. Photo / AP

"You have contradictory consciousness," said Maziki Thame, a senior lecturer in development studies at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, whose prime minister announced during this year's visit of Prince William, who is now heir to the throne, and Kate that the island intended to become fully independent.

The younger generation of royals seem to have greater sensitivity to colonialism's implications, Thame said — during the visit, William expressed his "profound sorrow" for slavery.

Nadeen Spence, an activist, said appreciation for Elizabeth among older Jamaicans isn't surprising since she was presented by the British as "this benevolent queen who has always looked out for us," but young people aren't awed by the royal family.

"The only thing I noted about the queen's passing is that she died and never apologized for slavery," Spence said. "She should've apologized."