Queen Elizabeth's death stirs South Africa's colonial memories
Earth News The Queen visited a racially segregated South Africa when she was 21 with her father King George VI. "I wouldn't say I don't like the Queen - no, no, no. But my everyday reality is [affected] by the impact of colonisation," said Sibulele Steerman, a university student, standing beside an open sewer in an impoverished township outside Cape Town. These days, many younger South Africans, in particular, are questioning the compromises that accompanied their country's transition to democracy in the early 1990s, and are demanding that Western nations do far more to acknowledge centuries of colonial exploitation. "My grandmother liked the Queen. But we're a different generation," said Ms Steerman, noting this week's calls, on social media here, for Britain to return what they say are the "stolen" South African diamonds that feature in the Crown Jewels. The Cullinan diamond, the largest ever found, was given to King Edward V...
