The UK has been following the debate in SA on the colonial legacy of the late Queen Elizabeth II with interest and believes it is important for it to understand and participate in those debates, the UK’s high commissioner to SA, Anthony Phillipson, has said.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is in London on Monday to attend the state funeral service for Queen Elizabeth at Westminster Abbey, as well as a prefuneral reception hosted by King Charles III and one immediately after the state funeral service by UK foreign secretary James Cleverly.
The funeral is expected to be the largest gathering of the world’s heads of state since the funeral of former president Nelson Mandela in 2013.
While many South Africans have responded with warmth and positive sentiment to the death of the queen, who reigned for 70 years, there has also been extensive negative comment on social media.
The EFF last week distanced itself from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s condolence messages, saying the queen had been the head of state of countries that were colonised by Britain and had headed an institution whose role was synonymous with pain, suffering and land dispossession.
Phillipson, who was speaking to the media last week before the queen’s state funeral on Monday in London, said the queen’s death has reopened these debates but they are not new.
The new king, Charles III, had conceded there was a need to recognise the past when he opened the commonwealth meeting in Rwanda. He also spoke about the dark stain left by slavery when Barbados became a republic, saying there was a need to recognise this in building relationships for the modern world. “In SA we have always wanted to be very conscious of how people perceive the past relationship between the UK and SA as we go about building bonds for the future. We can’t change the history but we can recognise how it affects people and that’s the context in which we are framing partnerships for the future,” Phillipson said.
Condolence books have been available for the public to sign at the UK high commissioner’s residences in Pretoria and Cape Town.
The queen is credited with having helped to build the commonwealth as the British Empire ended. The commonwealth, which was recently joined by two new African countries — Togo and Gabon, neither of which had ever been British colonies — now has 56 members, including SA, compared with the original 14.
In an article published in the UK’s Guardian newspaper this morning, Nelson Mandela’s grandson wrote that his grandfather would have mourned the loss of the Queen along with the wider world. Some might find that strange considering the painful legacy of British colonialism in Africa, but the queen was a contrast to what the UK once was.
“I know from personal recollection with my grandfather that he saw in the Queen a true friend. Someone who understood him and how he understood the world. Someone who was, for Britain, exactly what Britain needed during times of change: compassionate conscience,” Ndileka Mandela wrote.
The Queen had refused to visit South Africa during apartheid, with some even believing the tension between her and former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher was partly due to Thatcher’s blatant inaction. “After apartheid Her Majesty declared her support for South Africa’s first Black president quickly, making her one of the first world leaders to do so. She also smoothed the way for South Africa to rejoin the Commonwealth, overturning yet another consequence of apartheid,” he wrote.
The UK is one of the rich countries that have agreed to make $8.5bn available to support SA’s just energy transition (JET). Phillipson said the UK is supporting SA in developing an investment plan for the Just Energy Transition Partnership, which will be delivered at a pace to be determined by SA.
Ramaphosa also discussed the partnership with US President Joe Biden on his visit to the US last week. The presidency said on Saturday that work on the investment plans for the partnership between SA, the US, UK, France, Germany and the EU is expected to be completed by the UN Climate Change conference (COP 27) in November in Egypt.
Update: September 19 2022
This story has been updated to include additional material.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.