World of Africa | Memories of brutal 1950s Mau Mau rebellion haunts

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. 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. Here is a story about the Mau Mau's long fraught relationship with the monarch, and we also speak to an expert on why the wounds of the past can not be erased so easily.