The King of these little islands revisits the scene of some of the many crimes of Empire today, when he returns to Kenya for his first ‘State’ visit to a Commonwealth country. The Kenya Human Rights Commission has called upon him “on behalf of the British government, to issue an unconditional and unequivocal public apology (as opposed to the very cautious, self-preserving and protective statements of regrets) for the brutal and inhuman treatment inflicted on Kenyan citizens”, especially but not exclusively during the so-called ‘Emergency’ period from 1952 to 1960, when Kenyan people were fighting to gain their independence from the British Empire – a fight that concluded in December 1963.

The British government (in the unlikely person of William Hague) admitted back in 2013 to much of the torture and abuse – but ‘without prejudice’, and only after the Foreign and Commonwealth Office had vowed to fight to the death the class action brought against it, led by Wambugu Wa Nyingi, Paulo Muoka Nzili and Jane Muthoni Mara, parts of whose testimony you can find here.

It has been widely trailed that some ‘diplomatic’ form of words is making its mangled way through the royal intestinal system, acknowledging painful history in some form or other – and I must immediately say that it is not for this White barrelman – accessory after these facts as I am – to pronounce as to how these words might be received by those to whom they will be addressed.

But a Cynic can dream (it’s only a cynic who can’t!), and it’s been on my mind a while to imagine what Charles might say, if – well, probably if he were other than who he is – but let’s give him the dubious benefit of some very considerable doubt, and imagine a man wrestling nightly with Angels, and scribbling in secret ink beneath the royal duvet, plotting to elude the scrutiny of his minders…..

“Ladies and gentlemen, my distinguished and honorable hosts, I am most humbly grateful to you for what in all the circumstances is your most extraordinarily gracious invitation to me to join you here today, and for the warmth and generosity of your welcome.

My heart is full, for I have vividly before my eyes the scenes seventy-one years ago, when my beloved mother was staying in this land under perhaps very different circumstances, when news reached her of the death of her father – and this is the first time I have ventured upon such a journey since her own death.

However, although I am my mother’s son and the ceremonial head of State of the Commonwealth, I speak both in that role and also as a man, as a fellow human being, when I say to you today that my heart is heavy for a greater and more solemn reason.

I am come before you both with the ceremony of State and with personal humility, to make apology, reparation and restoration, and to ask, how reparation and restoration, having been begun, might be continued, until justice has been seen to be done.

For I and my people have wronged you and your people – we continue, in both intent and effect, to wrong you – with our public minimising and our knowing private racism and our continuing economic warfare – and it is entirely clear that we must wrong you no more.

In case anything thus far is not clear: your Human Rights Commission has asked that I, on behalf of the British Government, issue, and I quote their words: “an unconditional and unequivocal public apology (as opposed to the very cautious, self-preserving and protective statements of regrets) for the brutal and inhuman treatment inflicted on Kenyan citizens”.

I do apologise: unconditionally, unequivocally, wholeheartedly. More: I hang my head – personally as well as ceremonially – in shame.

My people came among you long ago, and we were beside ourselves with greed and bloodlust and possessed of an utterly misplaced religiosity, moral fervour and blind self-righteousness. We imagined ourselves super-humans, and we constructed you as sub-humans. We destroyed your way of life with the rapaciously calculated imposition of our own local land and property laws; we set you against each other; we exploited your land and extracted its treasures; and when you mobilised yourselves in protest and uprising, we were brutal and sadistic and devoid of ruth or shame in the manner in which we unhoused and abused and tortured and slaughtered you in order to subjugate you anew to our power.

You have, here and now, this my apology. I hope you may find that it means something to you, and that you may speak freely to let me know what it might mean. For it is not for me to say what it should mean. It is long past time for the likes of me to give up the evil habit of dictating meaning to others.

But now, if I may, I have a follow-up question, which I shall ask, and then stop speaking – for my next words will depend upon what answer you may give. Here is my question:

“What now, what next? What would be most helpful? What would you ask of me – of us?””

Well. It’s five hours later on. Let’s see what he did actually say…(I have marked in bold the bits where an active mode or a possessive article or a less ambinuous possessive article than ‘we’, or a spot of detail about who did what to whom would have helped, but was missing)

“….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 United Nations, a painful struggle for independence and sovereignty – and for that, there can be no excuse.

In coming back to Kenya, it matters greatly to me that I should deepen my own understanding of these wrongs, and that I meet some of those whose lives and communities were so grievously affected.

None of this can change the past. But by addressing our history with honesty and openness we can, perhaps, demonstrate the strength of our friendship today.

And, in so doing, we can, I hope, continue to build an ever-closer bond for the years ahead.”

So there it was. As I already mentioned, it’s not for me to say how that should have been received. But you can see that The Firm lawyered up, because the ‘wrongdoings’ are rendered in the passive voice. Nobody can tell from the speech what the wrongdoings were; who did them; who regrets that they were done; or who should not be looking to make excuses. The only perpetrator named is ‘the past’ – as in: ‘the wrongdoings of the past’.

The speech has already been marked as ‘a miss‘. This was a non-apology, a finely tuned piece of Doublespeak dressed up as an olive branch. It may even be a welcome branch, and/or one worth grasping. Perhaps it was enhanced in private, off-stage. But it was a long way from being able to stand as a piece of restorative practice in the agora.