Victoria

Two of Africa's most iconic natural features were named by the British in honour of Queen Victoria: the great lake, source of the White Nile, shared by Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya, and the spectacular waterfall on the Zambezi river (pictured), separating Zambia and Zimbabwe.

It seems odd that, while many colonial names have been rightly changed over the years, the two Victorias remain as a reminder of Africa's colonial history. I can only assume that it is because these two natural wonders of the world are shared by more than one country that they have not been renamed.

It was during Queen Victoria's long reign that the scramble for Africa took place. The full story of this shameful landgrab is told in Thomas Pakenham's eponymous history, which chronicles (predominantly from the colonial viewpoint) the rush to lay claim to Africa's wealth and partition the continent among the European powers. Occasionally an African voice is heard - for example Pakenham quotes the Ndebele King Lobengula's letter to Queen Victoria asking her to restrain in Cecil Rhodes British South African company's adventurers, presumably in the mistaken belief that she had the power to do so - but in general the source material is European in origin.

Over my years spent in Africa, I have become increasingly aware of the true history of the English. Behind the diffident, courteous, cricket-playing and self-deprecating facade lurks a barely concealed brutality that the whole world - except the English - recognizes. The gross abuse of human rights began with King Richard's massacre of the citizens of Acre in the third crusade, and was followed, among others, with the decimation of native Americans and Australians, the institutionalisation of the slave trade in West Africa and the Caribbean, the horrific, centuries-long, subjugation of the Irish, organised drug trafficking in China, and the looting of priceless historical and cultural artefacts around the globe....... Instead, the English are educated in the myths of Merrie England and fair play when in truth we are a land of villains, vandals and vagabonds.

Lobengula described his experience of dealing with the English using the simple but effective allegory of the Chameleon and the Fly. "Did you ever see a chameleon catch a fly? The chameleon gets behind the fly and stays motionless for some time. Then, he advances very slowly and gently, first putting forward one leg and then the other. At last, when well within reach of the fly, he darts out his tongue and the fly disappears. England is the chameleon and I am that fly."

On a lighter note, a further unfortunate English legacy to Africa is the absurd habit of wearing collars and ties on the equator. These clothes, appropriate for the English climate, have no business in the tropics, yet they have been enthusiastically adopted by the Nairobi, Kampala and, even, the Dar es Salaam elites. The English influence is weaker in West Africa, where men alternate between suits and ties and resplendent African robes. When I discussed this with my besuited Kenyan colleague, Ndung'u Gathinji. a few years ago, he replied "Yes, they were saved by the mosquito". Queen Victoria might not, in her own oft-quoted words, have been amused, but I was.