After the Queen, can the Commonwealth survive?
17/September/2022
Nowhere beyond the UK should the passing of Queen Elizabeth have had a more direct impact than in the 56 Commonwealth nations. The late Queen ascended the throne in 1952 when Britain was still a globe-straddling imperium, even though India, Pakistan and Ceylon—now Sri Lanka—had already won independence. By the end of her reign the sun had indeed set on the empire, leaving Britain with a handful of remote islands as the only remnants of an “imperial family” that she had vowed, in her 21st birthday speech, to serve faithfully all her life. Despite her role as figurehead—first of the empire and subsequently of the Commonwealth, a partly successful attempt at preserving the shreds of post-colonial British influence—Queen Elizabeth had very little to do with the decolonial transformation, other than being forced to adjust to it. Her reign was largely ceremonial: she was expected to exist, not to rule. This she did with uncommon grace, her conduct on the throne marked by selfless serenity, a total self-abnegation and devotion to the public trappings of her position. But she took no decisions, made no policies and, in the end, took no responsibility for any developments that affected the wellbeing of her “subjects” in the former empire. The evolution of Britain’s imperial domains into a somewhat looser union can be traced back to 1926, when Britain and her dominions (also referred to in those days as the “White Commonwealth”—Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa) agreed that they would be “united by a common allegiance to the Crown,” while proclaiming their equality of status as independent nations. The Statute of Westminster formalised this relationship in 1931 with the founding of the British Commonwealth of Nations. When newly independent India chose in 1949 to be a republic but to stay in the Commonwealth, its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, argued that in an increasingly globalised world the network represented by the British Commonwealth of Nations served a useful purpose. The other member nations, welcoming his logic, issued the London Declaration of 1949, allowing India, Pakistan, and Ceylon to join “as free and equal members.” Since then, the Commonwealth of Nations—the adjective “British” is less and less often used—has admitted other independent nations that, like India, decline to swear allegiance to the crown. Today the Commonwealth also includes Mozambique and Rwanda, which were never colonised by the British. But the Commonwealth has been of greatest use to the British themselves, for without it they would have lost an empire and been searching for a role. As George Orwell famously warned, if Britain were “to throw the empire overboard,” it would “reduce England to a cold and unimportant little island where we should all have to work very hard and live mainly on herrings and potatoes.” For some years now the Commonwealth has led a somewhat desultory existence, its business largely unreported in the media, a far cry from the heady days of Sir Shridath “Sonny” Ramphal, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth from 1975-1990, whose every pronouncement on world affairs was guaranteed to hog the headlines. There was some hope of a Commonwealth revival when Boris Johnson’s Brexit campaign tom-tommed the idea of replacing the European Union with the Commonwealth, clumsily referred to by his acolytes as “Empire 2.0.” As I wrote in April 2018: “There can be no Empire 2.0: Empire 1.0 was too disastrous to be replicated. But there can be a New Commonwealth. The UK must seize the moment.” So far it has singularly failed to do so. Britain has long touted the Commonwealth as a constructive and vital force in the world, but its work has rarely lived up to that billing. The organisation is marked by rather limited funding for its poorer members, unambitious collective projects and no Commonwealth free trade agreement (preferential tariffs for Commonwealth nations having fallen by the wayside when Britain joined the European Common Market half a century ago). The post-Brexit decline of London as a financial powerhouse and staging-post for businesses seeking an entry into Europe has also reduced its relevance. All the Commonwealth offers, it seems, is a common meeting place for its leaders to issue grand sounding declarations with no practical impact. So where does it go from here? Since a majority of the members of the Commonwealth, following India’s example, do not swear fealty to the British monarch, the Queen, and now King Charles III, enjoy a somewhat curious position within it. The British monarch has no constitutional role and is not automatically the head of the Commonwealth; that position, rather than being hereditary like the monarchy itself, is appointed by member nations. However, the issue is academic since in 2018 the organisation announced that the then Prince Charles would succeed his mother as head. This has not prevented rumblings that a future head should come from elsewhere. The Queen’s role as head of the Commonwealth was principally to keep Britain’s global image alive, to embody the past glory of empire and to transform the Commonwealth by monarchical alchemy into the flagship institution of Britain’s worldwide soft power. She travelled to nearly all the Commonwealth nations, some more than once, often attended the biennial Commonwealth summits, and by the importance she attached to it in her itinerary and in her speeches, showcased the monarchy’s role as its key unifying force. That unity has come under severe strain in recent years as ex-colonies have become more concerned with the injustices of imperial rule. Demands for reparations and apologies dogged a recent tour of the Caribbean Commonwealth by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, requiring the Duke, now Prince of Wales, to express his “profound sorrow” for the “appalling atrocity of slavery.” Since most of the looting, pillage, plunder and oppression inflicted by the British Empire was conducted in the name of the monarchy, it is hard to escape a sense of royal complicity with these crimes and the undeniable fact is that the royal family profited greatly from the imperial connection embodied by the Commonwealth. The somewhat chastened Duke admitted that his Commonwealth tour “has brought into even sharper focus questions about the past and the future.” In some respects, the Queen could have it both ways: she was able to live off the proceeds of conquest and plunder, but because monarchs did not actually order any of these things, she did not have to apologise for them. As Queen she was only a symbol. “A symbol of what?” was a question whose answers varied according to who was giving them: a symbol of the glories of the British Empire; of the grandeur of the monarchy; of the finest hopes and loyalties of her subjects; and also of the iniquities and injustices perpetrated by her country, its soldiers and administrators, by her ancestors in far-off lands they had no business being in. When you symbolise everything, you are either responsible for everything or for nothing. Queen Elizabeth, as a monarch, floated above the fray. Benefiting from it, she was complicit in it; but as a non-participant, she could not be blamed for its worst horrors. As head of the Commonwealth, the British monarch symbolises continuity amid transformation. At one time this was a useful role, alleviating the stresses that would inevitably have accompanied the transition from the iniquities of empire to a more equal post-colonial relationship. But with decolonisation largely complete, the need for such a symbol is increasingly questionable: the monarchy is more a reminder of past colonial wrongs than contemporary positives. Commonwealth citizens are more apt to be critical of the entire enterprise than ever before. “Even by the highest standards of benevolent thuggery, which the empire ably epitomised,” wrote the Indian critic Shivaji Dasgupta at the time of the August Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, “this noble befriending of the shamelessly looted was priceless chutzpah.” Dasgupta argued that “this old timers’ consortium is plainly irrelevant in matters of global impact.” The result, inevitably, is that most of the independent states in the Commonwealth are largely apathetic about their links to the British crown, and the 14 that still have the monarch as head of state will dwindle. (Jamaica and five other Caribbean countries plan to follow Barbados and abandon their fealty to the British monarch. Though republicanism has so far been held at bay in the former “White Commonwealth” (barring South Africa), Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese, even while expressing “respect and affection” for the late Queen, felt obliged to add that his country’s relationship with Britain “is no longer what it was at the dawn of [the Queen’s] reign.” In a nod to the ruling Labor Party’s own inherent Republicanism, Albanese pointedly remarked: “No longer parent and young upstart, we stand as equals.” Britain’s reduced economic clout has a great deal to do with the diminished significance of the Commonwealth. The UK is a much less significant player than, for example, China, which has invested more than £685 billion across 42 Commonwealth member states since 2005. In its bid to expand its global influence, China has been systematically targeting poorer Commonwealth states, fully aware that Britain cannot compete. In turn, many have toed the Chinese line on issues like Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong. Pakistan, the biggest recipient of UK Overseas Development Assistance, has received far more overall from the Chinese, notably a £60 billion investment under the massive Belt and Road infrastructure initiative; Chinese aid amounts to more than a fifth of Pakistan’s GDP since 2005, and the country now buys 70 per cent of its arms from Beijing. The situation is similar with Sri Lanka. Arguing the relevance of the Commonwealth to these nations has become a futile exercise. Even India, which takes a much more benign attitude to the Commonwealth and provided its secretary-general before the incumbent, is turning tepid: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will skip the Queen’s funeral, sending the country’s ceremonial president instead. It is hard to see this pattern changing. Unless Britain develops the political will—and devotes the economic resources—to provide a revived thrust to the Commonwealth, its future seems imperilled. Between largely superfluous summitry, trivial development assistance and modest effectiveness on the ground, the Commonwealth looks doomed to increasing irrelevance.
Source:
Nowhere beyond the UK should the passing of Queen Elizabeth have had a more direct impact than in the 56 Commonwealth nations. The late Queen ascended the throne in 1952 when Britain was still a globe-straddling imperium, even though India, Pakistan and Ceylon—now Sri Lanka—had already won independence. By the end of her reign the sun had indeed set on the empire, leaving Britain with a handful of remote islands as the only remnants of an “imperial family” that she had vowed, in her 21st birthday speech, to serve faithfully all her life. Despite her role as figurehead—first of the empire and subsequently of the Commonwealth, a partly successful attempt at preserving the shreds of post-colonial British influence—Queen Elizabeth had very little to do with the decolonial transformation, other than being forced to adjust to it. Her reign was largely ceremonial: she was expected to exist, not to rule. This she did with uncommon grace, her conduct on the throne marked by selfless serenity, a total self-abnegation and devotion to the public trappings of her position. But she took no decisions, made no policies and, in the end, took no responsibility for any developments that affected the wellbeing of her “subjects” in the former empire. The evolution of Britain’s imperial domains into a somewhat looser union can be traced back to 1926, when Britain and her dominions (also referred to in those days as the “White Commonwealth”—Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa) agreed that they would be “united by a common allegiance to the Crown,” while proclaiming their equality of status as independent nations. The Statute of Westminster formalised this relationship in 1931 with the founding of the British Commonwealth of Nations. When newly independent India chose in 1949 to be a republic but to stay in the Commonwealth, its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, argued that in an increasingly globalised world the network represented by the British Commonwealth of Nations served a useful purpose. The other member nations, welcoming his logic, issued the London Declaration of 1949, allowing India, Pakistan, and Ceylon to join “as free and equal members.” Since then, the Commonwealth of Nations—the adjective “British” is less and less often used—has admitted other independent nations that, like India, decline to swear allegiance to the crown. Today the Commonwealth also includes Mozambique and Rwanda, which were never colonised by the British. But the Commonwealth has been of greatest use to the British themselves, for without it they would have lost an empire and been searching for a role. As George Orwell famously warned, if Britain were “to throw the empire overboard,” it would “reduce England to a cold and unimportant little island where we should all have to work very hard and live mainly on herrings and potatoes.” For some years now the Commonwealth has led a somewhat desultory existence, its business largely unreported in the media, a far cry from the heady days of Sir Shridath “Sonny” Ramphal, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth from 1975-1990, whose every pronouncement on world affairs was guaranteed to hog the headlines. There was some hope of a Commonwealth revival when Boris Johnson’s Brexit campaign tom-tommed the idea of replacing the European Union with the Commonwealth, clumsily referred to by his acolytes as “Empire 2.0.” As I wrote in April 2018: “There can be no Empire 2.0: Empire 1.0 was too disastrous to be replicated. But there can be a New Commonwealth. The UK must seize the moment.” So far it has singularly failed to do so. Britain has long touted the Commonwealth as a constructive and vital force in the world, but its work has rarely lived up to that billing. The organisation is marked by rather limited funding for its poorer members, unambitious collective projects and no Commonwealth free trade agreement (preferential tariffs for Commonwealth nations having fallen by the wayside when Britain joined the European Common Market half a century ago). The post-Brexit decline of London as a financial powerhouse and staging-post for businesses seeking an entry into Europe has also reduced its relevance. All the Commonwealth offers, it seems, is a common meeting place for its leaders to issue grand sounding declarations with no practical impact. So where does it go from here? Since a majority of the members of the Commonwealth, following India’s example, do not swear fealty to the British monarch, the Queen, and now King Charles III, enjoy a somewhat curious position within it. The British monarch has no constitutional role and is not automatically the head of the Commonwealth; that position, rather than being hereditary like the monarchy itself, is appointed by member nations. However, the issue is academic since in 2018 the organisation announced that the then Prince Charles would succeed his mother as head. This has not prevented rumblings that a future head should come from elsewhere. The Queen’s role as head of the Commonwealth was principally to keep Britain’s global image alive, to embody the past glory of empire and to transform the Commonwealth by monarchical alchemy into the flagship institution of Britain’s worldwide soft power. She travelled to nearly all the Commonwealth nations, some more than once, often attended the biennial Commonwealth summits, and by the importance she attached to it in her itinerary and in her speeches, showcased the monarchy’s role as its key unifying force. That unity has come under severe strain in recent years as ex-colonies have become more concerned with the injustices of imperial rule. Demands for reparations and apologies dogged a recent tour of the Caribbean Commonwealth by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, requiring the Duke, now Prince of Wales, to express his “profound sorrow” for the “appalling atrocity of slavery.” Since most of the looting, pillage, plunder and oppression inflicted by the British Empire was conducted in the name of the monarchy, it is hard to escape a sense of royal complicity with these crimes and the undeniable fact is that the royal family profited greatly from the imperial connection embodied by the Commonwealth. The somewhat chastened Duke admitted that his Commonwealth tour “has brought into even sharper focus questions about the past and the future.” In some respects, the Queen could have it both ways: she was able to live off the proceeds of conquest and plunder, but because monarchs did not actually order any of these things, she did not have to apologise for them. As Queen she was only a symbol. “A symbol of what?” was a question whose answers varied according to who was giving them: a symbol of the glories of the British Empire; of the grandeur of the monarchy; of the finest hopes and loyalties of her subjects; and also of the iniquities and injustices perpetrated by her country, its soldiers and administrators, by her ancestors in far-off lands they had no business being in. When you symbolise everything, you are either responsible for everything or for nothing. Queen Elizabeth, as a monarch, floated above the fray. Benefiting from it, she was complicit in it; but as a non-participant, she could not be blamed for its worst horrors. As head of the Commonwealth, the British monarch symbolises continuity amid transformation. At one time this was a useful role, alleviating the stresses that would inevitably have accompanied the transition from the iniquities of empire to a more equal post-colonial relationship. But with decolonisation largely complete, the need for such a symbol is increasingly questionable: the monarchy is more a reminder of past colonial wrongs than contemporary positives. Commonwealth citizens are more apt to be critical of the entire enterprise than ever before. “Even by the highest standards of benevolent thuggery, which the empire ably epitomised,” wrote the Indian critic Shivaji Dasgupta at the time of the August Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, “this noble befriending of the shamelessly looted was priceless chutzpah.” Dasgupta argued that “this old timers’ consortium is plainly irrelevant in matters of global impact.” The result, inevitably, is that most of the independent states in the Commonwealth are largely apathetic about their links to the British crown, and the 14 that still have the monarch as head of state will dwindle. (Jamaica and five other Caribbean countries plan to follow Barbados and abandon their fealty to the British monarch. Though republicanism has so far been held at bay in the former “White Commonwealth” (barring South Africa), Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese, even while expressing “respect and affection” for the late Queen, felt obliged to add that his country’s relationship with Britain “is no longer what it was at the dawn of [the Queen’s] reign.” In a nod to the ruling Labor Party’s own inherent Republicanism, Albanese pointedly remarked: “No longer parent and young upstart, we stand as equals.” Britain’s reduced economic clout has a great deal to do with the diminished significance of the Commonwealth. The UK is a much less significant player than, for example, China, which has invested more than £685 billion across 42 Commonwealth member states since 2005. In its bid to expand its global influence, China has been systematically targeting poorer Commonwealth states, fully aware that Britain cannot compete. In turn, many have toed the Chinese line on issues like Beijing’s crackdown in Hong Kong. Pakistan, the biggest recipient of UK Overseas Development Assistance, has received far more overall from the Chinese, notably a £60 billion investment under the massive Belt and Road infrastructure initiative; Chinese aid amounts to more than a fifth of Pakistan’s GDP since 2005, and the country now buys 70 per cent of its arms from Beijing. The situation is similar with Sri Lanka. Arguing the relevance of the Commonwealth to these nations has become a futile exercise. Even India, which takes a much more benign attitude to the Commonwealth and provided its secretary-general before the incumbent, is turning tepid: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will skip the Queen’s funeral, sending the country’s ceremonial president instead. It is hard to see this pattern changing. Unless Britain develops the political will—and devotes the economic resources—to provide a revived thrust to the Commonwealth, its future seems imperilled. Between largely superfluous summitry, trivial development assistance and modest effectiveness on the ground, the Commonwealth looks doomed to increasing irrelevance.
Source: