Commonwealth relevant

Dec 04, 2003

AS The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting gets under-way in Nigeria, the decades-old question of the relevance of the group is popping up again

AS The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting gets under-way in Nigeria, the decades-old question of the relevance of the group is popping up again.

The 50 odd members have a shared history in having been part of the British Empire. The vast majority of those countries are now independent and, crucially, are members of the Commonwealth only on a voluntary basis. But because the group was founded on a colonial background, many tend to snort at it.

This need not be, because there is so much else that binds the countries together. They share many values, including language, forms of governance, judicial and education systems, and some social structures. Modern society is such that commonalities of any nature tend to find a joint forum and this is what we have in the Commonwealth.

And because the world in the 21st century is a global village, there are certain minimum standards required for us to be together as one in any single grouping. That is why Zimbabwe, which wantonly disregards the rule of law, continues to be suspended until it behaves to required standards.

The Commonwealth was instrumental in resisting apartheid South Africa, as in opposing the murderous Idi Amin in Uganda.

But then again, the group will have to be consistent in its outlook. It seems to have put the Pakistan issue on the back burner, undermining the otherwise justified stand against military rule.

When a military ruler took over in Pakistan in 1999, the country was duly suspended, but pressure on it to return to elected government eased, apparently at the expedience of geo-political interest in the run up to the war against Afghanistan’s Taliban. This inconsistency aside, the Commonwealth continues to be relevant.

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