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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 November 1999 Issue No. 456 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 November 1999 Issue No. 456
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters On a civilising mission?
By Gamal NkrumahOnce upon a time -- and a very bad time it was -- African countries were invariably represented at Commonwealth summit meetings by military rulers and single-party dictators. Yet last Friday, when the heads of state and government of some 50 Commonwealth nations met in South Africa, there was not a single dictator to be seen.
That in itself is a tremendous achievement. "And that is the barometer -- that, while we have not met our own targets, we have not done too badly either," as Namibia's Foreign Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab spelt it out. "In the strength of its symbolism and as a source of inspiration, this meeting in South Africa must run as an occasion apart," the outgoing Commonwealth Secretary-General and Nigerian national Emeka Anyaoku eloquently explained.
While New Zealand's Foreign Minister Don McKinnon was being unanimously elected to replace Anyaoku, a cynical ear might have taken time to reflect on the Commonwealth's message and find it a little -- well, self-congratulatory. Don't let me be misunderstood. There is an emblematic importance in the fact that this summit is taking place on African soil, in post-apartheid, post-Nelson Mandela South Africa, and in Durban, the Indian Ocean port which hosted a summit of the Non-Aligned Movement barely a year ago. Both Africa, and the Commonwealth, have come a long way in that short space of time. A progress that was clear also in the choice of "People-Centred Development: The Challenge of Globalisation" as the special theme for this year's summit.
However, on closer scrutiny, the picture is not as cheerful as it at first appears. Not only are the continent's nascent democracies somewhat shaky, but there has also been a marked increase of political violence, as witnessed in Nigeria.
Four countries, three African and one Asian -- Kenya, Sri Lanka, Zambia and Zimbabwe -- were singled out for retribution and may now face expulsion if a newly created democracy think-tank headed by British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook judges them guilty of gross human rights violations. In fact, the refusal to maintain an independent judiciary, eradicate corruption and promote civil society would henceforth render Commonwealth countries liable to expulsion from the organisation, if the mooted plans go ahead.
The emerging face of the "new" Commonwealth looks in fact all too familiar, as it takes its cue from London. Britain and the old dominions of Australia, Canada and New Zealand are the role models. The bulk of the Asian and African countries must simply toe the line. India and South Africa are somewhere in between, for while democratic, the vast majority of their populations are desperately poor. In this too, we may find echoes of what we once hope would by now have been a bygone age.
I am not against the Commonwealth's ethos of "consultation, discussion and co-operation." But we should face facts: if the leaders don't get on, the fact that they meet regularly and debate vitally important issues may only make matters worse. Once the tension touchpaper has been lit, the media at once steps in to stoke the fires of fury and focus our attention on the most trivial aspects.
Moreover, the claims of Britain to any kind of moral leadership of the post-colonial world have once again been exposed. Contradicting its own "ethical" foreign policy, the UK government currently exports weapons worth $3.2 billion a year. Nor is this just a backlog from Tory governments past. Tony Blair's government itself approved over 10,000 arms export licences in 1998. Of these, over 20 per cent were for exports to the same countries that were most severely criticised at the Commonwealth summit -- Kenya, Sri Lanka, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Double standards, methinks?
Badgering certain African leaders widely seen as incapable of polishing away the rust of their presumed "native" barbarism has traditionally been a favourite and not so subtle way of putting our people in their place. This negative and condescending attitude is sadly long established, and now seems set to endure well into the new millennium. Leaders such as Idi Amin were traditionally the butt of endless racist jokes in the Western media. It is in this context that the viciousness of recent attacks on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe must be viewed.
Mugabe, like many other post-independence African leaders, has fallen far short of the promising targets he set himself. However, it is common knowledge that he periodically threatens to drive out the 4,000 white so-called "commercial farmers" who monopolise Zimbabwe's most fertile lands and confiscate their property without compensation. Perhaps it is this political radicalism, rather than any personal moral flaw, which lies at the heart of the controversy which has flared up once again around Mugabe's anti-gay crusade.
In South Africa, Mugabe accused British Premier Tony Blair of setting "gay gangsters" on him during a recent official visit to Britain. The Zimbabwean president is understandably furious that British security failed to stop British gay activist Peter Tatchell from grabbing Mugabe's arm and issuing him with a citizen's arrest. That such an "outrage" was permitted to take place is, in the eyes of many Africans, proof in itself of the utter disdain with which the British authorities treat visiting African dignitaries. To add insult to injury, the official British response was not particularly reconciliatory. "The prime minister is not a gay gangster," Blair's official spokesman commented, tongue in cheek.
Sexual orientation aside, poverty loomed large on the Commonwealth agenda, a sign of some residual wisdom among the organisation's leaders. From the conference there emerged the Fancourt Commonwealth Declaration on Globalisation and People-Centred Development. The declaration is intended as a blueprint for survival for the poorer countries of the Commonwealth in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Pacific. Its publication comes on the eve of the World Trade Organisation conference due to convene in two weeks' time in Seattle.
The terms of the text are forthright enough. "Despite the progress of the past 50 years, half of the world's population lives on less than two dollars per day. Many millions live in conditions of extreme deprivation." The Fancourt Document also stresses the "vast gap between rich and poor in their ability to access new technologies." Let us hope that these solemn words will now be backed by swift action.
Some kind of action is certainly needed, as the sort of economic evolution orchestrated by the International Monetary Fund continues to exact a heavy toll on the continent of Africa. Yet any transition is still likely to be tortuously long and hard. Most African countries are more concerned with debt relief, or write-off, than with "the new new thing". And any further economic decline risks undermining their already fragile democracies.
Let us hope too that in the wake of the Fancourt Document, the AIDS epidemic may come to act more as a salve than a sore. Between 1994 and 1997, the number of orphans in certain African countries has doubled, tripled and in some cases even quadrupled. Around 72 per cent of all Zambian households support orphans. After his tiff with Mugabe, Blair and his better half Cherie had a private visit with an AIDS orphan from the Cape. The Blairs have been sponsoring the girl since 1996. A recently-released USAID study of 19 Sub-Saharan African countries estimated that by 2010 some 40 million children would have lost their parents.
Not to be outdone, the Duke of Edinburgh flew to Spion Kop, once the scene of a gory Boer War battle. Among those who took part in the fighting that day were no less distinguished figures than Winston Churchill, then a 24-year-old war correspondent, and Mahatma Gandhi, who worked as a stretcher-bearer for the British.
Queen Elisabeth II, the Commonwealth's figurehead, found time to lay plenty of wreaths while she was in South Africa. On these occasions, she expressed her heartfelt sadness at the loss of life, but stopped short of issuing a public apology to both Boer and Bantu. The British, of course fought many bitter colonial battles with the Zulu, Xhosa and other indigenous peoples of South Africa.
So at the close of the last Commonwealth meeting this century, Pakistan was castigated and expunged, while Nigeria was welcomed back into the fold. Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo flew to South Africa to pay tribute to the Commonwealth's stance in the decades his country laboured under military rule. Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth for many years. But Obasanjo also spoke of his current concerns with ethnic clashes throughout the country, and especially in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, the nation's economic lifeline.
For too long, the Commonwealth has been dedicated to the thankless and destructive task of turning African and Asian countries upside down and refashioning them in Britain's image. On the threshold of a new century, it remains to be seen whether the organisation has the will -- and the power -- to fashion a new and more constructive mission for itself.
