1Had there been no British Empire, one could argue that there would have been no Commonwealth of Nations. But does it mean that today’s Commonwealth is a ghost of Empire? Successive Secretaries General of the Commonwealth have always dismissed such notions: the organisation was neither the disembodied soul, nor the faint reproduction of Britain’s imperial designs. Its first Secretary General, Arnold Smith, frequently reminded the world that ‘it is not true that the Commonwealth is a ghost of empire’1. His successor, Shridath Ramphal, made a distinction between the Commonwealth of the 1930s, the white man’s club, which he perceived as ‘an evolution of empire’, and the later Commonwealth, which he described as ‘the negation of empire’2. There was a double objective behind these statements. First, Shridath Ramphal wanted to demonstrate to the world and to Commonwealth members that the organisation was free from British subjugation, had developed an identity of its own and was not bound by British decisions. Simultaneously, he implied that the Commonwealth was an undeniably relevant organisation in the international affairs of an evolving postcolonial world. Former imperial and colonial powers and former dominated territories were being brought together, through diplomatic cooperation and confrontation. But none of these statements necessarily implies that the Commonwealth is free of all ghosts. Is it truly the negation of empire or can a number of ghosts be perceived in the Commonwealth of Nations? British ghosts, emanating from the old hub of the Empire, are of particular interest. Is the Commonwealth still haunted by the dark ghost of British oppression, manifesting itself in the form of London’s heavyweight political, economic and diplomatic influence? In parallel, do a number of British ideals remain alive within the organisation? If so, do they cast a daunting shadow over current Commonwealth members or have they been appropriated and turned into benign ghosts? If the Commonwealth is the negation of Empire, is it because colonial and post-colonial ghosts have been successfully exorcised? In this context, it is essential to determine whether the Commonwealth has been and still is a forum to normalise post-colonial relations, by focusing on two related issues. Is the Commonwealth haunted by the Empire? Can the Commonwealth be at all considered as a form of neo-colonialism? First, the complex dual process that has always animated the Commonwealth, the virtually simultaneous debunking of Britain and rooting of core Commonwealth ideals in British principles, deserves consideration. The issue will then be examined through a comparison between British and French post-colonial relations, between the Commonwealth and the Francophone models.

2The modern Commonwealth of Nations has grown out of the determination of its members to exorcise British domination and to use the diplomatic means at their disposal to confront, criticise, influence and if possible curb Britain’s influence. The process that had begun in 1867 with Canada’s dominionhood and continued with the 1931 Statute of Westminster led to one of the major landmarks in Commonwealth history: the 1949 entry of India as the first Republic in the Organisation. If the 1947-49 events proved that India needed the international leverage of the Commonwealth, they were also evidence that Britain was prepared to trade its constitutional power for the opportunity to retain privileged links with its former territories. British decision-makers knew that decline was inevitable and the transformation of the Commonwealth was both a means of accepting it and fighting it. Close links with former territories were based on equality of status and full independence, but they could also provide Britain with the ability to influence them and to salvage its own reputation by proving it held no resentment against former possessions. These concerns were similarly at the heart of the diplomacies of new Commonwealth members: influence Britain and use the Organisation to prove that political dependence was well in the past. In the post-colonial international framework, there was no room for complacent behaviour towards Britain. It had controlled the Empire but it was not to impose its rule on the Commonwealth. As the number of developing Commonwealth countries grew, particularly with the wave of independences in the 1960s, Britain found itself the butt of increasingly vocal criticism. The Commonwealth was thus a diplomatic attempt at exorcising the ghost of Britain’s Empire, all the more strongly as London still held a number of possessions. Newly independent countries consciously transformed the Commonwealth into an efficient forum for systematic attacks against Britain. Commonwealth summits were the occasion to intensify pressure and confront British leaders directly. Leading politicians and diplomats in the heavyweights of the developing Commonwealth, in India, Ghana, Nigeria or Zambia, set up a concerted diplomatic effort specifically aimed at influencing British international policies in areas such as decolonisation, fight against apartheid, aid for development or relations with Europe and the United States. Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI), following Harold Wilson’s public announcement that Britain would not resort to force against Rhodesia’s oppressive white government should they proclaim independence, led to intense conflict in the Commonwealth. African and Asian members in particular felt that London had violated the principles of the Organisation, ignored their support for a majority-rule in Rhodesia, abused its political and economic might and endangered long-term political prospects for Rhodesians. Tanzania and Ghana both decided to break diplomatic ties with Britain in protest and recalled their High Commissioners in London. Yet they opted to remain in the Commonwealth and use it as a forum to publicise their views. Leaders of developing countries realised early on that regular meetings and summits were the opportunity to formulate a Commonwealth position to present to the rest of the world. Their actions were supported by the recently created Secretariat (1965), with diplomatic staff lent by individual members but representing and working for the Organisation as a whole—as Shridath Ramphal has claimed, even though the Secretariat was established in London for practical reasons, ‘the Commonwealth has no capital.’3 Emeka Anyaoku, first recruited to the Secretariat from the Nigeria diplomatic service in 1966 and elected Secretary General of the Organisation in 1989, noted how the Secretariat served to rid the Commonwealth of its ‘whiff of neo-colonialism and Anglo-centricity’ and make it ‘a beneficent force in international affairs’4. The majority of newly independent, developing members from the South thus influenced the emerging Commonwealth voice. It is true that the Rhodesian crisis demonstrated the permanence of imperial ghosts. There were remnants of the Old Commonwealth club as the original dominions criticised Britain far less vocally and openly than the newer Commonwealth members. And there was also evidence that the ghost of British domination was still a powerful presence: Britain had the capacity to take whatever diplomatic decision it wanted and disregard pressure from partners that were economically and militarily weaker. Britain’s indifference to the Commonwealth voice would also manifest itself in 1970, with Edward Heath’s decision to resume arms sales to apartheid South Africa, or in the 1980s, with Margaret Thatcher’s constant disregard for Commonwealth sanctions against the Pretoria regime. As Jean-Marc Phaneuf’s drawing (fig. 1 on the following page) demonstrates, the Commonwealth would certainly fare very poorly, if not collapse, without Britain, and Margaret Thatcher’s attitude showed how some British leaders have played their political and economic advantage to the full.5

3Yet at the same time as Britain ignored whole parts of the Commonwealth agenda, the Organisation took an identity of its own, defeating the argument that Commonwealth membership equalled British partnership. Tanzania’s 1965 decision to sever diplomatic ties with London was far from merely symbolic: while his country badly needed support for development, Julius Nyerere rejected British aid, his major source of financial help until then, which dropped to insignificant levels and only increased markedly in the mid-1970s. In the late 1960s, a vast survey was undertaken by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with the assistance of British High Commissioners throughout the Commonwealth, in order to decide whether it was really worth Britain’s while to remain within an organisation that was so viciously anti-British. Diplomats in London pointed out that in world meetings, and particularly at the United Nations, ‘it [was] invariably certain Commonwealth countries which [took] the lead in setting the pack on [them]’6. In their eyes, the Commonwealth of Nations had become the Organisation of the developing world’s heavyweights, to the extent that in Francophone Africa, the Commonwealth was perceived as a political and cultural threat, because it was understood to be under the dominant influence of Nigeria and Ghana7. Under the impetus of the Commonwealth Secretariat and its Secretary Generals, from Arnold Smith to Emeka Anyaoku, the new post-colonial Commonwealth diplomacy can claim two major victories: the Lancaster House Agreement of 1979 and the progressive end of apartheid in South Africa, culminating in Nelson Mandela’s election to the presidency and South Africa’s re-entry into the Commonwealth in 1994. Although the Commonwealth was not the only party involved in negotiations, one cannot underplay the impact the Commonwealth had on international dynamics generally and on British policies more specifically. While they performed no miracle and had no immediate leverage over London’s decision not to use force against Ian Smith’s regime or over the British government’s resumption of arms sales to South Africa, Commonwealth members definitely weighed in the balance of forces which ultimately brought Britain to review its policies, particularly on the African continent. By the time each achievement occurred, Britain had contributed to it and was fully involved in the solution. As early as January 1966 at the Lagos meeting, the Commonwealth had set up a Sanctions Committee and a Programme of Assistance in Training African Rhodesians. While Portuguese-ruled Mozambique had been a major ally of Ian Smith’s regime, the Commonwealth acted on the early signs of the dismantlement of Portugal’s empire in 1974 and entered into negotiations with Mozambican leaders to strengthen political and economic pressure against Rhodesia. Mozambique’s acceptance of Commonwealth partnership in 1974 led to its 1995 admission to the Commonwealth of Nations. Although Mozambique remains an exception, its membership demonstrates that common struggle against colonialism and racial discrimination in Southern Africa was as good a criterion of Commonwealth identity as a past constitutional link with Britain or an existing Commonwealth member. At the time of the Lusaka Conference and Lancaster House Agreement in 1979, Britain, with the support of the United States, managed to impose some conditions, such as the impossibility for Zimbabwe to alter its constitution before a period of seven years. But it failed to impose others: its ‘ABM’ (Anyone But Mugabe) obsession and its insistence on majority rule (as opposed to black majority rule) came to no avail. In parallel, the 1980 elections were not monitored by the former colonial power alone: a Commonwealth team was set up, and British representatives worked alongside their Kenyan, Fijian and New Zealand counterparts. Britain’s troubled times are very well represented in R. Kaufmanis’ drawing (fig. 2): the Queen, head of the British state and of the Commonwealth, witnesses the agony of Britain’s empire at the hands of this same Commonwealth. The British state looks eager to be as distant from its old imperial days as possible, but the unmistakable British identity of the lion remarkably shows Britain’s uncomfortable position in the Commonwealth at the time.

4Whilst British diplomacy was being assessed critically and seemed the ingredient of its possible downfall, there was a determined attempt to dissociate it from the creation of the Commonwealth of Nations. Shridath Ramphal argued that the ‘modern Commonwealth was essentially [Nehru’s] creation’8 and many would agree with him that had India not sought to combine Commonwealth membership with republicanism in 1949, the organisation would not have survived. As the first non-white government of the Commonwealth and a gigantic state led by the influential J. Nehru, India did much to transform the Commonwealth into an appealing forum for newly independent developing countries. Even more strikingly, the modern Commonwealth of Nations is not a British creation for the simple reason, according to Arnold Smith, that it really is the product of Canadian statecraft and diplomacy (Smith 1977). The American Colonies had achieved full independence and seceded completely from Britain by 1783. Virtually a hundred years later, Canadian politicians had secured only partial independence when they were granted self-government in 1867, but had maintained close ties with Britain and progressively influenced the emergence of a Commonwealth. Far from being the choice tool for Britain to keep up its influence on the international scene, the old white man’s club that had developed into today’s fully-fledged organisation of independent states was a forum for former British possessions to promote their own diplomatic agenda. When looking at Britain’s tense relations with Africa or Asia in the post-colonial period, one must not forget that British diplomats also suffered from the considerably better reputation that their Canadian counterparts often enjoyed. At a time when Australia and New Zealand were conspicuously absent on the African continent, Canada was the only developed member of the Commonwealth to take an increasing interest in providing economic support to Africa whilst never having been one of its colonial powers. Such an evolution was obviously in Canada’s own interest, as the federal government sought to assert itself next to the United States and Britain, but also to control and moderate the African endeavours of independent-minded groups from Quebec. But whatever Canada’s motives were, its growing visibility meant that the Commonwealth of Nations and its various programmes, including the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation, set up in 1971, were less British. Britain did provide most financial aid to Commonwealth Africa, for instance, but was no longer the only available source of aid within the Organisation. In fact, Britain derives no leverage from being the main financer of the organisation and would actually attract much virulent criticism if or when it tried to do so. It certainly is one of the major international donors and this does play to its advantage at the bilateral level. But within the multilateral framework of the Commonwealth itself, the impetus and direction provided by the Commonwealth Secretariat is central. Shridath Ramphal and his team were determined to promote the interests of developing Commonwealth members during the admission procedure of Britain to the European Economic Community. While Britain demonstrated that her priorities laid with Europe, not with the Commonwealth, some progress was nonetheless achieved with the signature of the first Lomé Convention in 1975. More generally, secretarial work means that allocation of Commonwealth funds is less easily influenced.

5Moreover, never was a Briton Secretary General of the Commonwealth: diplomats from Canada, Guyana, Nigeria, New Zealand and India have in turn been elected to the post. Neither the British nor the Commonwealth as a whole have thought it fit that a representative of the former imperial centre should as yet gain access to this pivotal role in the organisation. It is certainly in keeping with the determination to steer clear of imperial patterns of domination but it could also be the sign that not all ghosts have been exorcised, or at least that the Commonwealth Organisation still worries about being perceived as a remnant of Empire. While the English monarch remains its head, with no real power but with symbolic force nonetheless, a British presence at the top of the Secretariat would be seen as a threat to the general balance.

6But while today’s organisation is no longer Britain’s Commonwealth, it is nonetheless rooted in a number of principles, institutions and procedures that stem from the imperial era and from Britain itself. In fact, one can argue that the Commonwealth has lived on because it has acknowledged the diversity of the British Empire itself. There was never one uniform Empire, just as there never was a single united English or British vision of the Empire: imperial designs always had a variety of supporters and a variety of opponents. As it developed, the Commonwealth strove to exorcise imperial ghosts and dispensed with the disreputable side of the Empire. Racial diversity is thought of in terms of equality rather than hierarchy. South Africa was dismissed from the Organisation in 19619, the 1971 Singapore Declaration, one of the key texts in Commonwealth history, was the first to equate colonial oppression and racial segregation, and the current work of the Secretariat focuses on the interrelated issues of multilateralism, multiculturalism and citizenship, on the assets and challenges of diversity in our societies. In parallel, the question is no longer whether territories should be developed, as was the case in the days of the Empire, from India to Oceania or during the Scramble for Africa. The emphasis lies on how territories can best be developed, taking local characteristics and specific requirements into account. The work of the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation has expanded exponentially and Commonwealth initiatives cover a wide range of development issues, from micro-credit to support for the health and education sectors, all the while providing gender and youth-sensitive programmes. One constant concern of the Commonwealth has been to avoid being too exclusive in development initiatives. The 1950 Colombo Plan was open to non-Commonwealth members in South East Asia. More recently, the innovative Commonwealth Secretariat—Debt Recording and Management System (CS-DRMS), set up in 1990, has been extended to a number of partner organisations, including the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB), The West African Institute for Financial and Economic Management (WAIFEM), the Macro Economic and Financial Management Institute (MEFMI), the Crown Agents (CA), Debt Relief International (DRI), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB)10. The Commonwealth’s determination and ability to share some of the benefits of membership reflects the fact that most of its members also belong to other organisations, be they based on language, region or other interests. This openness and partnership work thus demonstrates that the Commonwealth is not bound by an all-exclusive Anglo-Saxon framework and its imperial past.

7Simultaneously though, the Commonwealth has kept what good and practical values animated British ambitions. Shridath Ramphal claimed that Britain infused the Commonwealth with three core qualities: a ‘powerful alchemy of vision’, ‘pragmatism’ and ‘an ethos that sanctifies the right of dissent, that makes a virtue of diversity’11. It could obviously be argued that these characteristics are rather a thorn in the Commonwealth’s side. Dissent means violations as much as freedom: Margaret Thatcher used it to disregard sanctions against South Africa while various dictators and military leaders across the Commonwealth have used it to justify their oppressive regimes. Diplomacy based on pragmatism and diversity also has its limits: consensus diplomacy often favours the lowest common denominator. On balance though, these values have proven to be the strength of the organisation. Pragmatism is indeed at the heart of the current Commonwealth. Lack of funds, in an organisation whose members are mostly from the developing world, means that many development projects rely on carefully prepared expert missions and training seminars. Democracy and human rights have become core principles, with violations leading to sanctions, but the Commonwealth has undertaken a thorough reflection on the concept of democracy. Unquestionable principles, formulated since the 1971 Singapore Declaration and reinforced through the 1990s12, are balanced against the diversity of Commonwealth members. The concept of democracy has been understood as a series of non-negotiable rights and duties—ranging from universal adult suffrage to freedom of expression, from free and responsible political opposition to fair elections—in a broad framework that includes development challenges13 and demands that local specificities are taken into account and accommodated. The Westminster model is thus precisely that, a model, valuable yet not unique in an organisation with a majority of republics. Consensual summit diplomacy provides the basis for wide-ranging discussions encouraging the expression of opinions and informal confrontation. The dual pattern set up by Britain has survived: today’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings are the heirs of former imperial conferences; Commonwealth relations are channelled through High Commissions while the foreign sphere is left to embassies. But in no way does this system favour the British: if found unhelpful, members could freely abandon it. The Commonwealth has thus adapted British patterns to its members’ needs and transformed them in a post-colonial setting. It is extremely important to underline the fact that it was a deliberate approach, meant to prove that the Commonwealth did stem from the Empire but was in no way bound by its roots. Arnold Smith contrasted the idea that ‘the empire was created in a fit of absence of mind’ with the fact that ‘the Commonwealth certainly was not developed in a fit of absence of mind [but] was invented and developed [with] a lot of presence of mind’ (Smith 1977). This goes back to Canada’s decisive role in the creation of the Organisation but one is also struck by so much insistence. As the Commonwealth of Nations was digesting its imperial legacy and proving its independence, it remained haunted by the fear of still being perceived as a mere ghost of empire, as a neo-colonial organisation.

8In 1975, Arnold Smith stated that ‘the new Commonwealth was not, indeed, a new colonialism’14. Five years earlier, British diplomats had concluded that newly independent Commonwealth members nurtured such hatred of anything neo-colonial that they took ‘a neurotic pleasure in bugging [Britain] on every occasion’15: they had opted for Commonwealth membership precisely in order to turn the organisation into an anti-colonial forum. British diplomats in London, high commissioners and ambassadors in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s pointed out repeatedly that French diplomacy was often perceived as a barely disguised neo-colonial enterprise in the political, economic and cultural fields16. While the British were far from being applauded, they were believed to be less cynical and respond to pressure more17. In this respect, it is interesting to compare the development of the Commonwealth with the emergence of Francophone organisations, much commented on and often much criticised by the newer members of the Commonwealth. The short-lived French community of the late 1950s in Africa was viewed by Commonwealth Africa with disbelief, horror and disdain: as they envisaged joining the Commonwealth, they could not grasp why their Francophone counterparts would accept what they saw as a shameless perpetuation of the French empire.18 Conversely, the French seemed unable to understand the relevance and the organisation of the Commonwealth. British diplomats noted repeatedly that they were being ‘held responsible when another Commonwealth country [did] something the French dislike[d]’19, while their partners were fully independent and thus in charge of their diplomacy. This, precisely at a time when they had to face the various attacks of other Commonwealth members, was both a source of irritation and pride for the British. It confirmed that they had no real sway over their Commonwealth partners but it also made it clear that Commonwealth relations were based on independence and sovereignty—unlike the links that united France and its former empire. The development of the Francophonie, with the Agence de coopération culturelle et technique (ACCT), is an interesting case in point. The ACCT emerged in 1970 under the impetus of African and Asian leaders; membership was open to states, including later provincial states, which ‘shared the French language’. Unlike the Commonwealth where members need to have been constitutionally linked to Britain or an existing member, no link with the former French empire was required: some former territories, such as Algeria, never joined while membership went beyond ex-French colonial possessions. In theory, it should have been far freer of colonial and post-colonial ghosts than the Commonwealth. In practice though, it was accused of being a diplomatic tool in the hands of the French, a weapon for France’s cultural expansion and an additional framework to maximise French presence in former territories. For instance, Francophonie organisations were perceived as a threat to Francophone Africa’s real independence, supplementing heavy French political, economic, military and cultural presence as well as the later Franco-African summits, in areas where France’s neo-colonial networks were at work. For critics, it did little to undermine la Françafrique. Since the 1990s, Francophone institutions have gone through a major overhaul, broadening their mostly cultural agenda to include political and development concerns and electing a Secretary General for the first time in 1997. Interestingly, the reforms of Francophone institutions have followed the Commonwealth model and the mechanisms it put in place to promote democracy, human rights and development20. Although no organisation is flawless, the Commonwealth’s approach to post-colonial issues is thus valuable beyond its own members and its work has not been limited by its 19th century imperial origins.

9Finally, the Commonwealth’s tackling of ghosts is brought to light by the issue of membership. The allegiance to Britain is now well in the past: most members are Republics and English is often only one of several official languages in most Commonwealth countries. As the case of Mozambique proves, former constitutional links with Britain or existing Commonwealth members were not even necessary to secure membership. Nor are they enough to retain membership: Nigeria was suspended for serious violations of democracy; Pakistan and Fiji have been sanctioned several times and remain suspended in early 2008. Following suspension, Zimbabwe has now left the Commonwealth: the country and the organisation both remain haunted by the Rhodesian past and post-independence politics under Mugabe. There are thus limits to what the Commonwealth has exorcised21. But are there also limits to what should be exorcised? Membership criteria are currently under review. Some have argued that the Mozambique case should become the rule rather than the exception and that membership should be based purely on values and beliefs22. Would this be progress or would it signal the dissolution of the Commonwealth into a different version of the United Nations? The Commonwealth’s dilemma is embodied in the English monarch’s paradoxical status: the English crown has lost all binding power on the organisation yet remains at its head. It has only symbolic value in practice but aren’t symbolic values extremely potent? Would the election of a Briton to the post of Secretary General exorcise ghosts further, or bring them to life? And can a Briton be chosen for the role while the English monarch still has this symbolic position in the Organisation? The decision of Commonwealth leaders will be absolutely crucial and should help answer a very complex question. The Commonwealth of Nations has been a useful forum to tackle post-colonial issues, with relative success, and on balance, it has steered clear of neo-colonial relations: does it now need to scrap all trace of Empire to be certain to have moved on beyond post-colonial relations?