Le Commonwealth

LE COMMONWEALTH

The word commonwealth first qualified a body politic founded on the law for the common « weal », i.e. welfare, well-being or happiness; it then became used by some philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes or John Locke to mean an organized political community. In English history, “Commonwealth” refers to the republic established by Parliament and led by Oliver Cromwell after the execution of King Charles I in 1649 and continuing until the Restoration in 1660. In the United States, the word originally applied to the religious communities created by the Puritans in Massachusetts; today Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia are still legally known individually as Commonwealths.

Today’s most common usage of the word Commonwealth refers to the informal voluntary association of 53 independent countries that for the most part are former colonies of the United Kingdom, and formed the British Empire of the 19th century. Lord Rosebury , later Prime minister, who called the Empire a “Commonwealth of Nations”, first used the name Commonwealth in 1884. In 1887, the first colonial conference later led to Imperial Conferences between the United Kingdom and the Prime Minister of the self-governing dominions. On 15 May 1917, Jan Smuts, representing South Africa in the Imperial War Cabinet of World War I, suggested that “British Commonwealth of Nations” was the proper title for the British Empire. At the Imperial Conference of 1926, prime ministers adopted the Balfour Report, which defined the United Kingdom and Dominions as”.. equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations”. The 1930 conference paved the way for the Statute of Westminster of 1931, in which the dominions of Australia, Canada, Ireland, Newfoundland, New Zealand and South Africa were described as “autonomous communities within the British Empire”. As others British dependencies gained independence, some of them becoming republics, the Commonwealth dropped the requirement that members hold allegiance to the British monarch, now solely regarded as the symbolic head of their free association. Whereas in non-Commonwealth countries the sovereign is represented by an ambassador in Commonwealth countries, his (or her) representatives bear the name of High Commissioner. The Commonwealth nations are Great Britain, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Botswana, Brunel, Canada, Cyprus, Dominica, Fiji Islands, The Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Lesotho, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nauru, New Zealand, Nigeria, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Western Samoa, and Zambia. Thirty-one of them have a president and six a king or a sultan, while Queen Elizabeth II is the head of sixteen nations. Commonwealth countries cover about a quarter of the surface of the earth’s surface and spread over every continent and ocean, from Africa to Asia, from Pacific shores to the Caribbean, in developed and developing nations; the Commonwealth’s 1.8 billion people make up 30% of the world’s population and are of many faiths, races, languages, and cultures. India, with over 900 million habitants has more population than all the other Commonwealth nations put together. Nauru (pop.11000) and Tuvalu (pop. 12000) situated in the Pacific Ocean are two of the smallest nations in the world. Cameroon, though not a former British colony, was accepted into the Commonwealth in 1995.

On various occasions some countries have left the Commonwealth for political reasons. In 1962, South Africa withdrew over the issue of apartheid. In 1972, Pakistan withdrew over the recognition of Bangladesh (it rejoined in 1989) and in 1987, Fiji left after a military coup (it rejoined in 1997.) Some countries have also been suspended for violating the principles of the 1991 Harare Declaration emphasizing democracy, human rights and equality. Nigeria was suspended from 1995 to 1999, so were Sierra Leone in 1977, Fiji from 2000 to 2001, and Pakistan after the 1999

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