The Commonwealth still has a role to play, conference hears

The need for the Commonwealth to "spread its wings wider" and invite "friendly" countries to become associates was highlighted yesterday by Lord Howell of Guildford.

He was addressing a conference on The Role Of The Commonwealth Today And The Role Of The United Kingdom And Malta In Its Future Development during which President Emeritus Guido de Marco called on the Commonwealth to promote the dialogue of civilisations and the interfacing of faith and development.

The conference was organised by the Strickland Foundation and the British High Commission.

Prof. de Marco, who chairs the Commonwealth Foundation and the Strickland Foundation, said there were about 500 million Muslims in the Commonwealth. In blaming terrorism on Muslims, one was doing a great disservice to Islam, to the Muslims in the Commonwealth. For it was a serious political and ethnic mistake to treat people who never did anything wrong, as culprits.

"The mistakes of individuals cannot be placed on a whole creed or race. "We have to stop this kind of approach, he pleaded.

Lord Howell, deputy leader of the House of Lords and Conservative speaker on foreign affairs, said that issues like terror, energy security, migration, inter-faith tensions, disease control, climatic upheavals and disasters, all demanded a worldwide network of approaches.

Although being part of the European club could be useful, it was not going to help much in these new conditions. "We need something more to keep us connected, refreshed, in touch - and also safe."

The Commonwealth had the kind of spread needed for such new purposes but it was not wide enough.

It should reach out from the existing and established Commonwealth, creating a linked network of common wealth and interest embracing all the nations that were really going to dedicate themselves in earnest or protect and promote values, interests, safety and democratic inclinations.

"Let them become, in carefully selected areas, the practical working partners of the existing Commonwealth."

Lord Howell, who admitted that his views were not shared by many in his country, said that "vendetta countries" should be excluded from this wider network - the countries that hated America on principle, hated the advanced world on principle, were still submerged in anti-colonial bitterness and prejudice, did not really care about poverty reduction or the place of women or the dispossessed and did not want to join or strengthen the international system of trade and security.

The new "friends" should be the nations that shed all this baggage, saw trade, entrepreneurship and innovation as their guiding stars, had no time for protectionist blocs and practices, did not believe that development was a question of bigger aid donations and were prepared to do their full bit to preserve peace and resolve conflicts in a way the UN seemed incapable of doing.

One obvious major candidate was Japan, a nation reviving economically, democratic, increasingly dedicated to helping world stability and peace, committed to open trade, albeit with a few shortcomings, and seeking a relationship with the US which was supportive without being compliant or subservient.

Thailand, Lord Howell said, should be invited to become a correspondent or associate. This wider network should also include some good European members such as Poland and Norway.

Turkey, also on the side of innovation, open trade, strong Atlantic links and doing its utmost for peace and stability, should also be included.

Although Russia was still feeling humiliated and much misunderstood, the day could come when this country could work in common with the Commonwealth and play a truly supportive part in its activities. Some Latin-American candidates could also be included in due course.

Lord Howell said he would also like to see this Commonwealth Mark II develop a particularly supportive and friendly relationship with the smallest nations in a dangerous world, such as Slovenia and the Baltic three, including Estonia.

"Weave this kind of wider alliance together, around the core of the existing Commonwealth institutions and membership and one begins to have a serious force of real weight, not just morally but economic and military, whose opinions would count decisively in the councils of the world..."

"Those who say that such a wider grouping would all be too disparate geographically forget that inside a network it needs only one click on a computer keyboard nowadays to bypass all physical separation and bring allies into the same room," he said.

Britain, Lord Howell said, had to widen the Commonwealth canvas, boldly broadening its reach and contacts to other like-minded states and then place it confidently at the very heart of its foreign, economic and security policies. Hopefully, all other member states would do likewise.

"This does not make us bad Europeans. Intimate regional cooperation with our European neighbours continues to be required in many vital areas.

"It does not make us poodles of the USA. On the contrary we would have the opportunity to shape a far more effective voice in dialogue with the Americans than the EU has come near to achieving.

"It does not make us neglectful of the UN. But the worst disservice that can be done to the UN, reformed or unreformed, is to expect and demand of it the purpose and unity which it can never, by its nature, deliver. Finally, it does not make us compulsive builders or enlargers of new international institutions in a world already overburdened by such bodies, some of them far less accountable than they should be.

"On the contrary, given the tools of the information age only the lightest structure of bureaucratic coordination is necessary to achieve rapid coordination and coherence."

Lord Howell said that to him the Commonwealth was "like the horse that could run".

Prof. de Marco said that the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta in November had to try and develop further its main objectives and deal with what it believed to be the ideas and ideals required to make of the Commonwealth an important instrument in international relations.

"We have to determine what is the coagulant within the Commonwealth." The concept of solidarity, he said, should be a relevant coagulant of the Commonwealth.

Events such as the tsunami which struck Sri Lanka a few months ago and the earthquake in Pakistan a few days ago, which wiped out an entire generation of children, underlined the need for solidarity in the Commonwealth. "In this solidarity context we regard the objective of the fight against want.

"For there is a poverty curtain that is even more impenetrable than the former Iron Curtain, where millions are denied food and shelter, medicine and education."

Prof. de Marco recalled the arrival of boatloads of Albanians in Malta in 1991. The Albanians, he said, had wanted to leave their country which had achieved democracy because they lost their sense of future in their own country.

They were refugees "from the worst possible kind of persecution" - hunger. But under the High Commission for Refugees this was not a good enough reason for the acquisition of refugee status.

There were Africans who tried, through mass migration, to abandon the country of their birth. This, he said, was an area which required further consideration.

Another aspect of the Commonwealth was the relevance of civil society in the democratic governance of a nation.

The Commonwealth Foundation, through the Commonwealth's People Forum, would underline the relevance of civil society as an instrument of democracy.

Prof. de Marco said he believed the approaching CHOGM would have to evaluate:

¤ the global challenges: terrorism, conflict resolution, peace and consensus building;

¤ the fundamental political values of the Commonwealth: democracy, civil society and accountability, within a context of human rights;

¤ the global economic situation and its effect on the millennium development goals;

¤ the Commonwealth and its global partners, regional and international and

¤ how to promote the dialogue of civilisations and the interfacing of faith and development.

The Commonwealth, Prof. de Marco said, was also a Commonwealth of culture, believing as it did that education held the key to progress.

"There is a network in development which helps the educational advancement within the Commonwealth itself at all levels of education, be it primary, secondary or university.

"It is also about trade and finance. The globalisation of the economy and problems affecting certain areas make it an imperative for the Commonwealth to be active and present in development."

Prof. de Marco said that for the Commonwealth to exercise its full potential, the alliances and belongingness which individual nations thereof might have could be put to good use.

The fact that three member countries were also members of the European Union could help bring about a proper synergy between the Commonwealth and the EU in areas of common interest and shared responsibility.

Prof. de Marco named Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela as the personalities who "set their seal on the Commonwealth, its values and its future".

"...Mahatma Ghandi, whose passive resistance in bringing about the independence of his country, in the negation of violence as an instrument of liberation, had set the Commonwealth on the path of peaceful revolution.

"...Nelson Mandela who, after decades of humiliating imprisonment on Devil's Island, became the symbol of unity, tolerance, forgiveness and understanding between races.