Commonwealth? What Commonwealth!

One African brother, dressed in a crisp English blue suit and blue tie, walked into the Daily Observer offices yesterday and tried to hassle free coverage for the Commonwealth Secretary General’s annual statement. Look, we said, “Can’t the mighty Commonwealth, based in the most expensive square mile of London, St James, afford to pay a poor African newspaper for advertorial space?”.

My blue-suited brother, well educated as he is from the land of Makerere, was so comfortable in his English that I was afraid to engage him in my favourite Swahili. He tried to explain how wonderful the Commonwealth is (“a family of nations” - he said).

I think my young Ugandan brother mistook this old Kaftan and sandals wearing editor for a recently arrived village sheep farmer! He had no idea that I condemned the whole concept of “Commonwealth and Francophone Africa” in writing before he was born.

“Commonwealth” and “Francophone” are odious colonial terms which should have no meaning in today’s pan-Africanist Africa. As we all know, France still uses the “Francophone” alliance grouping and the CFA to control their former colonies.

Britain is a little clever in its use of the Commonwealth, but the very concept of the Commonwealth is a colonial tool invented by UK PLC. It began as the “White Commonwealth” composed of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Yes, majority-black South Africa was recognised by the British South African Constitution of 1910 as a white country - this constitution was the first to exclude the black majority from voting and thus led to Aparthied.

When black Africa agitated and fought for its independence, the white Commonwealth co-opted our leaders into their club, to continue economic exploitation as “preferred trading partners”.

Then the European Union came along and became Britain’s major trading partner. So Britain shut its doors to our bananas and our people, so that today formerly Russian Slovaks can walk into Britain as European citizens but we, “Commonwealth family  members”, are denied visas and die in deserts and in the  sea trying to get to Britain. And yet we continue the charade of the “Commonwealth family”, even when the white Commonwealth members have ganged-up and succeeded in strangling the people of Zimbabwe because Mugabe kicked out a few white land-grabbers.

My crisp-suited Ugandan brother said goodbye, in English, and promised to come back to convince me of the value of the Commonwealth! If he reads this, I can only tell him that he will have better luck if he wears a Kaftan and greets me in the Swahili that we both understand. Then I will try and convince him to resign his job in London and return to Africa to help develop our continent.