Page 201 - Afrika Must Unite

AFRICA MUST UNITE
Some of the nomenclature is outmoded but the principle of
sovereign identity of the members of the Commonwealth is more
meaningful than ever. Members, however, have the right to
criticize each other, and do. For example, events in the Union of
South Africa and the whole subject of apartheid came under
heavy fire at the Conference of the Commonwealth Prime
Ministers in M ay i960, and in 1961 South Africa left the
Commonwe alth.
There is no compulsion to rem ain within the Commonwealth,
or even to become a member. Burma exercised the right to sever
her relations with the Commonwealth on becoming free in 1947.
O ther states, like Canada and Australia, acknowledge the
British Crown as Head of State. India, Pakistan, Ceylon and
now Ghana, choose to m aintain Republics.
There are mistaken claims that the French Community, by
virtue of the changes that have been wrought in its original
intentions through the greater panoply of powers vested in the
new African states (which are the result of popular pressures),
is taking on the character of the Commonwealth. The resolution
from the recent meeting of the Brazzaville Group at Bangui,
calling for the transformation of the Community into a French­
speaking association patterned on the Commonwealth, does not
comprehend the essential uniqueness of the Commonwealth.
The fact is that, in the circumstances of having to dissolve an
existing association to replace it with a new one, constitution-
making will have to be invoked. This will at once instil a
principle which is entirely out of keeping with the whole idea
of the Commonwealth, which is not governed by any constitu­
tion. It grew out of the association of the white dominions within
the British Empire and has adapted itself, with customary
British flexibility, to the continuing evolvement of political in­
dependence among the non-European members.
Nevertheless, if the United Kingdom opts into a close
European federation by attaching to the European Common
M arket, the position of Ghana, as a member of the sterling area,
would be prejudiced, and we might be forced to withdraw from
the Commonwealth to safeguard our trading position. It seems
anomalous, therefore, that the new African states at this time,
when the French Community is in decline and the unity of the