by Holroyd, Tom
It was a huge success. Today it is the most powerful trade and military alliance in the world and has been an incredible force for good. I know there are the commentators who say that the Commonwealth is a neo-colonial empire dominated by Britain but frankly anyone who thinks that does not have the faintest idea what they are talking about and has clearly never attended a meeting of the heads of state. Trust me there is no way I could dictate anything to them.
We knew when we were forming it, that there were certain areas that would to cause issues. That is why the New Commonwealth Charter is so flexible. We dropped the bit about the Monarch being the head of the Commonwealth as that was always a touchy area, especially for Ireland and instead created a truly equal union. Every nation would have the same rights and standing as the others. There would be no president and each nation has a representative sitting on the council casting his or her vote. All decisions would be a majority rule and no one had the veto. We had learnt that lesson the hard way from watching the UN trying to get anything done. There is a single law code that all nations must enforce, it is based on English Common Law but as a lot of the nations were using this anyway that was hardly a problem. However, enforcing it is, try getting some of the nations in the world to give equal rights to women or proper employment laws that don’t allow exploitation of low income workers. All I can say is thank God I am not a lawyer.
Economically, the Commonwealth has been a huge help to the world, by improving every member’s infrastructure we helped to create islands of stability and production across the world that then acted as hubs from which more development could take place. It has helped to get economies and trade moving across the world and lifted so many people out of poverty.
Militarily it has really contributed as well. Once we trained up member states’ armies to a sufficient standard they were able to crack on and clear their borders and then look to help their neighbours. That was always a slightly risky moment though, ensuring that one state did not cross the line from helping a neighbour to invading them. But we tended to find that the threat of an embargo was normally enough to stop any thoughts of expansion.
If you look at the Commonwealth now it is a major military player on the world stage. It is one of the largest contributors to UN operations and all member states have signed a mutual defence agreement, effectively ending the risk of state on state war in many parts of the world. Plus, slowly but surely, we are building one of the largest single defence forces the world has ever seen. It was one of the side effects of the training and assistance missions. Most Commonwealth states now have a common set of equipment and practices to work with and we are all starting to come together to build a truly international organisation.
To me it is the perfect metaphor for how the world has come together.
When the Panic hit, every nation stood alone and we nearly all paid the price for that insular attitude. It may be a bit poetic of me, but I see the world as having been tempered by the War as one does steel. We all went through the fire and came out stronger the other side. Most nations are physically weaker than before but mentally and emotionally many are stronger than ever. Just look at Britain, before the War we had four separate national identities that caused no end of strife. But through shared struggle we came together, broke down the old barriers and came together as a people.
I don’t know what the future holds and I am sure that there will be some more conflicts along the way but I have faith that, as a species, we will take the punch that was the Zombie War, get up, dust ourselves off and move forward to make things better. If that sounds a bit twee than I hope that you will forgive me for having a little bit of hope that things will get better and we will learn from our mistakes.
