An unnecessary conference
The Queen has let it be known that it is her 'firm intention' to attend The Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference. Her courage and conviction do her credit, though they come as no surprise from one whose devotion to duty is a byword. But although the intention may be the Queen's, the decision as to whether she should go to Zambia is not hers. It is for her Ministers — her Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher, and her Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Lord Carrington — to decide and then to advise the Monarch, who will of course accept their advice. And it becomes ever clearer that the Queen's Ministers should advise her in unambiguous terms not to go. As the Spectator was among the first to point out, there is more than an ordinary security risk attendant on the Conference.
The Queen's person can never be absolutely protected — in Edinburgh or at Ascot — if she is to remain in any real sense a public person. Monarchs and statesmen have always been vulnerable to attack and assassination, as history shows. And in the melancholy times in which we live security risks from terrorist fanatics are greater than ever: witness the late summit meeting in Tokyo, where the leaders of the West had to be guarded by the equivalent of several infantry divisions. The forthcoming Conference in Zambia involves, however, a risk different in kind as well as in degree from the hazards of Japan, or Israel, or Ulster. There is no question of a democratic state wrestling to keep terrorists at bay. In Zambia the forces of Mugabe — somewhere between a gang and an army — are considerably stronger than the official Zambia army, and an armed truce reigns between the two on condition that the terrorists may do as they wish. As we have seen, they do not hesitate to shoot down civilian airliners; they are heavily armed with anti-aircraft missiles; their camps are close to Lusaka airport: the lives of visitors to the Conference may be in danger before they arrive.
All this provokes a further and deeper question: is there
any point to Ate Conference anyway? And is any real purpose served by the Commonwealth? The cynical answer to the first question is that the Conference has more than once provided the opportunity for a tyrannous ruler to be deposed by one of his fellow countrymen (who becomes a tyrannous ruler in turn). The answer to the second question is more problematic. The ties which bind together the member countries of the Commonwealth are, when examined, fragile ones. When the Commonwealth first succeeded the Empire it comprised what were called, in a more candid age, the 'white colonies'. Those lands has obvious bonds with what was called — again without embarrassment — the 'mother country': bonds of kinship, culture, religion, above all language and law. Those bonds remain. Much the same ties bind us to the United States. And now, a newer attachment has been forged between Great Britain and the countries of Western Europe, united in the European Community.
But what have the countries of the 'New Commonwealth' in common — with one another, let alone with the United Kingdom — apart from the simple fact that they are the 'successor states' of the British Empire? The story of decolonisation may yet be seen as one of the most impressive in British history, but is absurd to pretend that the pseudo-states which the Empire left behind resemble the
• nation states of Europe. There has been one great and noble success: India, which preserves its liberty and democracy under fearful pressure. For the rest, the New Commonwealth presents a picture of despotism, corruption and strife — and precious little brotherly fellow-feeling. To say this is no more 'racist' than to say that the Britain that the Romans once conquered and left behind, was uncivilised by the standards of that age. To say otherwise is hypocrisy. It would be more honest and more generous to let the countries which now compose the Commonwealth go their own ways and manage their own destinies with our good wishes and best hopes.
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