Can Prince Charles save the Commonwealth once the
Queen is gone?
Rob Harris
By Rob
Harris
June 17,
2022 — 11.04am
London:
Prince Charles jets into Kigali, Rwanda, next week with the weight of a former
empire on his shoulders. The king-in-waiting has been thrust into the limelight
during the past months, stepping up as his ailing mother drastically scales
back her public duties.
So it has fallen
to him to intervene to protect the monarchy from the scandal surrounding his
brother, Prince Andrew. He’s also attempted to patch up the strained relations
with his son Prince Harry and wife Meghan, following the fallout from their
decision to cease their royal duties and move to the United States.
But amid
the soap opera of two generations of warring siblings, the royals are also
facing calls to modernise and even apologise. The House of Windsor must
navigate a colonial reckoning after tours to the Caribbean earlier this year
were plagued by protest and anti-monarchist sentiment.
The
protests in Jamaica, Belize and the Bahamas provided a window into some of the
many challenges a post-Elizabethan world may provide for Charles, and his son
William. And it all begs the question whether the Commonwealth - a group of 54
nation-states largely comprised of former British colonies - can survive.
While the
Queen has championed the Commonwealth throughout her reign, many critics damn
it as ineffective and irrelevant.
There has
also been major discontent with the organisation at an administrative level,
with a move afoot to oust Patricia Scotland as secretary general, following
claims she has failed to modernise the institution.
Although
some wealthier nations, such as Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, still
retain the Queen as their head of state, members in the Caribbean are intent on
breaking with royal hierarchy after Barbados became the region’s newest
republic at the end of last year.
Prince Charles arrives in Barbados
Prince Charles has arrived in Barbados as the
Caribbean island removes Queen Elizabeth as head of state.
Charles
flew out to witness the historic moment, declaring that the “appalling atrocity
of slavery forever stains our history” at an event in Bridgetown. But since
that speech, officials in at least six countries have indicated they too intend
to remove the monarch as their sovereign.
“What
you’re really seeing now is the ghost of an organisation,” Philip Murphy, a
professor of British and Commonwealth History at the University of London says.
“The
Commonwealth talks about the importance of promoting democracy, tackling
climate change, tackling gender inequality. But the Commonwealth isn’t
necessarily a logical framework internationally in which to deal with any of
those problems.”
Charles and
wife, Camilla, will be the first British royals to visit Rwanda, which became a
member of the Commonwealth in 2009 even though it was a colony of Germany in
the 19th century and of Belgium for the first half of the 20th century.
They want
to use their trip, in the days before the Commonwealth Heads of Government
Meeting (CHOGM), to focus on reconciliation following the 1994 genocide, in
which up to 800,000 people from the minority Tutsi community were slaughtered
by Hutu extremists.
The couple
face diplomatic challenges before they even arrive, after private comments from
Charles regarding the British government’s offshore settlement deal with Rwanda
- which he dubbed “appalling” - were leaked to the press last week. Awkwardly,
he will be hosted by Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who signed off on the
agreement to process refugees who try to reach Britain by boat. It’s an
immigration policy borrowed wholesale from Australia, and has already been
subject to several legal challenges.
But
Charles, 73, has already shown that his long wait to become king has taught him
the art of diplomacy. When he visited Canada last month as part of the Platinum
Jubilee celebrations, the palace was acutely aware of the prospect of another
post-colonial public relations disaster.
Last year,
Canada was rocked by the discovery in unmarked graves of hundreds of bodies of
schoolchildren, taken from their families and in numerous instances abused at
church-run institutions.
Indigenous
leaders called on the Queen - as Queen of Canada and head of the Anglican
Church - to apologise and support reparations for the families of the estimated
150,000 children taken from their homes. At one protest in Winnipeg last July,
statues of the Queen and her great-great grandmother Queen Victoria were daubed
with red paint and toppled to the ground.
Charles
read the room. In an unexpected and unscripted impassioned speech during the
final hours in Canada, he said he had been “deeply moved” by meeting the
survivors of the residential school scandal.
“We must
listen to the truth of the lived experiences of Indigenous peoples, and we
should work to understand better their pain and suffering,” he said. “We all
have a responsibility to listen, understand and act in ways that foster
relationships between Indigenous and non-indigenous peoples in Canada.”
But while
the Queen, for now, remains constitutional head of state of 15 Commonwealth
realms, the Commonwealth, with a combined population of 2.4 billion, is
growing. Membership is voluntary and several countries have left and re-joined.
Ireland left, never to return, and Zimbabwe, suspended in 2002, is now seeking
to re-join. Mozambique and Rwanda have joined without any previous links to the
empire while South Sudan, Suriname, Burundi and the as-yet unrecognised
Somaliland sit on a waiting list.
Rihanna,
honoured as a National Hero, greeted Prince Charles at the Presidential
Inauguration Ceremony in Barbados last November. The nation is now a republic
but still in the commonwealth.
Rihanna,
honoured as a National Hero, greeted Prince Charles at the Presidential
Inauguration Ceremony in Barbados last November. The nation is now a republic
but still in the commonwealth. CREDIT:GETTY
When
Barbados severed its constitutional links with the British monarch in November
2021, press reports speculated that the Commonwealth was “on a knife edge”. But
the public narrative was sharply at odds with Prime Minister Mia Mottley’s firm
statement that Barbados remains committed to the Commonwealth.
Lord
Meghnad Desai, a British economist and former Labour politician, has warned the
Commonwealth will collapse if it continues to be UK-centric, especially without
the authority of the Queen.
However, he
believes if it modernises, potentially by removing the royals as the ceremonial
head and allowing nations to share responsibilities for chairing the
organisation, it can survive and thrive as a consequential alliance.
“The new
generation wants to question and re-evaluate the history of the empire, and
that is a good thing,” he said this week.
Pointing
out that two thirds of the population of the Commonwealth is now under 30, with
no emotional attachment to the royal family, he said it was clear a change of
the monarch would bring about a change in the nature of the Commonwealth.
“That is
where the future of the institution is,” he said.
Born in
India, Desai said the experience of his country showed that gaining
independence does not mean leaving the Commonwealth. He said the institution
transcends the old relationship of emperor and subjects, and it was possible to
question and challenge the past and “still be family”.
“If
Australia becomes a republic, the Commonwealth doesn’t have to change,” he
says.
“The UK is
no longer telling them what to do or what not to do. All the UK wants is for
them to be in the family. Yes there will be changes, but with the changes, will
be continuity.”
Craig
Prescott, a lecturer in UK constitutional law at Bangor University, says the
Commonwealth survives because it has always been a priority to the Queen.
While
Charles has promised to speak his mind less when he becomes king, Prescott says
his strong interest in climate change, may make him appealing to members of the
Commonwealth.
“The
biggest open goal of the Commonwealth is tackling climate change, as many
countries in the organisation are likely to suffer greatly due to its effects.
The organisation could really have a role to play, for instance by supporting
countries to move away from carbon to net-zero emissions,” he said.
“But this
may require rethinking the shape of the Commonwealth — its resources and
capabilities. There hasn’t really been political will to scale it up. It might
as well be that it has been superseded by other international organisations and
alliances, like the G20”.
Several
Australian academics, such as Professor Jenny Hocking, believe that more
countries may seek to gain independence from the royal family upon the Queen’s
death, due to Charles’s unpopularity and his perceived interventionist style.
But Cindy
McCreery, a historian and senior lecturer at the University of Sydney, has
argued it is Charles’s passion for issues such as the environment and youth
affairs might work in his favour.
“Charles
may actually have the ability to get more done than Elizabeth, as he has
significant experience working with organisations that are campaigning in these
areas,” she says.
Following
the disastrous tour of the Caribbean earlier this year, William and Catherine
vowed to change the way the royals operate after they faced accusations that
Belize locals were not consulted about a royal engagement.
The couple
were accused of being “tone deaf” after they were seen shaking hands with
crowds behind a wire-mesh fence in Kingston, while images of the pair riding in
the back of a Land Rover were denounced as harking back to colonial days.
Omid
Scobie, a royal commentator with Harper’s Bazaar, says he can understand why
there has been reluctance for members to engage in conversations about
Britain’s legacy of slavery, particularly across the Caribbean.
He says the
Windsor royals would need to acknowledge that their existence was, also in
part, the result of over 300 years of devastating atrocities led by some of
their predecessors.
“As people
across the world continue to learn about the importance of dismantling
structural racism, it’s essential that these uncomfortable conversations are
had by all,” he says.
While the
Queen has acknowledged the monarchy must evolve and reflect modern values to
survive, Scobie last month questioned the wisdom behind the planning of
old-fashioned royal tours.
“Imagine
the lasting impact it could have had, not just on each country but on his
legacy as a king in the making, if Prince William had gone a step further than
saying slavery ‘should never have happened’ and actually expressed remorse for
colonialism, slavery and the destruction of Black families.“
Almost 30
years ago the organisation was praised for its significant role in helping end
apartheid in South Africa, Professor Murphy says he is unconvinced of its wider
benefit into the future.
“I think it
will stagger on,” he said. “I don’t see the will to draw a line under it, and I
don’t see who would really have the authority to do that. I think the danger is
that it will just gradually become less influential, less important and less
interesting to its citizens.”
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