Can you believe it? The president of Uganda Yuweri Museveni, has just spent well over half a billion dollars to host the Commonwealth summit. This is a country that is one of the poorest in the world and which could have used the money to help alleviate the suffering of its impoverished population.
It is important to note that, the Commonwealth is made up of countries that were former colonies of the British Empire. Like the Francophonie, which is the French version of the Commonwealth, African leaders have for more than 50 years spent lavishly with the limited resources of their population to host summits of these two organizations which they should not have joined in the first place.
Remember, these organizations are symbols of colonialism and imperialism, which I strongly believe perpetuated Africa's holocaust for more than two hundred years, period. Think about, and then think of Germany forming and heading an organization for all the countries it occupied and ruled from 1933-1945.
Besides, not only are the Francophone and British Commonwealth under the current format unwarranted, from the African perspective, they are also irrelevant because the original idea of visa-free travel among the member states no longer exists. Citizens of countries from the poorer member states now have strict visa requirements to visit the rich members. The economic assistance, which was used as part of the rational to form the two organizations, is something that cannot be justified either. The largest donation to the poorer states from Africa comes from countries such as United States, Japan, Canada, China etc, which did not colonize any of these African countries.
And by the way, just what benefit have Africans gained by being in these two organizations for the past fifty years? The Commonwealth and the Francophonie have not prevented the many wars, poverty, human rights abuses that have been prevalent on the continent. And if they haven't changed anything for the past 50 years, what are the prospects that they will?
Clearly, the only beneficiaries are the corrupt and irresponsible African leaders, (in most cases dictators and human right violators) who spent millions to bribe their way for opportunity to host the annual meetings of either the Commonwealth or Francophonie. Then, when awarded the opportunity to host the summits, spent the limited resources of their people to impress and showcase their stupidity just like the Ugandan president just did.
By the way, the term Commonwealth itself is an absurd terminology for member countries of the developing world, because there is nothing Commonwealth about them, just as the term Francophonie is, since some of the member countries in that organization are not French speaking and have no history or links with the French.
Mohammed Ali, November 26 2007
Say no to all forms of racism, not just white racism
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