A message from the Chair
This section was first started by Richard Bourne to give a monthly update for readers and supporters of The Round Table journal on developments leading up to the centenary celebrations of our journal (started in the Edwardian era).
Due to its popularity, it is now being continued by the new Chair of the editorial advisory board, (known since the early twentieth century as the Moot), Stuart Mole.
View the messages by selecting any of the links below:
October 2011
Perth Notebook
I squeezed my suitcase closed, reflecting ruefully that it was the presence of too many documents and papers that was once more pushing me into an excess baggage charge.
- It is ten years since I last journeyed to Australia for a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). In 2001, the world was still reeling from the horror of the attacks of 11 September on the USA. The future looked dangerously unpredictable. Few Commonwealth leaders found the prospect of air travel particularly appealing - much less, leaving their countries for Brisbane at a time of uncertainty and danger.
- Which I thought was a mistake. It seemed to me then that the imminent summit presented a global forum like the Commonwealth with a particular opportunity to condemn terrorism, renew its belief in justice and peace and affirm human solidarity. But then, I don't recall anyone asking my opinion.
- Nevertheless, Commonwealth and civil society organisations descended on Queensland, full of anticipation. The facilities for the summit provided by our Australian hosts, at both federal and state level, were excellent. This was not entirely unexpected, as the Head of the CHOGM Task Force was one Hugh Craft, formerly the Director of the International Affairs Division in the Commonwealth Secretariat.
- But all this was to no avail. As I arrived in Brisbane, the news was breaking: CHOGM was cancelled (although the Commonwealth Peoples' Centre resolved to press ahead and meet as planned). Thus passed the summit that never was.
- Memories of the abortive Brisbane summit returned as I read the Australian news. A mass protest march on CHOGM was being planned, to coincide with the Opening of the Perth CHOGM by the Queen. This march on CHOGM was reminiscent of the "Stop CHOGM" movement in Brisbane a decade ago. My reaction then was that the added focus on CHOGM was something the Commonwealth should treat as an opportunity, rather than a threat. It would have allowed us to engage with the protestors and with the media and demonstrate that comparisons with a beleaguered G8 or European summit were misplaced. This meeting, we would have argued, was not an exclusive gathering of the world's powerful and privileged. Rather, it was a much more inclusive global forum, embracing the many dimensions of wealth and poverty; size and smallness; influence and helplessness; black, brown and white. The official meeting was also immediately adjacent to the Commonwealth Peoples' Centre - an impressive gathering of NGOs, Commonwealth organisations and other civil society representatives. To 'stop' this gathering would have been to deny the world's powerless, impoverished and excluded nations from having the sort of dialogue on precisely those global issues of poverty and injustice which the protestors had highlighted.
- What will happen in Perth? For many countries and commentators, this is a make or break summit, with issues of reform and leadership to the fore. The report of the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) - headed "Time for Urgent Reform" - has become something of a litmus test. The 200-page document is unequivocal. The CHOGM provides leaders with "a unique opportunity to arrest a decline in the Commonwealth's influence and significance, and reform it so that it plays a leading and beneficial role in the future. A similar opportunity may never rise again". As part of its campaign, the members of the EPG have called for their report to be released to the public ahead of the meeting. This request has been denied, though the report has been extensively leaked. Some governments have already made public their opposition to key recommendations in the report.
We shall see. But, for the moment, I have more immediate challenges as I manhandle my large suitcase doorwards and feel the reassuring presence of tickets and passport in my jacket pocket. Australia, here I come!...
Stuart Mole