The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting may have been taking place in Malta, but it has had a distinctly British flavour to it – with the presence of the UK’s monarch, monarch-to-be, its prime minister and one of his predecessors.
The central theme, as will be the case at tomorrow’s UN COP21 conference, has been climate change. Keen to ‘get his retaliation in first’ before both events got under way, Prince Charles told Sky News at the beginning of last week that he believes the phenomenon may be one of the causes of the war on Syria.
This was undoubtedly an intelligent move. Not only did the prince manage to spark interest with such a statement – shifting the focus of the debate away from the rather tired ‘is it or isn’t it happening’ discussion – he also honed in on an issue that strikes at the heart of all our lives.
“One of the major reasons for this horror in Syria,” the prince said, “was a drought that lasted for about five or six years, which meant that huge numbers of people in the end had to leave the land.” Conflict would only increase, he argued, if resources became more scarce.
His statement seems perfectly logical. But whether one agrees with him or not, one thing that cannot be denied is that Syria’s citizens have been on the move in unprecedented numbers, and that this is being felt by countries all over Europe. The phenomenon has added a new, and most unwelcome, dimension to the migration problem and caused human suffering on a scale few of us are able to imagine.
Yet as Commonwealth leaders, or their representatives, discuss the central theme, it is perhaps sub-plots of this CHOGM that are likely to arouse more interest.
Few people seem to remember why François Hollande was invited to take part in the first place, but any appearance by the French President in the wake of the terrible Paris attacks is of significance – especially when he arrives fresh on the back of a meeting with Vladimir Putin and a memorial service in his home country.
David Cameron did not miss the opportunity either, immediately stamping his mark on CHOGM by pledging to set up a Commonwealth unit to tackle “the scourge of terrorism”. His statement comes as he attempts to drum up support at home for military air strikes in Syria against Isis.
Mr Cameron said the Commonwealth has a role to play in “broadening international efforts to counter extremism” and “its civil society and education networks make it particularly well-placed to complement international efforts”. The question is whether this eclectic mix of nations are able to work in a manner that achieves that.
Yet, as Prince Charles pointed out, if the world deals with problems (one can read climate change, migration and terrorism) “in a short-term way, we never deal with the underlying root cause”. And therein lies a large dose of the problem.
The other story of this CHOGM could well be the end of an illustrious chapter in history, with what appeared to be a parting shot from Queen Elizabeth II – who reminisced that she had come to live in Malta in the same year, 1949, that the Commonwealth was founded. As well as paying rare tribute to her husband and son, the Queen said she had “cherished” the responsibility of heading this grouping for six decades.
It has no doubt cherished her too, as she has proved to be the glue that has bound – at times in the most trying circumstances – these nations together.
Moving on without her presence is unlikely to be easy. As Joseph Muscat rightly said, the Commonwealth is “at a crossroads” – though in truth it has been stuck there for some time, and its best hope of claiming relevance at a time when so many question it lies in using the state of the world today as fresh impetus to push forward.