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The relationships are shot through with paradox. Members may declare a republic or elect a king of their own (as in Malaya). Ghana feels free to consider federating with Guinea, a former colony of France. Without consulting other members, Commonwealth nations may go to blows with outsiders (Britain v. Egypt) or with each other (India v. Pakistan over Kashmir). Britain welcomes almost any citizen of the Commonwealth to its shores. But Australia and Canada virtually exclude nonwhites, and Ghana and Nigeria forbid white men to own land.
The Commonwealth's democratic ideals are also freely smashed. South Africa refuses the vote to the 80% of its citizens who are colored. Commonwealth nations have jailed members of their own Parliaments, suppressed newspapers, and in one case (Pakistan) abolished Parliament, deported the President, and imposed military rule. Said a British professor: "About the only thing we can't stand is being beaten by one of them at cricket."
More black than white, more poor than rich, the Commonwealth so far has been able to bear apartheid, Kashmir, trade wars, internal snobbery and even Suez, when Britain joined with France and Israel in the 1956 attack on Egypt. India violently opposed the invasion, and Canada, noted a British newsman, felt as though it had found a "beloved uncle arrested for rape." In this crisis Canada put preservation of the Commonwealth above affection for the mother country, and at the United Nations joined the U.S. in pressing for a ceasefire. With Australia and New Zealand backing Britain, Canada's stand reassured the Asian members of the Commonwealth, may well have prevented a disastrous split between the group's white and nonwhite members.
Though enormously popular in her Afro-Asian realms, Elizabeth II clearly cannot excite the same veneration or project the same mood there that she does in Britain. Shortly after Ghana's independence, Prime Minister Nkrumah substituted his own picture for the Queen's on postage stamps. He explained disarmingly: "Many of my people cannot read or write. When they buy stamps, they will see my picture —an African like themselves—and they will say, 'Aiee, look, here is my leader on the stamps. We are truly a free people!'" Other African leaders have given fair warning that, "if it is ever a choice between loyalty to Africa and loyalty to the Commonwealth, then Africa will win."
The Glue. Disparities do not split the Commonwealth for the simple reason that greater likenesses hold it together. The most important are British law and the British parliamentary tradition. From Barbados to Tasmania to Quebec City, courts generally work well, and black-robed Speakers of the House keep lawmaking orderly and pondered. Other ingredients in the Commonwealth glue:
DEFENSE. The leaders of the newly free Afro-Asian countries were farseeing enough to realize that the world outside was cold and forbidding, too gale-swept by war and ideology for them to stand alone. By linking up with Great Britain, the newcomers could make their piping voices heard in the councils of the world. They are further drawn to the Commonwealth because "we don't want to shake off British imperialism merely to replace it with Russian or Chinese."