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image T 62 THE COMMONWEALTH image . CULTURAL DIVERSITY. THE DEVELOPMENT…
T 62 THE COMMONWEALTH . CULTURAL DIVERSITY. THE DEVELOPMENT OF LINGUISTIC VARIETIES. INTERCULTURAL INFLUENCES AND MANIFESTATIONS. THE NOVELS BY E.M. FORSTER, D. LESSING AND N. GORDIMER.
2. THE COMMONWEALTH.
- It's a voluntary association of 56 independent and equal countries: Africa (21), Asia (8), Caribbean and Americans (13), Europe (3), Pacific (11), 32 small states, 25 small island developing states.
- it's home to 2.5 billion people and includes both advanced economies and developing countries. 32 of its members are small states, including many island nations.
BIRTH
In 1931, the British Commonwealth was formalised under the Statute of Westminster
MODERN COMMONWEALTH:
The modern Commonwealth of Nations was born in 1949 when the London Declaration was signed by 8 countries. It was agreed that republics and other countries could be part of the Commonwealth.
- Membership today is based on free and equal voluntary co- operation. The last countries to join the Commonwealth – Gabon and Togo in 2022– have no historical ties to the British Empire
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The Dominions and other territories of the British Empire gradually became fully independent of the United Kingdom.
- India became independent in 1947. India wanted to become a republic which did not owe allegiance to the British queen, but it also wanted to stay a member of the Commonwealth. This led to a change in 1949, establishing that colonies didn't require to recognise the British Monarchy as Head.
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EARLY
one of the world’s oldest political associations of states. roots: when countries around the world were ruled by the British Empire .
few countries gained different levels of freedom from Britain, becoming Semi-independent countries called Dominions. Leaders of the Dominions attended conferences with Britain from 1887.
Through the Balfour Declaration in The 1926 Imperial Conference, Britain and the Dominions agreed that they were all equal members of a community within the British Empire. They all owed allegiance to the British crown, but the United Kingdom did not rule over them. This community was called the British Commonwealth of Nations
King George VI was the first Head of Commonwealth, and Queen Elizabeth II became Head when he died. Charles III has become the current Head. But the British monarch is not automatically Head of the Commonwealth. Commonwealth member countries choose who becomes Head of the Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth Secretariat (1965) is a central intergovernmental organisation which co-ordinates and carries out much of the Commonwealth’s work, supported by a network of more than 80 organisations.
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- headed by a secretary-general to facilitate relations between member states. The Secretariat is responsible to the Board of Governors, which is composed of the member states' high commissioners to the United Kingdom. It plays a crucial role in consultation and cooperation among the member countries. The Secretariat also represents the Commonwealth at high-level international events, with the Chair-in-Office rotating between member states every 2 years.
The Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation (CFTC) is a trusted partner building capacity in areas of health, education and economic development to give commonwealth nations voice. It works to improve justice throughout the Commonwealth, helping to develop policies and providing training and expertise.
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Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM)
Leaders of Commonwealth countries meet every 2 years to strengthen cooperation and to foster democracy, but also to find ways to face the biggest global issues, to improve peace and prosperity of our societies.
- The secretary-general of the commonwealth is elected in this meeting.
- It's hosted by different member countries on a rotating basis since 1971 with the most recent one being in Samoa on 2024.
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THE COMMONWEALTH CHARTER
It is a document of the values and aspirations which unite the Commonwealth. The Charter expresses the commitment of member states to the development of free and democratic societies and the promotion of peace and prosperity to improve the lives of all the people of the Commonwealth.
- The Charter also acknowledges the role of civil society in supporting the goals and values of the Commonwealth.
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THE COMMONWEALTH DAY is an annual celebration held on the second Monday in March
- It's an opportunity to promote the strong unity, diversity and shared values of the Commonwealth.
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THE COMMONWEALTH GAMES are an international multi-sport event held every 4 years, featuring athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations, which includes countries that were mostly part of the former British Empire.
- aim: to promote unity, friendship, and understanding among diverse nations while showcasing athletic excellence.
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after ww2, many immigrants seek work outside. Thus, in 1948, the British Nationality Act stated that all Commonwealth citizens could have British passports and work in the UK
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Immigrants worked mainly in areas of great labour shortage, and settled in areas of cheaper housing. They experienced racial discrimination and violence. In 1959 there were serious race riots in Notting Hill, West London.
As the UK economy picked up and then boomed in the late 1950s and 1960s, migrants from different countries of the commonwealth came to work in the textile factories of the North of England and the engineering factories of the Midlands. As a result, Britain’s cities became multicultural. However, this was also a period of large scale emigration of Britons leaving to live elsewhere, so the number of people leaving the country was higher than the number coming in.
The 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, which aimed to restrict numbers, set up a voucher system for those entering the UK to work. However, the law backfired. Many men who were working here at the time had intended to return to their families in the long-term, but when they realised that they may not be readmitted if they left the UK, they brought their families to join them and decided to settle permanently in the UK instead. The 1968 Commonwealth Immigrants Act restricted entry only to those with a father or grandfather born in the UK.
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When Asian refugees who had been expelled from East Africa arrived in the UK, they were met with hostility from sections of the press and protests organised by anti-immigration groups. The most prominent of which was the National Front , which wanted to ban all non-white immigration. They were, however, allowed entry.
laws were passed to prevent racial discrimination and racist hate crimes and to promote better community relations.
In the late 1970s, various organisations such as the Anti-Nazi League and the Anti Racist Alliance built alliances of individuals and organisations against the rise of the National Front. Most notably, Rock Against Racism’s events brought different strands of current music, such as punk and reggae, onto the same platform and had the effect of reaching and bringing together black and white young people in opposition to racism.
From the 1960s onwards, relations between the police and many black people, especially youth, deteriorated. It was felt by some black British people that they were unfairly harassed, that racist murders were not properly investigated, and that police were directly responsible for some deaths in police custody but were not called to account.
Since the 1940s, immigrants and their descendants have integrated into communities across the UK. They've helped to shape the identity of Britain and changed the concept of 'Britishness' in today's society. Although inequalities in employment still exist today and disproportionately large numbers of adults from ethnic minorities are unemployed or in low paid jobs, most occupations are far more culturally diverse than they were in the past.
3.1. THE COMMONWEALTH FOUNDATION
is an intergovernmental agency focused on advancing the interests of Commonwealth civil society and citizen participation in governance.
- The Commonwealth Foundation has a mandate from Commonwealth Heads of Government to support and promote culture. It seeks to do this in many ways. Through the Culture and Diversity Programme, the Commonwealth Foundation attempts to encourage understanding of and respect for different cultures (SC6). It enables young artists to share their work and ideas and learn about different cultural practices.
The Foundation focuses on making connections between culture, governance and democracy, and sustainable development by:
Facilitating understanding of and between different cultures, and appreciation of those cultures through exchange and sharing of practice.
Recognising and publishing Commonwealth artist to increase awareness of the diversity of the Commonwealth.
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with the increase of discrimination and the identification of globalisation with the cultural homogenisation, the issue of managing cultural diversity has become a prominent feature of the world agenda. The Commonwealth is the natural forum for tackling these issues.
Seven resolutions aimed at promoting cultural diversity amongst Commonwealth countries have been adopted:
- Developing a basic statement of principles of what constitutes a community that values its cultural diversity
- Establishing inter-faith councils in Commonwealth countries to communicate between faith communities and government and to promote respect for religious, spiritual and cultural diversity, human rights and individual freedom.
- Exploring, developing, and promulgating innovative models of leadership that are appropriate in culturally diverse Commonwealth societies.
- Exploring new mechanisms for the promotion of human rights, in association with other agencies such as the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative.
- Developing a consistent framework for the identification and evaluation of public and educational policies and practice that promote the value of cultural diversity.
- Developing ways to engender greater understanding and valuing of diversity in business.
- Exploring ways to encourage a free media that will accurately reflect the culturally diverse composition of all member states of the Commonwealth.
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4. THE DEVELOPMENT OF LINGUISTIC VARIETIES.
The use of the English language in current and former member countries of the Commonwealth of Nations was largely inherited from British colonisation, with some exceptions. English serves as the medium of inter-Commonwealth relations.
- Written English generally favours British spelling as opposed to American. Few Commonwealth countries besides Canada and Australia have produced their own variant English dictionaries and style guides, and may rely on those produced in other countries.
- Many regions have developed their own native varieties of the language
A) NATIVE VARIETIES of English began to develop during the 18th century, with the colonisation of Australia and South Africa .
- Australian English and New Zealand English are closely related to each other, and share some similarities with South African English (though it has unique influences from Dutch as well)
- Canadian English contains elements of British English and American English, and some French influences. It is the product of several waves of immigration and settlement, from BR/IR/FR/US over a period of almost 2 centuries.
- Caribbean English is influenced by the English-based Creole varieties spoken, but they are not one and the same. There's variation in how English is spoken, with a "Standard English" at one end of a bipolar linguistic continuum and Creole languages at the other. These dialects have roots in 17th-century British and Irish English, and African languages, plus localised influences from other colonial languages including French, Spanish, and Dutch . West Indian dialects often tend to be syllable-timed rather than stress-timed.
B) NON-NATIVE VARIETIES
Second-language varieties of English in Africa and Asia have often undergone "indigenisation"; that is, each English-speaking community has developed its own standards of usage, often under the influence of local languages. These dialects are sometimes referred to as New Englishes .
Small communities of native English speakers can be found in Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia; the dialects spoken are similar to native South African English.
- A distinctive North African English, influenced by Bantu languages, is spoken in countries such as Kenya or Tanzania, particularly in cities where there's an expanding middle class, for whom English is increasingly being used at home as the first language.
- there are several dialects of West African English with a lot of regional variation and some influence from indigenous languages. West African English tends to be syllable-timed, and its phoneme inventory is much simpler than that of Received Pronunciation.
ASIA:
- Hong Kong ceased to be part of the Commonwealth in 1997. Nonetheless, the English language there still enjoys status as an official language.
- in the Indian subcontinent, English was introduced by the British Raj . Among the partitioned post-independent countries, India has the largest English-speaking population in the Commonwealth, although comparatively very few speakers of Indian English are first-language speakers.
- In the Malay Archipielago, Southeast Asian English features some influence from Malay and Chinese languages
New Englishes, according to Richards and Rogers (2014) concerns the people who live in countries where English has affected the local language. English turned into a neutral language for people with different backgrounds to communicate with each other. English became localised, changing some of the grammar/pronunciation features.
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5. INTERCULTURAL INFLUENCES AND MANIFESTATIONS
The inheritance of the English language and literature, the common law, and British systems of administration all strengthen the club-like atmosphere of the Commonwealth.
Mostly due to their history of British rule, many Commonwealth nations share certain identifiable traditions and customs that are elements of a shared Commonwealth culture. Examples include common sports such as cricket and rugby. None of these are universal within the Commonwealth countries, or exclusive to them, but all of them are more common in the Commonwealth than elsewhere.
5.1. INTERCULTURALITY AND LITERARY PRODUCTION
The shared history of British rule has also produced a substantial body of writing in many languages – Commonwealth literature. There is an Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies founded in 1964 to promote collaboration among scholars and writers. It also publishes newsletters and supports research in postcolonial studies.
- In 1987, the Commonwealth Foundation established the Commonwealth Writers Prize “to encourage and reward the upsurge of new Commonwealth fiction and ensure that works of merit reach a wider audience outside their country of origin”.
- In 2011 the prize became the Commonwealth Book Prize. It was reconceptualized as an honour for best first book only, with one overall winner. After 2013 the prize was no longer awarded. Commonwealth Writers, the branch of the Commonwealth Foundation that organized the prize, instead directed its resources to a short story award created in 2012 .
notable PRIZE WINNERS included:
- MARGARET ATWOOD: a Canadian author, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published eighteen books of poetry, eighteen novels, eleven books of non-fiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children's books, two graphic novels, and a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction. Atwood has won numerous awards and honours for her writing. A number of her works have been adapted for film and television (The Handmaid’s Tale).
- ALICE MUNRO: Canadian short story writer who has received many literary accolades, including the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Munro's work has been described as revolutionizing the architecture of short stories, especially in its tendency to move forward and backward in time.
- ROHINTON MISTRY: Indian-born Canadian writer. He has been the recipient of many awards. Each of his first three novels were shortlisted for the Booker Prize (Such a Long Journey, A Fine Balance, Family Matters). His novels to date have been set in India, told from the perspective of Parsis, and explore themes of family life, poverty, discrimination, and the corrupting influence of society.
- J.M. COETZEE: He is a South African–Australian novelist, essayist, linguist, translator and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is one of the most critically acclaimed and decorated authors in the English language. In recent years, he's become a vocal critic of cruelty to animals and an advocate of animal rights. Coetzee's fiction has similarly engaged with animal cruelty and animal welfare, especially The Lives of Animals, Disgrace, Elizabeth Costello, and The Old Woman and the Cats.
- PETER CAREY: He is an Australian novelist known for featuring the surreal in his short stories and novels. His collections of short stories, The Fat Man in History and War Crimes, exhibit many grotesque and macabre elements. His novels Bliss, Illywhacker, and Oscar and Lucinda are more realistic, though Carey used black humour throughout all three. The later novels are based on the history of Australia, especially its founding and early days.
- SALMAN RUSHDIE: He is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Western civilizations, typically set on the Indian subcontinent. Rushdie's second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981 and was deemed to be "the best novel of all winners" on two occasions, marking the 25th and the 40th anniversary of the prize.
- ZADIE SMITH.She is a British author known for her treatment of race, religion, and cultural identity and for her novels’ eccentric characters, savvy humour, and snappy dialogue. She became a sensation in the literary world with the publication of her first novel, White Teeth, in 2000.
- KATE GREENVILLE: Australian novelist whose works of historical fiction examine class, race, and gender in colonial and contemporary Australia. Her first book, Bearded Ladies, was a collection of short stories that explored gender, power and Australian national identity, all of which would remain central to her later work.
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6.1. E.M. FORSTER (1879-1970) was an English author who was awarded the Benson Medal by the Royal Society of Literature in 1937 . He was a member of the Literary Bloomsbury Group and of the Fabian Society
*He's known for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society. His views as a secular humanist are at the heart of his work, which often depicts the pursuit of personal connections despite the restrictions of contemporary society.
- He published 5 novels in his lifetime : Where Angels Fear to Tread, The Longest Journey, A Room with a View, Howard's End and "A Passage to India"
- Maurice was a novel published posthumously due to its homosexual theme, which was seen negatively at the time.
- He also wrote numerous essays, speeches, broadcasts, biographies, some pageant plays and short stories such as "The Machine Stops", which is often viewed as the beginning of technological dystopian fiction
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6.2. D. LESSING was born in Persia in 1919, but her parents were British. She was a British author who wrote mostly about contemporary life, often pointing to social injustices such as apartheid. Hence, she's regarded as an African and a political writer (considered to be a feminist). She's also been called a space fiction writer, and a mystic novelist since her writing style went from psychological realism to symbolic fable in works such as .
- She was awarded with the Nobel Prize in Literature (2007) and Prince of Asturias Prize (2001).
- Her first novel, "The Grass Is Singing" (filmed as Killing Heat), dealt with interracial relationships in a colonial society. It copes with modern issues, specifically Rhodesian white culture with its racist and prejudiced attitudes.
- Her Writing was intellectual, experimental and in simple, eloquent prose, Lessing frames women’s psychology, domestic relations, and personal transformations with the violence of colonialism, racism, social upheaval, and planetary warfare.
- Much of her work, which has been influenced by ideologies including communism, radical psychiatry, and Sufism, mirrors the trajectory of her life. She relived World War I through her father and experienced colonialism, World War II, the nuclear era and Cold War, and the collapse of the British Empire. She wrote about her parents' experiences in the dual memoir "Alfred & Emily"
- In 1962 she published her breakthrough novel: , which was a new type of novel, announcing post-modernism.
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6.3. NADINE GORDIMER, a Nobel Prize-winning South African author, was a founding member of Congress of South African Writers.
- She is remembered for her powerful exploration of themes such as exile, alienation, and the impact of apartheid on society, as it can be seen in her novel "The House Gun" . Her writing style is characterized by its vivid precision, and deep moral engagement.
- Most of her works deal with the moral and psychological tensions of a racially divided country. Her first collection of short stories, Face to Face (1949), reveals the psychological consequences this split society.
- Gordimer has written books of non-fiction on South African subjects and made television documentaries, notably collaborating with her son on the film " Choosing Justice: Allan Boesak" .
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