SOMETIMES it’s easy to forget that Scotland really is a part of Great Britain – especially when you surround yourself with people who bear no connection to notions of British patriotism and who would sooner be seen in their underwear than draped in a Union Jack.
There could be no better reality check than the reports that Glasgow could host the Commonwealth Games for a second time in 2026, and seeing that news widely celebrated.
For some, I suppose, the Games are nothing more than a sporting event, and if – as proposed by Commonwealth Games Scotland – the bulk of the bill is to be footed by the Commonwealth Games Federation and the rest covered by ticket sales, the people of Glasgow might as well enjoy the tourism.
Of course, the people of Glasgow might have something to say about that. But what really concerns me is the apparent lack of consideration given to whether facilitating a PR exercise for the Commonwealth, the monarchy and the legacy of the British Empire is something the city or indeed Scotland ought to be doing.
At its heart, and in its roots, this is exactly what the Commonwealth Games is. No wonder the federation in charge of the games has been struggling to find cities to play host to an event which is so anachronistic, and just as costly.
Failing to engage with that context or even worry about whether it might be a problem is such quintessentially British behaviour that I am reminded we, in Scotland, are not so far removed from our imperial history after all.
The idea for a “Pan Britannic Festival” of sports was first promoted by John Astley Cooper in 1891, a man who would later highlight the supposed power of sport in controlling colonised peoples, using as an example “the wonderful moral and disciplinary effect cricket has on the black races entrusted to our charge”.
In 1911, the first Festival of Empire – including the Inter-Empire Championships – was held in London to celebrate the coronation of King George V. After the First World War, the inaugural British Empire Games was held in Canada and continued under this title as a four-yearly event until 1950, when it was changed to the British Empire and Commonwealth Games until 1970, at which point it became the British Commonwealth Games and, finally, the Commonwealth Games as of 1978.
These changes in branding came about, of course, because of the changing nature of Britain’s relationship to the places and people it had once laid claim to, pillaged, subjugated and even enslaved.
A champion of the Commonwealth might say, as Queen Elizabeth once did, that the voluntary association of former colonies was created as “an equal partnership of nations and races”, presumably out of the goodness of the British state and monarchy’s hearts.
A critical analysis of a very violent British history, however, would suggest that the dismantling of the British Empire through decolonisation – an often bloody process – had to be contended with in a way which maintained Britain’s influence while rehabilitating its image.
The Commonwealth and all the friendly language around it was a powerful way of achieving those aims, and the Commonwealth Games have been a key propaganda piece for the project. For many years, a common thread among the theme songs for each Games was the importance of unity.
One of the unique features of the Games has been the Queen’s baton relay (now, I assume, the King’s) which travels around the member nations before being presented at the opening ceremony to the head of the Commonwealth – who has always just happened to be the head of the British monarchy.
Behaving as if this is normal or apolitical is to whitewash the brutal oppression that defined the British Empire, and the central role which the monarchy played in this. Celebrating the Commonwealth in this way is like thanking the ruling elite of Britain for graciously ending their reign of tyranny and throwing everyone a party instead.
Of course, most people in the UK don’t think about it that way, because our knowledge and understanding about our own history is notoriously poor – probably because this kind of propaganda is so deeply embedded in British culture that it is barely recognised as such.
In 2019, a YouGov poll found that 32% in the UK felt the British Empire was more something to be proud of, while just 19% said it was more something to be ashamed of. Interestingly, just 23% in Scotland felt the British Empire was more something to be proud of, while 30% said it was more something to be ashamed of.
This is perhaps unsurprising, because our education about British history has been somewhat different and there is generally a lower level of pro-monarchy sentiment within Scotland. Recent polling found that just 46% of people in Scotland said they preferred a monarchy to a republic, compared to 56-58% of people across Britain.
One of the arguments in favour of the Commonwealth Games is that it offers a chance to shine a spotlight on the history of the British Empire. As of 2022, the Games’s governing body even published guidelines encouraging athletes to “make positive expressions of their values in line with the Commonwealth Games Federation values of Humanity, Equality and Destiny”.
When Glasgow first hosted the Games in 2014, the council worked with the Empire Cafe to organise a series of events highlighting the history of the slave trade and its connections to the city. This is all well and good, but I have to question how meaningful any critique of colonisation can be if it takes place within the bounds of an inherently colonial institution.
While actively promoting such an institution, any historical lessons about empire and race which take place alongside this rings somewhat hollow. There is also a key problem within this descriptor: historical. As we have witnessed in recent weeks, racism within the UK is alive and well, and the rhetoric and policy of our political leaders have been a driving force behind that.
The immigration which these same politicians complain of has, in many cases, been necessitated by displacement in parts of the world where the UK’s foreign policy has fuelled conflict and deepened inequalities.
The Commonwealth itself is far from an equal partnership, with some of the world’s poorest countries among its membership.
What does it say that in an association of 56 member states, after 22 Commonwealth Games, 19 have been held within the UK, Australia, New Zealand or Canada, and none have been hosted in Africa (with Durban having to rescind its plans to host in 2022 due to financial issues)? The divide remains clear between what was once described as the “old Commonwealth” and the “new Commonwealth” nations.
There is something symbolic about the way the Commonwealth Games are now foundering, desperately seeking a (probably white) saviour to breathe a little air into its withering lungs.
The same could be said for old ideas of Great Britain, the global powerhouse that once was. In both cases, I say it’s time to give up the ghost and let it die.
