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Abstract
2015 was a year of significant anniversaries and commemorations related to the Commonwealth, Magna Carta, World War II and the United Nations. In this article the author reflects on these events, on his personal participation and on the media coverage of the events.
Notes
1. Richard Overy (2016) The Bombing War: Europe 1939–1945. London: Allen Lane.
2. The Times, 4 March 2016.
3. Ataturk’s ‘message to bereaved pilgrims’, 1934, reads: ‘Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives … You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours … You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears: your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace, after having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well’.
4. Australian film, directed by Peter Weir, and starring Mel Gibson and Mark Lee.
5. The point is discussed in some detail in my review of two books on Magna Carta and its legacy, The Round Table, 104(5), October 2015, pp. 633–643.
6. R. Hazell and J. Melton (2016) Magna Carta and its Modern Legacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 194–211.
7. Adam Smith (1723–1790), widely known through Wealth of Nations as the founder of political economy in Britain, was something of a polymath. Although widely travelled on the Continent of Europe, he never visited America. But the outlook of the Founding Fathers could not but be profoundly congenial to him.
8. Samuel Seabury (1729–1796), originally a strong loyalist, was elected Bishop of Connecticut in 1784, and sought consecration in England. As this proved impossible, he was consecrated in Aberdeen. His tenacity induced the necessary change of heart in England, and thus enabled the relationship to continue.
9. David Dilks’s The Great Dominion (2005, Thomas Allen, London) is an absorbing account of Churchill’s wide and deep association with Canada. There is no better example of Canada’s service to the international community than the Canadian sponsored and financed International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. The Commission’s report in 2001 introduced the notion of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P), which was adopted by the World Summit in 2005.
10. As specified in Roosevelt’s Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union, 6 January 1941, they are Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want and Freedom from Fear. The prepositions are important.
11. The Atlantic Charter: ‘Declaration of Principles issued by the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom’, 14 August 1941.
12. The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty (ANZUS), signed on 1 September 1951, addressed security in the Pacific Region. The South East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO), dealing with the mainland, was signed in 1954, following the Indo-China Accords of that year. Its signatories included Britain and France, as well as Pakistan, Thailand and the Philippines and the ANZUS powers.
13. Jahawarlal Nehru (1889–1964), Indian politician and statesman, was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, and called to the Bar in 1912. He became prime minister when India gained independence in 1947, and rapidly and deservedly attained world stature, notably as a leader of the Non-aligned Movement.
14. For a detailed account of the 1949 meeting of Commonwealth prime minister, see P. Marshall (1999) ‘Shaping the new Commonwealth’, The Round Table, 88(350), pp. 185–97.
15. This important document has not yet received the rigorous analytical attention it deserves. It is discussed in P. Marshall (2014) ‘The Commonwealth in 21st century focus’, The Round Table, 103(3), especially pp. 281–283.
16. The outcome of the Malta Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting is covered extensively in volume 105 issue 1 of The Round Table (2016).
17. The full text of the preamble is available at http://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/preamble/index.html.
18. See P. Marshall (2001) ‘Smuts and the preamble to the UN Charter’, The Round Table, 90(358), pp. 55–65.
19. The epitaph reads:
WHEN YOU GO HOME
TELL THEM OF US AND SAY
FOR YOUR TOMORROW
WE GAVE OUR TODAY.
It was composed by John Maxwell Edmonds (1875–1958), English classicist, poet and dramatist. It is thought to have been inspired by the words of the Greek poet Simonides in honour of the Spartans who died at Thermopylae.
21. The Times, 17 August 2015.
22. The full text is set out in UN General Assembly Resolution 70/1, 21 October 2015: ‘Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’.
23. The full text is contained in FCCC/CP/2015/L.9/ Rev.1, 12 December 2015.
24. Church Times, 6 November 2015.
25. The Times, 10 November 2015.
26. The Times, 9 January 2016.
27. One of the first acts of the General Assembly was to elect the non-permanent members of the Security Council.
28. The Economist, 19 December 2015.