By CHRISTOPHER KAYUMBA

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At the close of the recent Commonwealth Heads of State and Government meeting held in London, the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Theresa May announced on April 20, that Rwanda had been selected to host the next meeting in 2020.

Rwanda beat Fiji in the contest to host the meeting after Malaysia withdrew. The news was broadly celebrated as being indicative of the impressive progress the country has made in the past couple of years.

Rwanda became the first francophone country to join the organisation in 2009 and the second non-British former colony to do so after Mozambique in 1995.

Now, like some have noted, selecting Rwanda to host the meeting for an organisation composed of 53 countries and which brings together anywhere between 4,000 to 5,500 delegates is both a vote of confidence in the country and beneficial to it.

For to qualify to host the event, the country has to have the capacity and the enabling environment to do so.

The capacity considered includes the country’s infrastructure like roads, hotels and communication network, while the environment includes peace, security, etc.

Requisite environment

In selecting Rwanda then, member states determined that the country has the capacity and the requisite environment.

Considering the country’s past, this is a glowing achievement. Secondly, if the event is well planned and organised, there are obvious benefits.

In the short term, the country will not only have the opportunity to showcase what it can offer to the world, but private business operators will make money off the event.

For while in recent times infrastructure has tremendously improved with first class five-star hotels, and conference centres opened and the road network expanded, more funds will be poured into improving these — a factor that will not only help create jobs but also expand the needed climate to attract investors.

As a country that aspires to be a service economy and regional hub for conferences, meetings and events, hosting the meeting will boost confidence in the country and in the medium to long term, increase investments in the country.

Broadly however, read together with the decision to join the commonwealth and being selected to host its meeting eight years later is symbolically and substantively teachable for Rwandans and Africans.

National interest

Symbolically, joining the commonwealth while a member of “La Francophonie” illustrates that belonging or not subscribing to such post-colonial entities isn’t ordained by God, but a choice that should be driven by national interest rather than a colonial past.

Substantively, hosting the commonwealth meeting teaches that regardless of colonial history, one can benefit from such entities if one knows what they want. 

Politically and diplomatically therefore, the event represents a coup against the French political, diplomatic and military establishment still bent on “spheres of influence” on the continent. This message will reverberate across Francophone Africa.

For Rwanda then, the event represents the end of an era and the beginning of a new one where it’s not beholden to former colonial masters. For unlike in the past, today, France can’t successfully isolate Rwanda as it politically and diplomatically sought to do after the Genocide against the Tutsi nor can it consider it among its “sphere of influence.” Nor can Britain consider the country among its “sphere of influence” despite belong to the commonwealth. And that’s liberating.

For truth be told, beyond the niceties, both the commonwealth and “La Francophonie” are reminders of the colonial sin and an attempt to hold on to the glory of the past by these two European powers.

Colonial circus

That African countries accepted to subscribe to this colonial circus is a scar on the continent’s “independence.” But that Rwanda understood this at its greatest hour of need and exploited it to its own interest is genius. And that’s what today’s Rwanda teaches us.

That is, that while Africans shouldn’t be proud of being “Francophone” or “Anglophone,” they can exploit these clubs to advance their own interests.

Hosting the Commonwealth Heads of State and Government then also represent the end of an era of “Francophone” and “Anglophone” divide where to belong to either or host its meeting an African country needed to have been colonised by either the French or the British.

This lesson also helps to undermine the useless but divisive “Anglophone” versus “Francophone” divide that has dodged post-colonial Africa as it highlights the importance of Africans pursuing their interests without being beholden to their former colonial masters.

To that extent then, to the chagrin of the French, hosting the Queen makes Rwanda Africa’s “disruptor-in-chief,” since the country is neither Anglophone nor Francophone in the old sense; but Rwandaphone.

Christopher Kayumba, PhD. Senior Lecturer, School of Journalism and Communication, UR; Lead consultant, MGC Consult International Ltd. E-mail: [email protected]; twitter account: @Ckayumba Website:www.mgcconsult.com