Applying for a student visa is one of most godawful things I’ve ever done. The process is so bogged down by bureaucracy it’s a miracle anyone ever gets to study abroad. And after my exchange to France, my own personal horror story initially attracted me to James Skinner’s advocacy for free movement between Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.
But I just can’t get behind this movement — at least not yet.
At first I was enthralled by Skinner’s proposal. Who wouldn’t be? The idea of free movement between the four countries is particularly attractive to young students. It would let us work, study, or immigrate to foreign lands without constraints. The Commonwealth Freedom of Movement Organization’s (CFMO) website details economic, personal, health, and criminal conditions that make it seem that this plan would be foolproof — but the truth is that the CFMO seems to have a short-sighted, underdeveloped idea that, if implemented as is, might fail the countries involved.
While the stated degree of integration between the countries involved is unclear in the CFMO’s proposal, a further investigation led me to unveil another major problem: colonisation. All of these countries were either colonised by the same empire, or in the case of the United Kingdom, were the country responsible for the colonising.
This left a pretty sour taste in my mouth. We should be focusing our efforts of decolonisation rather than strengthening our colonial ties. Basing a freedom of mobility initiative around a common oppressor is a murky political and ethical area to say the least. So while free mobility sounds great, we may only end up reinforcing a shared but shameful part of our nation’s past.
We may only end up reinforcing a shared, but shameful part of our nation’s past.
I then perused the website to see how they justified selecting only four of the 53 members of the Commonwealth to participate in such an endeavor. Their reasons seemed to focus heavily on a shared language, similar interpretations of the rule of law, and of course, these were the countries in the Commonwealth with ‘strong economies.’
While not stating it outright, they were suggesting that these countries were chosen because they are English-speaking nations whose populations are predominately Caucasian, and who are wealthy. To me, this sounds like prejudice. No matter which way you spin it, other Commonwealth countries such as India and South Africa are getting shafted by such an agreement.
I love the idea of simplifying long and short-term visas between Commonwealth countries. And I wish more people could have the experience of working, living, and studying abroad. But the fact of the matter is that, no matter how appealing the current initiative is, it fails to clearly outline the degree of integration, it uses colonial history to claim a ‘like-minded culture,’ and it discriminates against countries where the dominant ethnic group isn’t white.
I’m not suggesting we say no to a borderless Commonwealth in the future, but the CFMO’s plan, as it stands now, just isn’t ready to be implemented.
