Blood Brothers: Race, the Afro-Asian-Canadian Bloc, and South Africa’s Expulsion from the Commonwealth, 1960-61

Abstract

During the 1961 Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ meeting, Canada’s prime minister, John Diefenbaker, joined with his non-white partners to form an “Afro-Asian-Canadian bloc” that, for all intents and purposes, expelled South Africa from the association. Drawing on American, Australian, British, Canadian, and South African documents, this article argues that Diefenbaker did so in a bid to preserve the Commonwealth to bridge global racial divides and avert a potential “race war” in the making. The Commonwealth could thus retain its integrity as an institution responsive to global South concerns and chaperone them during a transitional phase to statehood. In so doing, newly independent peoples would be rendered culturally familiar and predictable, embedding them within the liberal international order. Consequently, this study offers insight into Canadian attitudes towards African decolonization and what the Commonwealth meant to Canada beyond its strategic imperative.