Download Interview Transcript. Biography : Jackson, Rashleigh Edond. Born in New Amsterdam, British Guiana. Joined the civil service in Received scholarship to study in the United Kingdom, Educated at the University of London and University of Leicester.
Foreign Minister of Guyana, Recipient of the Order of Roraima of Guyana, Sir, thank you very much indeed for agreeing to take part in this oral history of the Commonwealth project. I wonder if you could begin by commenting, please, on what you thought of the Commonwealth as a n idea and as an association at the beginning of the s , when you joined the new Ministry of External Affairs for the government of British Guiana.
RJ: Well, in , we were still a colony and therefore the Commonwealth was, for us, still the British Commonwealth. It was a collection of countries having a relationship with Britain, in one form or another, most of them being ex-colonies. But at a different level, the philosophical level, one saw it not as an institution but as a collectivity that represented certain commonalities: commonality of language, commonality of political system and commonality of certain basic values.
So, it had both a practical and a philosophical element. SO: Guyana became independent in May The Commonwealth itself changed with the creation of the Commonwealth Secretariat in , the previous year, and the creation of the new post of Secretary General.
RJ: Well, I think that as we approached independence, we began to think about it. The fact that India became a republic and remained in the Commonwealth was of great significance.
