Back? They weren't populated until the British brought them there and were never a Mauritian property. Futhermore the only people who lived there were there as employees of the Chagos Agalega Company. From 1838 onwards. It's like getting a job on an oil rig and demanding you get to keep the rig. The fog of pseudo history written in terms of marxist terminology descends on our civilisation determined to rewrite reality
> The abolition of slavery in 1833, and the entitlement of slaves to remain in the colony in which they were freed, meant that many freed slaves had continued to work the plantations.
so slaves worked the plantations on the island before 1838.
and as an aside, what do you mean by Marxist terminology? I didn't see "proletariat" or "bourgeoisie," nor workers seizing the means of production. it's sloppy and lazy to use "Marxism" as a catch-all bogeyman.
> so slaves worked the plantations on the island before 1838.
Yes, they were freed by the British and compensated in 1833. As they were post removal in 68. 1838 was the year they were working in Chagos on 2 year rolling contracts (as was common for non enslaved people in such businesses prior to 1833).
> so slaves worked the plantations on the island before 1838.
And they were brought there by the british & french mainly. The french & dutch inhabited it first, before any of these people's ancestors.
> and as an aside, what do you mean by Marxist terminology? I didn't see "proletariat" or "bourgeoisie," nor workers seizing the means of production. it's sloppy and lazy to use "Marxism" as a catch-all bogeyman.
Ignoring history by framing everything as a class/exploitation problem rather than looking at what really happened. It's very common to ignore history now and use feelings to assert because someone might have been exploited that overrides reality.
> And they were brought there by the british & french mainly.
So were slaves in the Caribbean. Should they not have rights to the islands on which they have lived for generations?
It’s pretty simple:
They were taken from their homes as slaves. They were forced to work in plantations for generations. Slavery ended but they had no “home” to return to and called the island where they had settled home.
Whether they were forcible taken there doesn’t suddenly mean it’s not their home.
> because someone might have been exploited
Can we just be super clear that we are talking about former slaves here. As much as might like to talk about “compensation” (source??) these are people who were taken from their homes as slaves, transported across vast oceans and forced to work in generally pretty horrible conditions. There is no “might have been exploited” here, they were very clearly exploited in an extreme way.
Actually real history has always been about class and exploitation.
JFC you said it yourself Mauritius was a slave colony! The British weren't there for the weather. Nothing Marxist about understanding the human condition- people suck.
Making a claim that all Europeans have a better claim to Mauritius than the people and the descendants of the people who lived there, because some Europeans started plantations there (that they then imported to Mauritians to work themselves to death on) is a bizarre racial claim.
You're claiming that all Europeans, by virtue of being of the race that discovered an island, have a better claim to the island than its forced residents. I don't know how you can claim to be the reasonable one here.
What laid the basis for Indo-Mauritians population (majority of extant population) largely emigrated to there subsequent to the abolition of slavery. Over simplification of what were undoubtable moral affronts doesn't help a rational view of history.
Franco-Mauritians still indeed exist in small but wealthy numbers.
> Making a claim that all Europeans have a better claim to Mauritius than the people and the descendants of the people who lived there
I'm saying in linear time they indeed have an earlier claim. I say it because the term in relation to the relocated people of Chagos is often that they are "indigenous". Which isn't true
The Chagos were part of Mauritius until the UK split it at independence in order to provide a military base to the US and they expelled the inhabitants in the process...
It was never Mauritian. I think what you mean is it was part of the British territory in the region prior to gaining independence.
Mauritius itself was an unpopulated island before being discovered by the Dutch. The Dutch have more claim to call themselves indigenous to Mauritius than most Mauritians
The Chagos did belong to Mauritius until 1965, beyond that I think the most problematic in this case, which kept it an open issue, is that the British then deported all the inhabitants and refused that they come back. And yes, all those countries are ultimately creations of European colonial times but that's irrelevant.
Whether they were populated or not before Europeans arrived is irrelevant in this case and in general.
Every place on Earth was not populated. At one point they became populated, people made their homes there, different entities emerged. That's what happened there as well.
Oh, the TLD that went down for many hours (more than a day IIRC?) that one time a couple years ago — forcing all the companies like the one I work at, who host their own stuff on .io and use statuspage.io, to really scramble... fun times!
This sounds from the article like a great thing — or I mean, at least a partial righting of a historical injustice — but I am also interested to know: does it have any implications for the .io TLD?
Most of these enclaves and foreign colonies haven't really been kept to support the locals though, but more as a power play. A remote base of operations and a statement to the world. I truly doubt Thatcher really cared about the couple thousand of remote inhabitants during the falklands war, but rather the prospect of losing a strategic remote base and losing face in the geopolitical arena (as well as at home obviously)
Importing your own population into conquered territory and letting them vote is a dirty trick we don't accept from countries like Russia but using it as a justification ourselves undermines our legitimacy of that argument. The fact that these things happened a long time ago makes it a bit less of a statement but still it remains a double standard. The Crimean deportation of locals is also a long time ago but we still blame Russia for taking it over (and rightly so). I'm really happy to see governments finally admitting their mistakes like in this case.
The Falklands, Diego Garcia, Gibraltar are all in very strategic places. Now, there is something to be said about protecting the Falklands as Argentina isn't the most stable country in the world, but would the Gibraltar population really be so much worse off if they were ruled by Spain? The hundreds of thousands of British that live in Spain clearly don't think so.
> Importing your own population into conquered territory and letting them vote is a dirty trick we don't accept from countries like Russia
But isn't that exactly what the Europeans did in the US and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, even Argentina? Import new people, who vastly outnumber and outvote the descendants of the original inhabitants? (And not just Europeans – it is also what China did to Taiwan.)
The fact that Russia's annexation of Crimea is only a few years old is a very large part of the challenge to its legitimacy. Similar events which happened 70, 100, 200, 300+ years ago, far fewer will seriously propose overturning them (indeed, the idea of doing so is liable to be condemned as "irredentism").
> but would the Gibraltar population really be so much worse off if they were ruled by Spain?
Many people in Gibraltar are by heritage neither Spanish nor British. The UK imported a labour force – some Brits and Spaniards, but also very many Italians, Portuguese, Maltese, and North African Jews. Many of their descendants would rather be independent, but given that's unlikely to be an option, British rule is closer in practice to independence than Spanish rule would be – the UK, being much further away, is naturally going to be inclined to give them a great deal of autonomy over their internal affairs, Spain (whatever promises it might make to try to get it back) will inevitably desire to integrate it into the Spanish state and treat it as just another part of Spain.
> But isn't that exactly what the Europeans did in the US and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, even Argentina? Import new people, who vastly outnumber and outvote the descendants of the original inhabitants?
This is an example of how something is good? These were some of the worst acts in history, and involved many, many, mass graves.
> And not just Europeans – it is also what China did to Taiwan.
Taiwan was invaded by the retreating ROC army. So this is what that army did to the Formosans, not what "China" did to "Taiwan.* Again: the current government of Taiwan were the people who brutally suppressed the Formosans, and took over their island.
Indigenous Taiwanese make up 2% of the current population, and live in the mountains.
> The fact that Russia's annexation of Crimea is only a few years old is a very large part of the challenge to its legitimacy.
Crimea became part of the Soviet that corresponds to Ukraine under the Soviet Union in 1954, and its population was and is Russian speaking. There is no serious challenge to its legitimacy other than the fact that the US is going to use every opportunity to harass Russia and China it can, no matter the claim.
Speaking of recent claims, The current Ukraine's claim to Crimea dates from 1995. Crimea hoped to be independent after the fall of the USSR, until: "In October 1993, the Crimean parliament established the post of president of Crimea. Tensions rose in 1994 with election of separatist leader Yury Meshkov as Crimean president. On 17 March 1995, the parliament of Ukraine abolished the Crimean constitution of 1992, all the laws and decrees contradicting those of Kyiv, and also removed Yuriy Meshkov, the then president of Crimea, along with the office itself."
No. But it is evidence that people have different standards for more distant wrongs than more recent ones. Many Argentines think the UK should “give it back” the Falklands, but how many European-descended Argentines think Argentina should be “given back” to its original indigenous inhabitants? What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
> Taiwan was invaded by the retreating ROC army.
The Qing dynasty ruled Taiwan from 1683 to 1895, and that is when Han Chinese colonisation started. The Europeans came before that - Chinese colonialism pushed out European colonialism, and Chinese colonialism was in turn displaced - for a period - by Japanese colonialism. But there were already very many Han Chinese in Taiwan before the defeat of Japan, or the flight of the KMT from the mainland.
> would the Gibraltar population really be so much worse off if they were ruled by Spain? The hundreds of thousands of British that live in Spain clearly don't think so.
the tens of thousands of that live in Gibraltar clearly do think so
Undemocratic countries do not like self determination.
If the vast majority of people who were born and live in a region want to be an independent country, that's their call. That could be Scotland, Falklands, Catalonia, Northern Cyprus, Texas, Ceuta, Crimea, Tibet, Hong Kong, Quebec, Reunion, etc. If they want to be part of another country then it's still their call, but obviously the other country also has to agree.
(I accept there's probably some discussion about how recent immigrants count, and the size or duration of the majority to make something change but the principal of self determination is one of the most basic rights people have)
> Almost 70% of the population identifies as Falkland Islanders, British, or a combination of both. The diversity of national identities almost doubled compared to 2016, with 86 different nationalities counted, and more people identify as being a Falkland Islander in addition to their cultural background.
Falklands is a clear example of the entire population wanting to keep the status quo[0], there's no movement to change that on the island - no groups campaigning for it etc. There's no "both sides" to it.
Gibraltar was the same, but then brexit came, so not sure if that has swung opinion but I don't think. In 2002 87% of the total registered to vote voted to remain the same.
Catalonia probably wants independence (40% voted for it in 2017), and should have a decent referendum and debate with independence as an option, the travesty of the referendum just shows how undemocratic Spain is.
New Caledonia on the other hand wants to retain the status quo, although not much. Maybe in 30 years time that will have changed, and there's certainly both valid sides of the conversation.
The issue with this argument is resettlement of citizens not from that region to alter the demographics, as is the case of Northern Cyprus. If your nation isn't given the right to self-determination until your existing community is outnumbered by settlers 2:1, did you really ever have the right to self-determination in the first place? Does a referendum in that case accurately represent the native communities that represented the invaded nation, or does it then represent the invading nation through the settlers?
Hence "I accept there's probably some discussion about how recent immigrants count"
The big question is when do people become native. You can't go back 200 years for obvious reasons, if you're born in America you're and American, just because your grandfather was born in Belfast it doesn't make you Irish. If you moved to Belfast when you were 10 and have lived there for 30 years though, then you clearly are.
Northern Cyprus is what it is now. Yes there were issues 50 years ago when it was partitioned, but life moves on. On the other hand if the US had invaded Basra, displaced the population, put in 2 million of its own citizens, and then claimed independence 2 months later based on overwhelming support, that wouldn't be reasonable. 100 years later, then sure.
Sometimes people lose out. It's sad, and shouldn't have happened, but after some time (that might be 10 years, it might be 100) you have just as much right to your voice as everyone else living there.
The argument amounts to might makes right. You're stronger than your neighbor? Just forcibly resettle some of your citizens there and give them an interest in your success.
The principle of self determination worked very nicely when there were pre-existing contested territories as a way to extinguish claims. But it must not be allowed to create competing claims or else it will do vastly more harm than it has so far eliminated. This is why it's generally not recognised. This is why Crimea and Catalonia's claims of UDI were disregarded. This is why Scotland is seeking independence through internal negotiation.
What harm are you trying to heal with self-determination? Or is it just some ideological commitment to the idea no matter how much suffering comes from it?
> The argument amounts to might makes right. You're stronger than your neighbor? Just forcibly resettle some of your citizens there and give them an interest in your success.
OK, so America wants to take over say Panama. Why would Panama allow millions of Americans to live there?
> This is why Scotland is seeking independence through internal negotiation.
Scotland isn't seeking independence. A large number of people in Scotland are. They have that right, so do people in Catalonia, California and Cornwall. In the case of California and Cornwall I'm fairly certain the number wanting independence is a tiny minority, but if they want independence they have full rights, just like the people of Virginia and co had a right to independence from the Britain back in the 18th century.
The alternative view is that the people of Virginia and co did not have that right, and that may be something you believe, but it's not something I believe
Who determines the borders of a "region"? Can a few Tory-leaning families in an independent Scotland declare their neighborhood an exclave of the UK? Clearly there's still some kind of implicit requirement of geopolitical muscle.
As long as we're being pedantic: "hand over X back to" is mixing phrases -- are they handing it over or handing it back? It should be "hand X over to" or "hand X back to"
Nobody can blame people wanting to return to their homes. But if I were in their shoes I'd be very careful about what their new government will do next.
People of Chagos were useful as a leverage and international shaming tool. But once they return, and islands go to Mauritius ... they will be tiny, economically deprived minority, sitting so far unexploited resource trove. And you can ask East Timor how that goes.
The marine protection area, one of the largest in the world, is obviously going to disappear. UN calls it illegitimate land grab, and it technically is, so without the only backer (UK), there will be nothing holding back exploitation.
I have long been generally supportive of the people's right to return, but I am far more sceptical of Mauritius' claim to the islands. They were administered from Mauritius when Mauritius was a British colony, but otherwise, they do not have a strong geographical or historical connection there. I guess, ultimately, it is up to the Chagosian people what political arrangements they want, and I hope the negotiators make determining that a priority.
I'm very surprised to hear of this, my guess is US will just forever stall their 'negotiation' with UK considering Chagos is a key military interest in the region for the US
Apparently the Chagos Archipelago is much closer in distance to the Maldives than Mauritius. It would not be a surprise if they are claiming that area as well.
A great example of non-violent resistance. The UK would not be at the table without the flag-raising trip; it forced their hand as the only other option was violently confronting the landing Mauritian vessel.
52 comments
[ 0.21 ms ] story [ 118 ms ] threadhttps://www.uniset.ca/naty/2003EWHC2222.htm
> The abolition of slavery in 1833, and the entitlement of slaves to remain in the colony in which they were freed, meant that many freed slaves had continued to work the plantations.
so slaves worked the plantations on the island before 1838.
and as an aside, what do you mean by Marxist terminology? I didn't see "proletariat" or "bourgeoisie," nor workers seizing the means of production. it's sloppy and lazy to use "Marxism" as a catch-all bogeyman.
Yes, they were freed by the British and compensated in 1833. As they were post removal in 68. 1838 was the year they were working in Chagos on 2 year rolling contracts (as was common for non enslaved people in such businesses prior to 1833).
> so slaves worked the plantations on the island before 1838.
And they were brought there by the british & french mainly. The french & dutch inhabited it first, before any of these people's ancestors.
> and as an aside, what do you mean by Marxist terminology? I didn't see "proletariat" or "bourgeoisie," nor workers seizing the means of production. it's sloppy and lazy to use "Marxism" as a catch-all bogeyman.
Ignoring history by framing everything as a class/exploitation problem rather than looking at what really happened. It's very common to ignore history now and use feelings to assert because someone might have been exploited that overrides reality.
So were slaves in the Caribbean. Should they not have rights to the islands on which they have lived for generations?
It’s pretty simple:
They were taken from their homes as slaves. They were forced to work in plantations for generations. Slavery ended but they had no “home” to return to and called the island where they had settled home.
Whether they were forcible taken there doesn’t suddenly mean it’s not their home.
> because someone might have been exploited
Can we just be super clear that we are talking about former slaves here. As much as might like to talk about “compensation” (source??) these are people who were taken from their homes as slaves, transported across vast oceans and forced to work in generally pretty horrible conditions. There is no “might have been exploited” here, they were very clearly exploited in an extreme way.
Most of the population are descended from people who arrived subsequent to the abolition of slavery. And any former slaves died 150 years ago
You're claiming that all Europeans, by virtue of being of the race that discovered an island, have a better claim to the island than its forced residents. I don't know how you can claim to be the reasonable one here.
Franco-Mauritians still indeed exist in small but wealthy numbers.
> Making a claim that all Europeans have a better claim to Mauritius than the people and the descendants of the people who lived there
I'm saying in linear time they indeed have an earlier claim. I say it because the term in relation to the relocated people of Chagos is often that they are "indigenous". Which isn't true
Indo - 66% Afro - 28%
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Mauritius
This is common breakdown of places that were slave colonies that needed labour after the end of slavery during Empire (e.g. Guyana, Surinam).
Mauritius itself was an unpopulated island before being discovered by the Dutch. The Dutch have more claim to call themselves indigenous to Mauritius than most Mauritians
These countries were totally unpopulated before Europeans arrived. Of course it isn't irrelevant.
Every place on Earth was not populated. At one point they became populated, people made their homes there, different entities emerged. That's what happened there as well.
This sounds from the article like a great thing — or I mean, at least a partial righting of a historical injustice — but I am also interested to know: does it have any implications for the .io TLD?
Claims over the Falkland Islands are likely getting dusted once again, right side of the Andes.
Importing your own population into conquered territory and letting them vote is a dirty trick we don't accept from countries like Russia but using it as a justification ourselves undermines our legitimacy of that argument. The fact that these things happened a long time ago makes it a bit less of a statement but still it remains a double standard. The Crimean deportation of locals is also a long time ago but we still blame Russia for taking it over (and rightly so). I'm really happy to see governments finally admitting their mistakes like in this case.
The Falklands, Diego Garcia, Gibraltar are all in very strategic places. Now, there is something to be said about protecting the Falklands as Argentina isn't the most stable country in the world, but would the Gibraltar population really be so much worse off if they were ruled by Spain? The hundreds of thousands of British that live in Spain clearly don't think so.
The Netherlands still has a few Carribbean islands situated next to Venezuela. You break it you buy it.
But isn't that exactly what the Europeans did in the US and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, even Argentina? Import new people, who vastly outnumber and outvote the descendants of the original inhabitants? (And not just Europeans – it is also what China did to Taiwan.)
The fact that Russia's annexation of Crimea is only a few years old is a very large part of the challenge to its legitimacy. Similar events which happened 70, 100, 200, 300+ years ago, far fewer will seriously propose overturning them (indeed, the idea of doing so is liable to be condemned as "irredentism").
> but would the Gibraltar population really be so much worse off if they were ruled by Spain?
Many people in Gibraltar are by heritage neither Spanish nor British. The UK imported a labour force – some Brits and Spaniards, but also very many Italians, Portuguese, Maltese, and North African Jews. Many of their descendants would rather be independent, but given that's unlikely to be an option, British rule is closer in practice to independence than Spanish rule would be – the UK, being much further away, is naturally going to be inclined to give them a great deal of autonomy over their internal affairs, Spain (whatever promises it might make to try to get it back) will inevitably desire to integrate it into the Spanish state and treat it as just another part of Spain.
This is an example of how something is good? These were some of the worst acts in history, and involved many, many, mass graves.
> And not just Europeans – it is also what China did to Taiwan.
Taiwan was invaded by the retreating ROC army. So this is what that army did to the Formosans, not what "China" did to "Taiwan.* Again: the current government of Taiwan were the people who brutally suppressed the Formosans, and took over their island.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of_the_government_of_t...
Indigenous Taiwanese make up 2% of the current population, and live in the mountains.
> The fact that Russia's annexation of Crimea is only a few years old is a very large part of the challenge to its legitimacy.
Crimea became part of the Soviet that corresponds to Ukraine under the Soviet Union in 1954, and its population was and is Russian speaking. There is no serious challenge to its legitimacy other than the fact that the US is going to use every opportunity to harass Russia and China it can, no matter the claim.
Speaking of recent claims, The current Ukraine's claim to Crimea dates from 1995. Crimea hoped to be independent after the fall of the USSR, until: "In October 1993, the Crimean parliament established the post of president of Crimea. Tensions rose in 1994 with election of separatist leader Yury Meshkov as Crimean president. On 17 March 1995, the parliament of Ukraine abolished the Crimean constitution of 1992, all the laws and decrees contradicting those of Kyiv, and also removed Yuriy Meshkov, the then president of Crimea, along with the office itself."
No. But it is evidence that people have different standards for more distant wrongs than more recent ones. Many Argentines think the UK should “give it back” the Falklands, but how many European-descended Argentines think Argentina should be “given back” to its original indigenous inhabitants? What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
> Taiwan was invaded by the retreating ROC army.
The Qing dynasty ruled Taiwan from 1683 to 1895, and that is when Han Chinese colonisation started. The Europeans came before that - Chinese colonialism pushed out European colonialism, and Chinese colonialism was in turn displaced - for a period - by Japanese colonialism. But there were already very many Han Chinese in Taiwan before the defeat of Japan, or the flight of the KMT from the mainland.
the tens of thousands of that live in Gibraltar clearly do think so
If the vast majority of people who were born and live in a region want to be an independent country, that's their call. That could be Scotland, Falklands, Catalonia, Northern Cyprus, Texas, Ceuta, Crimea, Tibet, Hong Kong, Quebec, Reunion, etc. If they want to be part of another country then it's still their call, but obviously the other country also has to agree.
(I accept there's probably some discussion about how recent immigrants count, and the size or duration of the majority to make something change but the principal of self determination is one of the most basic rights people have)
> Almost 70% of the population identifies as Falkland Islanders, British, or a combination of both. The diversity of national identities almost doubled compared to 2016, with 86 different nationalities counted, and more people identify as being a Falkland Islander in addition to their cultural background.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Falkland_Islands_sovereig...
Gibraltar was the same, but then brexit came, so not sure if that has swung opinion but I don't think. In 2002 87% of the total registered to vote voted to remain the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gibraltar_sovereignty_ref...
Catalonia probably wants independence (40% voted for it in 2017), and should have a decent referendum and debate with independence as an option, the travesty of the referendum just shows how undemocratic Spain is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_independence_refe...
New Caledonia on the other hand wants to retain the status quo, although not much. Maybe in 30 years time that will have changed, and there's certainly both valid sides of the conversation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_New_Caledonian_independen...
The big question is when do people become native. You can't go back 200 years for obvious reasons, if you're born in America you're and American, just because your grandfather was born in Belfast it doesn't make you Irish. If you moved to Belfast when you were 10 and have lived there for 30 years though, then you clearly are.
Northern Cyprus is what it is now. Yes there were issues 50 years ago when it was partitioned, but life moves on. On the other hand if the US had invaded Basra, displaced the population, put in 2 million of its own citizens, and then claimed independence 2 months later based on overwhelming support, that wouldn't be reasonable. 100 years later, then sure.
Sometimes people lose out. It's sad, and shouldn't have happened, but after some time (that might be 10 years, it might be 100) you have just as much right to your voice as everyone else living there.
The principle of self determination worked very nicely when there were pre-existing contested territories as a way to extinguish claims. But it must not be allowed to create competing claims or else it will do vastly more harm than it has so far eliminated. This is why it's generally not recognised. This is why Crimea and Catalonia's claims of UDI were disregarded. This is why Scotland is seeking independence through internal negotiation.
What harm are you trying to heal with self-determination? Or is it just some ideological commitment to the idea no matter how much suffering comes from it?
OK, so America wants to take over say Panama. Why would Panama allow millions of Americans to live there?
> This is why Scotland is seeking independence through internal negotiation.
Scotland isn't seeking independence. A large number of people in Scotland are. They have that right, so do people in Catalonia, California and Cornwall. In the case of California and Cornwall I'm fairly certain the number wanting independence is a tiny minority, but if they want independence they have full rights, just like the people of Virginia and co had a right to independence from the Britain back in the 18th century.
The alternative view is that the people of Virginia and co did not have that right, and that may be something you believe, but it's not something I believe
> UK agrees to negotiate
Title on HN:
> UK agrees to hand over
title should be changed. Did Guardian update it at their end?
People of Chagos were useful as a leverage and international shaming tool. But once they return, and islands go to Mauritius ... they will be tiny, economically deprived minority, sitting so far unexploited resource trove. And you can ask East Timor how that goes.
The marine protection area, one of the largest in the world, is obviously going to disappear. UN calls it illegitimate land grab, and it technically is, so without the only backer (UK), there will be nothing holding back exploitation.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/07/reclaim...