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UK to hand over Chagos back to Mauritius

theguardian.com

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Re: UK to hand over Chagos back to Mauritius

#31

Post by GekkePrutser »

tyho wrote: post #12
pelagicAustral wrote: post #5

Pop! Here we go. Argentina has entered the chat. Claims over the Falkland Islands are likely getting dusted once again, right side of the Andes.

Absolutely not, the principle is self-determination which means we keep the Falklands by a very clear margin.

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.

Re: UK to hand over Chagos back to Mauritius

#32

Post by pelagicAustral »

LatteLazy wrote: post #8
pelagicAustral wrote: post #5

Pop! Here we go. Argentina has entered the chat. Claims over the Falkland Islands are likely getting dusted once again, right side of the Andes.

They get raised every time there is an Argentine election or political or economic crisis...

Every fortnight then.

Re: UK to hand over Chagos back to Mauritius

#33

Post by WeylandYutani »

easytiger wrote: post #7
sterlind wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from your own link: > 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 slo…

> 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 ma…

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.

Re: UK to hand over Chagos back to Mauritius

#34

Post by mbg721 »

iso1631 wrote: post #13
pelagicAustral wrote: post #5

Pop! Here we go. Argentina has entered the chat. Claims over the Falkland Islands are likely getting dusted once again, right side of the Andes.

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…

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.

Re: UK to hand over Chagos back to Mauritius

#35

Post by WeylandYutani »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #31
tyho wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not, the principle is self-determination which means we keep the Falklands by a very clear margin.

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 obvious…

The people in Gibraltar don't want to be Spanish. Forcing them could also be considered imperialism, no?

The Netherlands still has a few Carribbean islands situated next to Venezuela. You break it you buy it.

Re: UK to hand over Chagos back to Mauritius

#37

Post by skissane »

GekkePrutser wrote: post #31
tyho wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not, the principle is self-determination which means we keep the Falklands by a very clear margin.

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 obvious…

> 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.

Re: UK to hand over Chagos back to Mauritius

#39

Post by pessimizer »

easytiger wrote: post #7
sterlind wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from your own link: > 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 slo…

> 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 ma…

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.

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