If slavery was too long ago to affect you..how about this ?

This is much more complex than you present it Paddyanne. I have spent an interesting hour reading up on it and I am sure I could have spent longer. I don’t think it’s about being black.

The Chagos archipelago was originally uninhabited until the French established a small colony which included some slaves. The British acquired it following the Treaty of Paris in 1814. Slavery was abolished by us on the island in 1834. Plantations were owned by absentee landlords who provided those living on the islands with work, shelter and a wage. Thus although the Chagosians were not indigenous and were not originally called that as they were joined by different peoples who came to work there, some of them had been there for some time and came to regard it as home.

When Mauritius sought independence from Britain in the 1960’spart of the deal was to ‘sell’ Chagos to the British for £600,000. It is doubtful if the Chagosians received any of that.
Britain then wanted the people to leave the island so that it could be leased to the US to build an airbase for defence.

Some people left the island ‘voluntarily’ when the plantation closed and there was no work for them. Others accepted offers of British citizenship and a few were forcibly evicted.

There are a lot of Chagosians living in Crawley in England. Some of them have been back to the Island but say the Island is now dominated by the giant US airbase and there has been some flooding by rising sea levels. They also didn’t want the Mauritians handing it over to China or India. It is sad for former residents who would like to be buried there.

The ones you should be rooting for are the ones not born in the right timescale living in this country who can’t get British citizenship.

Merylstreep and lemongrove the plight of the African Workers* in Spain is dreadful. I have close ties to Spain but I avoid all veggies and salad products ^marked produced in Spain

Fortunately most fresh produce sold in markets in Spain is produced by local small holders as the Polytunnel produce is for export to EU Countries.

The explanation by Davidhs is concise and factual.

However, it is not written in capitals so some may have missed it.

25Avalon good factual post ??

And the explanation by 25Avalon which appeared whilst I was typing mine.

Yes, 25Avalon, those who wish to have British citizenship should be granted that immediately.

Has this only just come to your attention, paddyanne?

You could email your MP, who presumably sits in Westminster, about this and hope that they listen and ask questions.

In fact, we could all do that

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-50924704

Good details to give the whole picture

Good to read the truth behind the headlines which is of course never simple.
Thank you for the clear and factual background davidhs and 25avslon that has been very helpful.
To go off at a tangent and use this case to attack Westminster on principle and connect it to BLM seems to me more than a smidgen of whataboutery and the journalists motto of not letting the facts get in the way of a good story.

In the scale of injustices Chagos ranks pretty low and it is a Fait Accompli, as long as our allies want Chagos for strategic reasons that’s how it will be. The links to slavery are pretty tenuous in any case, so it is a pretty spurious issue in that context.

Slavery aside the way native inhabitants in North, Central and South America were treated by European conquerors was far worse. All of us (including Paddyanne) have benefited from the injustices of the past and present of which slavery was one.

How we solve the injustices felt by the black community I have no idea, equality certainly won’t, there needs to be massive changes to improve the lives of the black community.

I can't get worked up about historic slavery. We only learn from history that we never learn from history. If a "lovely" young man with a posh home from ireland with a refrigerated truck pops off to Germany or Belgium and picks up a load of Cambodians or Vietnamese and takes them to the uk and dumps them in a business park . If they're lucky they sleep in shacks and work in nail bars or cannabis farms . If they're unlucky they get work as prostiturtes or rent boys or very unlucky frozen to death. That's slavery .

Hardrian wasn't English himself, but I can't help thinking he had some sort of visionary insight into how the future might pan out when he stuck that wall up. It takes a subjugator to recognise such similar burgeoning qualities in others, clearly he could see that every last person living in Britannia and those generations to come were potentially going to go forth and be avid empire builders. Possibly with an eye to honing their conquering skills on Caledonia due north . He greatly feared the fearsome Picts could retaliate in the most heinous manner, daubing themselves with woad, hitching up their kilts for regular incursions south, a wall had to be erected. Without it the shires would be overrun and then the most fearsome of fates could await them, angry Picts SHOUTING VERY LOUDLY about how they were so sick of LONDINIUM being important and the British English were all a shameless bunch of subjugating, empire building bastards who kept nicking all their haggis, porridge, oil, shortbread, Scotch, and other stuff and then taking it down to WESTMINSTERUM and keeping it for themselves even the pile of stones that Stonehenge is comprised of down in the far reaches of their cesspit of a country, well they've been appropriated from Wales, so you can see how long this has all been going on for! they'd shout before they continued with "A few mea culpas to the rest of the British Isles wouldn't go amiss and then you lot can go forth and apologise to the rest of the world for everything you've ever done wrong since the beginning of time, but not before you've expressed a mega MEA MAXIMA CULPA to us the Scots cos we was well pissed off you with you then, and still are! There'll be no ENTENTE CORDIALE from us coming up here and sticking up your "No Walking Over My Land" bah Mchumbug to you all!"

It isn't the links with slavery that are the roots of paddyanne's OP it is the Empire mentality. This is the mentality which says we have a right to move or dispose of any group of people without consulting them and sometimes in direct opposition to their wishes. It primarily is focussed on black people. It includes the Windrush geneation and their children. It includes the Chagos people. And it is a classic example of how we will still use territories for our own ends. All the excuses of 'it can never be economically viable' 'no-one could live there without support' may or may not be true. It simply isn't our decision to make, it never was.

Let's widen this out a bit. Why does it only have to be about "Empire"?

There is modern slavery in the UK and precious little is done about it.

There is child-trafficking and sex-trafficking too - another form of slavery.

In the end, this is about fundamental human rights.

It will be a sad day if we have to rely on journalists to expose these violations of human rights. Slavery and other violations of human rights should be exposed and children should learn about them at school.

There should be museums about slavery, about the British Empire and how it was run and we should be told about any ongoing consequences of the British Empire.

But it suits the powers that be to keep us all in ignorance.....

Terribull DH wants to know why I've gone scarlet in the face and am shaking with laughter till tears are running down my face.
???

I'm not going to mention the Blue Stones to him 'cos he'll want them back.
?

Yes, Stansgran and Ramblingrose we do need to be deeply concerned about modern slavery which goes on in so many countries today including ours.

I'm surprised that you have only just become aware of the Chagossians, paddyanne but perhaps it is because most live in Mauritius.
To complicate the issue, Mauritius lays claim to the Chagos Archipelago.

You can actually be concerned about historic abuse and modern slavery in fact generally the people who are concerned about one are usually involved with actions against the other. I believe the term to be used is distraction. Higlighting one cause does nothing to justify other abuse. I suggest all those who are concerned about modern slavery should start their own thread, I can post some excellent activist organisations and petitions on it. Meantime why not actually discuss our empirical record?

DH is a Celt. His ancestors were persecuted.
My ancestors were persecuted and fled their country.

If you wish to discuss that please go ahead.

I have been aware of the issue of this thread for a long while but anything I have done has had no effect. Just because the OP has just discovered the issue and shouted at me, demanding to know how my conscience sits with it does not, in fact, sit well with me, nor does accusing me of being a slave trade excuser.

There are many injustices in the world - can we right them all?
In the meantime, new sanctions have been imposed on Syria and people, ordinary people, children, will die of starvation, perhaps a more effective weapon than bombing?

Discuss if you wish.

It isn't the links with slavery that are the roots of paddyanne's OP it is the Empire mentality. This is the mentality which says we have a right to move or dispose of any group of people without consulting them and sometimes in direct opposition to their wishes.

Thanks, trisher. I thought I was ploughing a lone furrow there!

So why does she address the slave trade excusers and ask about their consciences?

I think paddyanne has only just discovered this and wonder why her conscience has been unaware of this issue for all these years?

TerriBull ???

Callistemon

DH is a Celt. His ancestors were persecuted.
My ancestors were persecuted and fled their country.

If you wish to discuss that please go ahead.

I have been aware of the issue of this thread for a long while but anything I have done has had no effect. Just because the OP has just discovered the issue and shouted at me, demanding to know how my conscience sits with it does not, in fact, sit well with me, nor does accusing me of being a slave trade excuser.

There are many injustices in the world - can we right them all?
In the meantime, new sanctions have been imposed on Syria and people, ordinary people, children, will die of starvation, perhaps a more effective weapon than bombing?

Discuss if you wish.

Perhaps because the situation in Syria is nothing that paddyanne can blame either the English or Westminster for?

trisher

You can actually be concerned about historic abuse and modern slavery in fact generally the people who are concerned about one are usually involved with actions against the other. I believe the term to be used is distraction. Higlighting one cause does nothing to justify other abuse. I suggest all those who are concerned about modern slavery should start their own thread, I can post some excellent activist organisations and petitions on it. Meantime why not actually discuss our empirical record?

Our empirical record?
Or....Belgium ( they have one) or France or Germany or Spain etc etc.
Much better to discuss what is going on under our noses right now IMHO.

Perhaps we should not forget the English who were taken as slaves by the Roman's- "Non Angli, sed Angeli"

The Scots and Welsh also took slaves during their raids across the borders.

Wandering apostrophe which does not belong to me.
Romans