[bpodgursky]

African voters, to the extent that they have any vote at all [1], have vastly more important things to care about than a tiny island in the Indian ocean. I would in fact bet a lot of money that vastly fewer than 1% of African voters, in any country, know about the Chagos Islands at all.

[1] Mostly, not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_Africa#/media/Fil...

[aguaviva]

But this is a red herring. Their leaders know all about the issue (which infinitely broader than the matter of those specific islands of course; the supposition that it's just about "a tiny island" being a straw man in itself), of course; and have made their position very clear:

  The African Union on Thursday hailed the “historic political agreement” between the UK and Mauritius regarding the sovereignty of the Chagos Islands.

  “This significant milestone marks a major victory for the cause of Decolonialization, International Law, and the rightful self-determination of the people of Mauritius, bringing to an end to decades of dispute,” African Union Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat stated in a message posted on X (formerly Twitter).

[toyg]

Yeah but when $dictator shows up on tv and talks about figthing $bloodyColonialists at the UN, it's uncontroversial (regardless of the issue being fought) and takes time from talking about his embezzlement/corruption/etc.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, they can go cap in hand to $bloodyColonialists and ask "do you want me to shut up? Give me $something".

This requires no shadowy influence from this or that supposed Great Power.

[Thiez]

This all just speaks in favor of decolonialization, does it not? When decolonialisation is complete the $dictator won't be able to use it as a distraction, nor can it be a source of corruption. And apart from that it's a noble and objectively good goal in itself.

[bpodgursky]

No, because they will always find some phantom menace of colonization to complain about.

Look at the Chagos Islands themselves — they were literally not inhabited until Europeans settled them. There's no "decolonization" narrative here, because there's no native population.

Once the UK leaves the Chagos islands, it will be about foreign aid with strings attached, or IMF loans, or foreign investment in farmland, or whatever. It's not a solvable problem.

[toyg]

> they were literally not inhabited until Europeans settled them

Decolonization is not simply about removing troops from here or there, it's about taking responsibility for actions that enriched $motherland at the expense of $colony. French and British colonialists moved people to Chagos for their own profit, and then (together with Americans) ejected their descendants from what had become, by then, a homeland; pushing governments to take responsibility for these actions is the moral thing to do.

[bpodgursky]

You are illustrating my point perfectly.

There is no amount of "decolonizing" the UK can do that will put an end to the grievances. As long as African warlords want to blame their problems on someone else, they will find a way to link it in some nebulous way to lasting inter-generational damage by ex-colonizers.

[toyg]

> There is no amount of "decolonizing" the UK can do that will put an end to the grievances.

That's not true. Plenty of decolonized countries just go about their business, once the outstanding issues are solved; or even when they try to stir shit, nobody listens to them.

Here though we do have an outstanding problem that needs to be solved. Once the islands go to Mauritius and the expelled population is resettled, there will be nothing left to complain about in that particular area. Obviously, thanks to the sheer size of injustice perpetrated in colonial times, there will be plenty left to complain about elsewhere. The only answer is to solve problems with goodwill, not to bury our heads in the sand pretending our ancestors never did what they did.

[toyg]

Absolutely.