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The Sun Will Set On The British Empire
The sun has not set on the British Empire for about 200 years. As a result of yesterday’s decision to cede the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean to Mauritius, this will no longer be true at some point in 2025. The point at which the sun will actually set is somewhat indeterminate because of sunlight in the British Antarctic Territory for several more months (see map projection below), but it is estimated that a setting sun in the Pitcairn Islands will mark the date sometime early next year. The Chagos Islands, also referred to as the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT), include Diego Garcia, where the U.S. has a joint military base. It will be preserved.
With all of today’s attacks on “colonialism,” I suppose that I shouldn’t find this sad. Still, as a descendant of some fine English stock of Empire-years gone by, I do.
Published in Travel
I do too
Randall at xkcd talked about this ten years ago on his What if? page.
“The Sun never sets on all fourteen British territories at once (or even thirteen, if you don’t count the British Antarctic Territory). However, if the UK loses one tiny territory, it will experience its first Empire-wide sunset in over two centuries.”
a) I usually take the old “you can’t relitigate ancient history” when it comes to old colonies, but Britain expelled the Chagossians from their home in freakin’ 1970. That’s well after Britain had signed on to all sorts of international agreements and treaties that ban such actions.
b) If Britain has a lease on Diego Garcia for 99 years then technically the sun won’t set on the British Empire until the lease expires. After all, if Hong Kong was part of the empire even though Britain only had a lease on it, then the same applies to Diego Garcia.
Well, let’s dive into this. Are you saying a ‘lease’ is the same as ownership?
On seeing the news, I immediately texted to my sister, “how long before Starmer gives the Falklands to Argentina?” I can’t print her response here.
Oh, my prophetic soul. Today’s Telegraph headline:
Starmer refuses to rule out signing away Gibralter and Falklands:
The Chagos/Diego Garcia history is painful for me. One of the “Uncle” figures during the first decade of my life was Sir Bruce Greatbatch. He was, at one time, a highly-placed British Colonial official in Nigeria (not more highly-placed than Dad, it’s true), and I’ve slept (more than a few times) in his bed. He wasn’t in the bed at the time, so no worries.
What used to happen was that Mum and Dad–who led a very pleasant social life, would often be invited to parties and social events and–as their only child in the mid/late 1950s–they’d take me along. In my early years, I’d exhaust myself playing with the Nigerian staff, and the children of the staff, and when I was ready for bed, they’d bundle me up and place me in Sir Bruce’s bed (and that of a few others), until Mum and Dad were ready to leave, whereupon they bundled me out of the bed, and took me home. It totally solved the babysitter problem, and I was well looked after, start to finish.
Subsequent to his tenure in Nigeria, Sir Bruce ended up as the Governor of the Seychelles. As such, he oversaw the deportation of the Chagossians, including reliable reports of the British poisoning and gassing of pet dogs in order to induce the natives to leave so that the joint US/UK base at Diego Garcia could go forward.
Ugh.
Bruce Greatbatch figures prominently in many kind and charming episodes of my childhood. This latest story is a reminder of the ugliness that often lies underneath and which we can’t–no matter the rights and wrongs–simply wish away.
You are courageous to tell this story.
Thanks. I am not sure that’s the case. There isn’t going to be much of a penalty for my doing so here. I just find the whole thing terribly sad. The Uncle Bruce I knew wouldn’t have been capable of the acts he was later accused of. But I can’t find my way into excusing them–or him–based on what I’ve seen. I don’t know what happened. I wish I’d had the wit to ask Dad about it before he died. But sometimes that wisdom comes only with age. And by the time you achieve it, those you’d like to have discussed it with are gone.
If the lease of Hong Kong made that territory a part of the Empire, then the lease of Diego Garcia makes that territory a part of the Empire. If not, then not.
They planning on holding onto the Outer Hebrides, are they? I might put in a bid for the Isle of Barra, if the price is right.
It’s a clearance sale. Everything must go. The Isle of Wight is getting a bit skittish.
I’m thinking sovereignty will pass to Mauritius much like Cuba retains sovereignty over Guantanamo Bay.
I might go dibs with you on any land mass on which the population of sheep is more than that of people.
Aren’t the Falklands. populated by Brits? And sheep?
The Brits have really been nutty since they tossed Churchill out of office.
Their national health service pretty much doomed them, though nearly 100% of their population think it is their greatest feat. It’s a very sorry decline.
I wonder if we, those who speak the new and improved English language, don’t join them in that decline. I’m not too hopeful.
Yes, and they are rather fond of being British, Two-Tier Keir Stalin not withstanding.
True, but not a factor in the sun setting inquiry.
Without the horrendously arrogant and overbearing English colonialism, many of those “colonies” would still be living in mud houses. Life is one very constant “trade off”.
Yeah, I was responding to She speculating that Starmer would give away the Falklands next. Abandoning his own people — despicably.
No one should ever apologize for the British Empire. While I am thrilled that I was born in the rebel colonies and never lived under an empire, the British Empire was an unequivocal good. True, it wasn’t perfect and sometimes it was far from perfect. But it ended the slave trade with its naval power and brought longer life expectancy, literacy, democracy, human rights, Christianity, and much more to its colonies.
Even the Chagos Islanders are using the British-inspired legal system to seek redress of the wrongs done to them by the British. If it had been the Chinese who deported the Chagos Islanders, they would not have been alive to seek redress. Probably their organs would have been sold all over the world.
May the sun never set on the British Empire!
In other words, it was an equivocal good.
Grading against their contemporary empires on a curve, they get the A.
I don’t think so. Equivocal means that it is open to two interpretations, that it could be good or bad, depending on how you weigh the outcomes. I am saying that despite some imperfections, there is no doubt that it was good. Thus it was unequivocally good.
Yes, that definition is why I say it’s equivocal. There are people in Ireland or India who don’t think highly of it at all, but there are some who do, and some who see both sides. They each have their reasons, or interpretations.
I’m saying they are wrong. The British Empire was unequivocally good for Ireland and India, whether or not they recognize it (see democracy, human rights, economic development, Christianity, etc.).
Thanks for the Potato Famine, the campaigns of oppression and subjugation by Lord North and others. My ancestors came over in the early 1770s looking for payback and they received it in spades. As for Christianity, it has existed continuously in Ireland for longer than in Britain. I will leave India as low-hanging fruit for others to address.
Thanks to the British, the Irish speak the global language, govern themselves with a British parliamentary system, believe in human rights, have generated fantastic economic development, and much more. Did the British do bad things in Ireland? Absolutely. But the benefits of being part of the British Empire unequivocally outweighed the negatives for Ireland.
And others consider other factors and weigh these that you list differently. There is disagreement. So unequivocal is not accurate.
Not sure about that, but just you try to hold onto a Wedge Antilles.
One assumes the Irish couldn’t have figured these things out for themselves, instead of having British bootheels ground into their faces for centuries.
Oh, and this is a nice read: https://www.amazon.com/How-Irish-Saved-Civilization-Irelands/dp/0385418493
Which country in the world has developed these things independently?