British Indian Ocean Territory Proverbs (11)

“The UK decided to lease our motherland to the US to build a military base.”

A homeland can be signed away by distant powers without the consent of the people who belong to it.

“Since I was four years old, my people, the Chagossians, have lived in impoverished exile, while the US military has been enjoying the fruits of my homeland.”

A single act of dispossession can echo across an entire lifetime and an entire people.

“My life has been buried… It's as if I was pulled from my paradise to put me in hell.”

Losing one's home can feel like losing life itself, even while the body goes on living.

“I maintain justice must be done.”

However long a wrong is allowed to stand, the demand for justice does not fade.

“This battle has just begun.”

A single legal or moral victory is only a step, not the end, of a long struggle.

“We Chagossians will continue fighting for our fundamental rights to be respected.”

Dignity is defended by continuing to demand it, generation after generation.

“There is nothing, just structures of houses and of the church. There is nothing inside. Nothing. It's deserted. It was heartbreaking to see it with my own eyes.”

Seeing a lost home with one's own eyes can make an old grief suddenly, freshly real.

“The documents show clearly that the conspiracy to expel the population rested on a big lie.”

Injustice often depends on a story that does not survive contact with the true record.

“There are times when one tragedy, one crime, tells us how a whole system works behind its democratic façade and helps us understand how much of the world is run for the benefit of the powerful and how governments often justify their actions with lies.”

A single, well-documented injustice can reveal the true machinery behind a much larger system.

“One rule for you, another for us?”

A double standard, once named plainly, is very hard to defend.

“Britain's reputation as a guardian of the international rule of law is shattered.”

A nation's moral standing can be broken by the same laws it claims to uphold for others.