“I dream of going to the cemetery to see the graves of my ancestors and put a flower... I want to go back because I want to die where I am from, where I was born, near my family.”
Belonging to a place can be measured by the simple wish to be buried in it.
— Frankie Bontemps, British Indian Ocean Territory
Source: Frankie Bontemps, quoted in "Chagossians Want a Say as UK-Mauritius Deal Faces Fresh Scrutiny," Reuters / U.S. News & World Report, 10 December 2024
More Proverbs from British Indian Ocean Territory
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.