• whoreticulture
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    6 months ago

    We’re talking about a situation where wealthy Europeans can just move to the island whenever they want to, and because France has declared itself ruler of an island halfway across the world, the inhabitants are required to vote for their freedom (or take other actions …). How is that fair?

    “Okay guys, you can vote if you want to rule yourselves”

    “we do”

    “Great, okay by the way there are a ton of French people who have already colonized, and more French people are going to keep moving in and they can also vote

    “what the fuck”

    It’s like if you had a vote on whether or not San Francisco should be ruled by native Ohlone people or by American settlers, but oh yeah uh the American settlers arrived in droves.

    • The Octonaut@mander.xyz
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      6 months ago

      OK, right, except they haven’t voted “we do”, they’ve consistently voted not to be independent. And, since the people are apparently rioting to prevent the voting registry being updated so that people who live in a place can vote there, unless it changes then the same people who voted not to be independent are going to be asked again whenever that may be.

      Look I’m Irish, I’m all for local determination. I’m remarking on the strange contradiction the situation has created.

      • whoreticulture
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        6 months ago

        They being …? the indigenous Kanak people and the longtime resident colonizers.

        So, it’s like if a bunch of English people came to Ireland. Lived there for generations and declared it part of England (hard to imagine, I know). Immigrants from other countries come in as well, they may or may not support Irish independence. After a while, Irish people aren’t even a majority of residents. Then there is a vote that includes all Irish people and all the long-term English settlers, and all the other settlers, but the vote doesn’t pass because the native people have been out-settled so much.

        Kanak people overwhelmingly support independence, they have been colonized into a minority. If you read about this, the discussion is around Kanak people trying to convince sympathetic settlers to vote alongside them for independence because they don’t have the majority population.

        https://www.nationalia.info/interview/11362/young-non-kanaks-have-voted-yes-for-independence-of-new-caledonia-and-we-can-convince-more