1938 Britain. 2025 Britain.
From Sudentenland to Chagos Atolls.
Hail and Welcome!
This past two weeks my Year 9 Classes have been getting to grips with the 1930s seemingly inevitable road to World War (just because it did happen a particular way does not mean it had to a happen that way). It is cast in terms of some very important and fascinating politicians and State actors of the times. They identified for themselves the crunch event. The Munich Conference 1938.
Neville Chamberlain the Prime Minister of Great Britain and its Empire. Daladier the French Prime Minister again at the heart of a globe hugging Empire. Benito Mussolini the Italian Fascist Dictator dreaming of a revitalised Rome hot on the heels of his 1936 mechanised Armies’ defeat of Haile Selassie’s brave but sorely outmatched army in Ethiopia. Adolf Hitler the German Fuhrer intent on ripping up the Treaty of Versailles and redrawing the map and proving to be successful in doing so with the apparently forbidden, but ultimately allowable Anschluss with Austria. Joseph Stalin in Russia restructuring his national economy along murderous lines for farmers and leading to a wider famine and death. FDR in the USA preoccupied with dealing with the Great Depression and a pesky Pacific Nation intent on carving out its own Asian Empire starting at first in China (Manchuria): Japan.
Yet not just the map. Also a competition of ideology. Fascism, Communism, Democracy. Of policies such as militarism, negotiation, imposition, conquest and secession. Of the melding of ideas in Socialism, National Socialism, Conservatism and Liberalism.
How power is to be exercised and used? What are the parameters? Where is the accountability? A topic the current Year 9 met last year in their studies upon the French Revolution and its bloody cycle that ultimately delivered another kind of solus legibus but this time not a Bourbon, instead Napoleon.
The 1930s were also a time of huge and momentous economic challenges and those with a trenchant for ideological answers to those issues. Russians endured Five year plans overseen by communist dictatorship. Germanys Hermann Goering with his Four Year Plan circa 1936 basically gearing up the economy for War. The President of the USA with his plethora of Alphabet Agencies designed to mitigate, stimulate his nation through the lean years of the Great Depression. Britain with its Parliamentary Acts. Japans Military Junta basically operating and running the nation: desperate to acquire its own raw material supplies.
Radical ideas also regarding racial purity swirled in the World. In Europe in the dream of an Aryan Master Race complete with a racism purely honed and whittled down into the most horrific consequences for Jews in World History. Images seared onto my conscience and that I never thought to see again in our enlightened age and our common humanity. After all, modern historians like to use the moniker of CE in their chronology. I am not persuaded at all that is appropriate. October 7th 2023 has taught me a vital lesson. Barbarity must be apposed once again. In my lifetime. In this age. The Age of my Sons. Whom I fear for as only a father does. Israel and Jews once again at the forefront in barring those gates from the barbarians which I and the Civilised World live behind, depend upon.
However having given you a whirlwind overview for what is basically an Anglicised view of the world, my students and most probably most of you also dear readers, never hear of this man: Edvard Beneš. I think he should be a household name.
You see in 1938 he was not allowed to attend the Munich Conference. That is right. In my mind he should be remembered precisely because he was not there. The borders of his nation Czechoslovakia were about to change against his Governments wishes. I think he may well even have fought for them if he had been supported against the Nazi German Reich. Yet that did not fit the narrative and desires of his allies at that time ( Britain and France and Russia). To be fair to the Russians, they were not invited either.
This was a stitch up squarely at the feet of an appeasing British and French Prime Minister. So the Czechoslovakian Government had no say at the momentous Munich Conference of 1938 which sole stated purpose was to deal with the borders of Czechoslovakia. The democratic nation of Czechoslovakia had part of its territory given to Nazi Germany with the express approval and collaboration of Britain and France. Apparently themselves fellow democracies.
Britain has form therefore when it comes to stitching people up. Turning them over. Refusing to listen to voices of people who live(d) on their lands. Their Islands. Indeed it is not a peculiar British trait. Great Powers and many not so great have always behaved thus it seems. Does modern Britain and its present Government still behave in this high handed manner?
This time in 2025 they have a different reasons than the disgusting, illiberal and futile appeasement of the 1930s that ultimately failed to deliver peace. Perhaps as a consequence enabled a longer War? Most of my students articulated points and arguments against appeasement. They were aghast at the extent of British appeasement from 1933-1938.
Britain in 2025 now has a different reason for clearing up inconveniences of its Colonial past. They have an International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling that is non binding. It is regarding the Chagos Islands. At this point your wondering most likely, where is that?
These Islands are a group of Atolls in the Indian Ocean some 500 KM south of the Maldives. On the largest of the Islands, Diego Garcia, is an American Military Base. That base was built with the condition that the British expelled the Chagossian themselves from the islands. The Chagossians cast on the international waters of dispossession.
The Mauritius lays claim to them as they were, before independence, in that same territory legally but siphoned off by Britain against UN laws. Yet also the Maldives makes claims.
Mauritius indeed has is own laws regarding Chagos. In effect, ban and outlaw Chagossians from claiming they are legally entitled to live in Chagos Islands and not under the Sovereignty of Mauritius.
Thus we have the present British Government headed by Keir Starmer, himself a human rights lawyer, negotiating as it seeks to dispossess those Islands in favour of Mauritius and be seen to follow the new international norms. To follow the ICJ rulings and be seen doing the right thing. I have no problem with that! It is beginning to make some headlines in the UK as the bills involved, are huge. Though those may well merely reflect the usual swirl of political manoeuvres.
Billions of monies potentially changing hands from Britain to others, willingly paid in secret deals and not under scrutiny of the public in the UK. The issue of reparations never far from the conversation as well. These do seem to fit the form of this present Government as it were.
Absolutely no deal or conversations with the Chagossians themselves. So who does speak for them? The UN? The ICJ? The USA? UK? Maldives? Mauritius? When they are handed to the Mauritius, which does seem the mostly likely outcome, apparently Chagossians could then return to the outer atolls.
Certainly none of the actors at the moment seem to care a jot. They like Beneš all those years ago, are not at the table. Have no voice. Excluded. Merely a footnote in the history of the big players.
Britain should learn a deep lesson. For it is no longer a big player itself.
Keir Starmer, in my opinion, could choose differently. He could advocate for the Chagossians to go home. To make themselves a local Government that could live with the USA and its strategic base and also with Mauritius for some devolved local governance whilst recognising Sovereignty etc. Perhaps a word from Starmer’s worst nightmare, Donald Trump, would be in order? Unlikely I admit, but Trump I think, would want to aim a kick at Starmer and his Foreign Secretary Lammy for their rather public and personal previous disparagements of the new 47 himself.
The Chagossians are once again trying to use the British Legal System in the High Courts to get a voice, a say, a stake in their homeland islands. That is in fact when I first became aware of this issue some 25/30 years ago.
A news report into legal proceedings. Imagine losing your home and becoming the text in legal documents. Other’s from history perhaps, might understand the emptiness and hollowness, that last sentence represents. Perhaps some are worried the same could happen to them in the future.
Have a Blessed Week everyone!
Syre Byrd