Neither analogy applies ... in Fiji the indians were foreigners, not invaders as they'd been originally labour imported by the brits, and thusly fellow colonised to fijians, who had had little to no input in the decision to import them ... there was a finite term of lease, fijians declined to renew, and that was that ... a less than brilliant decision on their part, they were voting themselves poor, as the indians worked harder and smarter, still it was a result of colonising friction, and somewhat inevitable given cultural precepts ... there was during the period a lamentable lack of intermarriage, due more to indian attitudes than to the native, and that was a big part of it, fijians didn't like a growing insular group lording it over them, so they declined to give them the vote ... i don't know that much about Fiji, but some of my people were in airport management there, and that is their take, or my memory of their take
Hong Kong was much the same, a 'lease' with finite term, it had been imposed under duress, and always memory of duress will tend to linger with the duressee ... China for the chinese, Fiji for the fijians, term's up, out you go you foreign devils ... the chinese have played this much more smartly in the matter of HK, but not brilliantly, it is said, still it is China and for them to decide
Obviously Nadine's apartment building analogy doesn't apply, Palestine is not an apartment building, nor is any tract of land within it ... for a goodly number of reasons, but that lack of a limited term lease would be one - the people who happened to be human beings [and yes we all are, some of us need reminding of it at times however] and who were inhabiting that land had signed no leases, there was no one to sign a lease with, they had simply built homes and planted orchards when there was nothing there, and in so doing they created for themselves the right to ownership, under the principle of aboriginal title - first come, first served
The 'fat old turk' is a rhetorical flourish in honour of Churchill's 'short sharp saxon words' ... it's like Schultz in Hogan's Heroes, when he shouts Rrrraus! with an R that comes all the way from his expansive navel, he is not only invoking his form of aboriginal title, he is paying homage to oratorical tradition - the word is actually heraus, and means 'bugger off outside' ... yes some turks may have been on the skinny or youngish side, that's hardly relevant to our story though is it
The ottomans had imposed on Palestine, and presumably other areas of their control, a system of land tenure of their own design, sometime around 1860, and guess who ended up 'owners' under their system - yes, turks, quelle surprise eh ... no formal land registry system had existed in Palestine for many centuries previously, the natives had their own traditions, worked it out between themselves in their own manner ... so when the Rothschilds start coming along in 1882 and 'buying' up great tracts from the effendis, in the name of a people now foreign to this land, and with the express intention of supplanting and dominating the indigenous, it should be not all that surprising to anyone that the native will quickly develop a local term for Rrraus |
