‘Foreignization’ of the Seychelles islands |13 March 2018

The opposition by the Creole First Nation of the Seychelles islands to allow India to build a military base on one of our outer most islands called Assumption reflects a social fear that Indians are taking over the Seychelles.

This is a well-founded fear and there is evidence that a silent takeover is underway and we are not xenophobic.

Land, property and shops are being purchased by Indian nationals at an alarming rate and this is going to create an imbalance in our society.

An imbalanced society is a society heading for disaster. This concern was voiced at the Pointe Larue meeting with Vice-President Vincent Meriton and his team last Sunday when they were promoting the advantages of the new Agreement which has been redrafted by the Attorney General.

Congratulations to Mr Frank Ally, our new Attorney General, for his efforts in making the changes from the previous secret agreement signed by James Michel on March 11, 2015 during the Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Seychelles.

Now that some people have got hold of copies of the original agreement the current Vice-President is threatening us with a police enquiry. The mind-set of some people in Government must change with the time. Nothing should be done in secret because we do not have much to keep secret and the more matters are kept secret the more corruption takes place as we have indeed experienced.

What is colonisation?

Colonisation is when a more advanced nation moves into another country and take over the running of that country and to be realistic colonisation has brought a great deal of advancement in the third world countries otherwise progress would have been very slow.

The only problem with the colonisers is they do not know when to leave and grant the colonised nation independence especially if the colonisers are doing very well from acquisition of the resources the colonised country provides their homeland for example oil, minerals, precious stones, spices, inter alia. To achieve independence from the colonisers some countries had to use warfare tactics such as the Maw Maw in Kenya under Jomo Kenyatta who hacked to death the colonisers and sent their dismembered body parts to their families.

In Seychelles we planted a few bombs here and there to let the British know it was time for them to leave then we made a bloody mess of our independence.

In South Africa the German/Dutch colonisers introduced apartheid and segregated the white colonisers from the indigenous black people, the First Nation of South Africa and in Canada the white French colonisers tried to wipe out the red Indians who were the First Nation of Canada by stealing and killing their children and putting them in special schools and the British drove the Maori tribes off the cliffs killing them to make way for the crooks, rogues and murderers Britain was sending to Australia at the time.

The Spanish massacred thousands of South American Indians to create their Latin American Empire and the Portuguese did the same thing in South America.

The Bosnian Serb forces, with the backing of the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army, perpetrated atrocious crimes against Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) and Croatian civilians, resulting in the deaths of some 100,000 people (80 percent of them Bosniak) by 1995. It was the third worst act of genocide since the Hutu murdered 800,000 Tutsies in Rwanda and the Nazi regime’s destruction of some 6 million European Jews during World War II.

Today no nation can colonise another nation as the Russians found out when they annexed Crimea.

So what is ‘foreignization’?

‘Foreignization’ is when foreigners move into another country in large numbers and they begin to impose their will, habits and culture on the indigenous people. The process is slow but for sure it happens, no guns, no crimes just a silent take-over. In today’s world we see large migration of people mostly searching for work to send money home to feed their family. Some refugees escape in large numbers to avoid atrocities and ethnic cleansing. In fact Nostradamus who lived from 1503 to 1566 predicted an epidemic migration from the poorer countries to the richer countries and this is happening today as Africa gets poorer and Europe gets richer. But here in Seychelles we are experiencing a silent foreignization of our country by different nationalities. Allow me to give you some examples then tell me whether I am being xenophobic.

In Seychelles foreigners are welcomed because we have more jobs than we have Seychellois and we have been slow to teach and train our locals to cope with the rapid development taking place in Seychelles, plus some of our locals are lazy anyway, therefore we need foreigners to take up the jobs Seychellois cannot fill. This is acceptable and welcomed. What is not acceptable is when Indians come here and they open shops around every corner so they have a monopoly and they operate a cartel in this sector of our economy. For example Shark Ice-cream is manufactured by a Seychellois company and Arun Ice-cream is manufactured by an Indian company.  Why is it that all Indian corner shops only stock Arun Ice-cream?  Someone told me these shops stock bottled water from an Indian company only. We give the Indians a chance to do business in our country to send money home and now they victimise us in favour of their own kind. What do you want Seychellois to call this? Fair trading? Where is the Office of Fair Trading? Asleep?

Mauritius is a good example of how the Indians have taken over the economy because the Creole First Nation have allowed it to happen but here in Seychelles we are saying “No Way Jose”. The Indian Association, which is made up of eminent and respected Indian entrepreneurs who have made their fortune in Seychelles should explain to their shopkeepers that they cannot stock just products made by their own kind, they have to stock products made by Seychellois as well otherwise this is unfair trading and we will ask for their licences to be rescinded.

On top of all this PUC employs Indian nationals who cannot speak English or Creole and they communicate via their foreman in Hindi or Urdu or Gujarati or even Tamil and PUC also employs an Indian Lawyer. Some government establishments employ foreigners who live very close to their work place and yet they are provided with a hired car to take the children to private schools all of which we are paying. Seychellois do not get these benefits. Shopkeepers employ Indian men who cannot express themselves properly when in the past nice Seychellois girls used to be employed as sales ladies and they could relate to the customers. Star of Seychelles employ Indian nationals to empty our dustbins as if they cannot find Seychellois who can do this job. Even in the Attorney General’s Office I noticed some Indian lawyers have taken roots which all goes to show that there is a silent take-over by the Indians and no wonder Seychellois do not want an Indian military base on Assumption.

India has so many dirty cities which need attention and in excess of 276 million people living below the poverty line so why does India want to build a military base for Seychellois for free? It makes no sense until you consider that India perhaps can smell the oil reserve in the EEZ territory of Seychelles or could it be that India’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (ISPR) which is an emergency fuel store of 5 million metric tonnes, enough to provide only 10 days of consumption, under consideration because in the event of any blockade of the sea route and no oil can come in absolute mayhem will break out in India and this is the real reason for the gift of US $500 million to build a military base on Assumption. It is in our interest and in India’s interest, they are not doing us a favour. What we should also consider is partnering with China to build a deep sea port on one of our islands then we will have a sense of duopoly rather than monopoly.

So what is the answer?

In August 1972, Idi Amin expelled 80,000 Asians from Uganda accusing them of commercial mal-practice. Thus far in Seychelles we have lived in harmony with the Indian community, we welcome the Azan call for prayers from the mosque in Victoria and the Indian music and videos played in the corner shops and we would like to keep it this way. The real answer is Immigration Control via a quota system that will ensure no other nationality can come to Seychelles in large numbers and take over our heritage. No foreign nationalities should exceed 8% of our Creole First Nation population and it does not matter whether they are Russians, Chinese, White South Africans or Indians. Straight away you can see that 32% of our population could be foreigners and as long as they come here to be partners and not to bully the locals we will live in harmony. Then Seychelles will move forward as a beautiful multi-racial society enjoying God’s given gift of a beautiful country, sharing on equal terms with other nationalities.

 

Contributed by:

Barry Laine FCIM, FInst SMM, MCMI, MBSCH

Seychelles Civil Society

Disclaimer:

The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Seychelles NATION newspaper.