Gibraltar has been part of the UK for over 300 years and the people are all UK citizens. Forcing those people out or seizing the land from them would be the definition of colonialism, yes. And exclaves exist all around the world. Geography has never really meant anything in national terms. Spain has a piece of land on Africa and I don't think they plan on giving that up.

▲

Buxato 28 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

There is one main difference, that makes UN recognizes Gibraltar as a colony and not Ceuta and Melilla: days before Gibraltar was conquered 100% of the people that lived there was moved out. This is why Gibraltar is a colony and Ceuta and Melilla not. So I don't have clear opinion if people in Gibraltar should have auto-determination or not.

▲

Pragmata 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>Gibraltar has been part of the UK for over 300 years and the people are all UK citizens.

Is this your standard for whether or not something is colonialism? Do you apply it consistently throughout, even when its inconvenient for you?

	▲	kdheiwns an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		My definition of colonialism generally involves people being subjugated and being treated as less and involuntarily part of an empire. People in Gibraltar are British citizens with full rights by definition. Land borders that one doesn't like doesn't equate to colonialism. It's just a land border that you don't like. The people of Gibraltar voted almost 100% to be British on more than one occasion. Trying to make them not British is the definition of colonialism
	▲	maccard an hour ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Each of these countries, enclaves, territories, settlements, borders have massive amounts of history that shape why they are the way they are, and attempting to say "this rule should apply equally to all of them" shows a huge misunderstanding of why they are unique.
	▲	inglor_cz an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		"Colonialism" is a weird Western guilt fetish that some others successfully milk. After 10 generations, the people are every bit as local as the previous population was. 300 years is such an abyss of time that most of us would fail to name a single of our ancestors by name. Kladsko was a Czech city from approx. 1000 to 1742. The old town still looks a bit like very small Prague [0]. Was lost in a war (to the Prussians no less), it is gone, not our anymore. Tough luck. Others live there now, it is theirs. [0] https://cs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kladsko_(město)#/media/Soubor:...

▲

unkeen 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I was not talking about any of the points you mention, I was refering to the geographical facts alone. Wouldn't you agree that in general it is kind of silly to claim ownership of a piece of land that is far, far away from your own country?

▲

kdheiwns an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I was born in a country that has islands and I live in a different country that consists exclusively of islands. The islands spread out thousands of miles in various directions. Land being far apart is just a reality of how countries work.

The distance from London to Gibraltar is closer than the distance from London to Bermuda, but nobody finds that weird. France has French Polynesia on the opposite side of the world. Russia has Kaliningrad. Norway has Svalbard. South Africa has another country, Lesotho, right in the middle of it. India wraps around Bangladesh like a tentacle. Azerbaijan has a random piece of land and makes a sandwich out of Armenia. Spain has islands directly west of Morocco. France has land on South America.

The whole world has freaky borders. The only clean borders are places like Wyoming and Colorado.

	▲	rmunn an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I would add natural navigation barriers such as rivers and lakes (and some, but not all, mountain ranges) to the list of "clean" borders. They're not straight lines, but they're a natural place to site a border.

▲

rmunn an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

There are many, MANY islands scattered around Earth's oceans. Not all of them have the resources to be self-sufficient, so any inhabitants have to import goods from somewhere. There are two options: either each island is its own country, or some islands belong to some other country. Given how easy it is to navigate to most islands (some of them are in harder-to-navigate straits), it doesn't make much practical difference whether the owning country is close or far away.

So no, as a general rule I can't agree. I can certainly agree that there are some rather silly cases, but it's just not practical for all islands to be self-governing, so I can't agree with the general rule you propose.