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Trouble at mill: las Malvinas


dog-days

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Which was a surprise to some extent, if I remember correctly. A lot of people didn't think the Royal Navy could pull it off. I knew a Royal Marine who'd been there, and he said the "Argies" fought pretty well.

From what I remeber the landing was a very close call, the Argentina's bombs weren't fused properly an they hit quite a few ships with duds.

The Falklands aren't really about overt British colonialism. A vast majority of the population wish to remain British.

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The Falklands aren't really about overt British colonialism. A vast majority of the population wish to remain British.

I suppose you could have called it colonialism in 1830's but since there wasn't an indigenous population at the time it doesn't really matter. Of course the Argentinian claim was also colonialism it's just that the British were better at it. What's odd though is that it's hard to call the current Argentinian desire to claim the islands regardless of the wishes of the population because they aren't an 'aboriginal population' so they don't have the right to self determination anything but imperialism but they spend a lot of time decrying the apparently colonialist British attitude.

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South American's don't generally think like that, unfortunately. We have a deep inferiority complex that leads us to a very short-term perspective and a less-than-developed sense of achievement and respect for others. Worse still, most south americans assume that everyone else has the same narrow, predator-like mentality.

Thank you for telling me how I think, feel and treat others. And if we are playing generalizations, I will have said that argies have the oposite of an inferiority complex ;)

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I suppose you could have called it colonialism in 1830's but since there wasn't an indigenous population at the time it doesn't really matter. Of course the Argentinian claim was also colonialism it's just that the British were better at it. What's odd though is that it's hard to call the current Argentinian desire to claim the islands regardless of the wishes of the population because they aren't an 'aboriginal population' so they don't have the right to self determination anything but imperialism but they spend a lot of time decrying the apparently colonialist British attitude.

The difference here is that Argentina was not the foreign power that invaded, used up valuable resources for themselves, caused ecological devastation, introduced smallpox and alcohol, massacred the native inhabitants, enslaved the native inhabitants and generally didn't give a shit about anything other than timely shipments of rubber. So y'know, Argentina is going to be viewed as slightly better than Britain even if that's like saying cardboard is tastier than shit.

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But I was under the impression that South America is doing rather better than most of the world, so far as withstanding the economic turbulence goes. What are the problems that people need to be distracted from?

High unemployment, higher precarious employment, weak educational system, ethical feebleness (that has economical consequences too), grossly unfair distribution of wealth, wages that are completely inadequate to the costs of non-essential goods.

There are also subtler, more cultural troubles. They are not so much worse than those in the USA and Europe as difficult to understand across the cultural barrier, that IMO is underestimated by both sides.

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This is a Argentinian issue, I doubt anyone in the other countries in the region (mine included) gives a damn about the Maldivas. I certainly don't. But most governments around here do lean to the left (some more than others) and they usually support each other in these kinds of things.

I wish. There is a lot, a shameful lot of Brazilian support to the Argentinian claims to the Falklands.

Which is quite odd actually, once one learns about a little thing called the Treaty of Tordesillas that would limit Brazil to half its current territory, hadn't it been completely ignored.

How the average Brazilian conciliates the idea of having rights to the territory due to simply being there with the support for Argentinian claims to the Falklands, I just can't figure. But most of them do, somehow. We are generally very good at selective sensitivity, that is for sure.

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Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I imagine the countries of South America are incredibly suspicious of anything they view (in this case possibly correctly) as a return to overt European colonialism. Actually the entire world but Europe is sick of European colonialism. I don't think anything matters but what the citizens want, but the political situation is undoubtedly far more complicated than that.

"Imperialism" is a catch-all for politician insecurities here, yes. The Argentinians have no monopoly for using it to distract people from their political failures.

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The difference here is that Argentina was not the foreign power that invaded, used up valuable resources for themselves, caused ecological devastation, introduced smallpox and alcohol, massacred the native inhabitants, enslaved the native inhabitants and generally didn't give a shit about anything other than timely shipments of rubber. So y'know, Argentina is going to be viewed as slightly better than Britain even if that's like saying cardboard is tastier than shit.

Eh? Come on give credit where it's due, this particular discussion is about the falklands. These are a few stoney islands in the south atlantic with no rubber trees, not now and not in the historic past. No indigenous human population - everybody is a recent settler (ie in the past 300 or so years) and the majority of the 3000+ individuals living there are descended from British settlers.

Unless you're arguing that because Britiain has done those things in the past and in other places our territory is fair game for others to claim? Although in that case a claim from Argentina would be a nice case of the pot calling the kettle black given that country's history towards the indiginous populations which found themselves inside the borders of the state of Argentina.

As far as I recall weren't most of the independance movements led by the descendants of European settlers and aren't most of those states still dominated by the descendants of European settlers? I don't recall any of them being notably less inclined to enviromental devastation or introducing disease and alcohol to indiginous populations than the distant governments they deposed.

"Imperialism" is a catch-all for politician insecurities here, yes. The Argentinians have no monopoly for using it to distract people from their political failures.

plus ca change...

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There's probably a serious post to be made about the limits to which states can or should go to uphold the the national affiliation of three thousand-odd people resident on said stoney islands but yours truly is pissed and would just like to point out that 'Trouble at Mill' scans a lot better than 'at t'Mill' whatever the vagaries of the Yorkshire dialect.

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The difference here is that Argentina was not the foreign power that invaded, used up valuable resources for themselves, caused ecological devastation, introduced smallpox and alcohol, massacred the native inhabitants, enslaved the native inhabitants and generally didn't give a shit about anything other than timely shipments of rubber. So y'know, Argentina is going to be viewed as slightly better than Britain even if that's like saying cardboard is tastier than shit.

As Lummel says unless you know something I don't there's not a lot in the way of rubber trees or native inhabitants on the Falklands. If you're referring to British history with the states that make up Mercosur I don't recall Britain being the colonial power for any of those states and they don't exactly have glowing records with regards to the treatment of native populations or slavery for that matter.

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Well to be fair, the reason Argentina never became a formal part of the British Empire is not that the British were too restrained to make the attempt but rather that the invasions failed.

Moreover the UK doesn't have a simple commitment to the right of self-determination for the inhabitants of these far-flung remnants of Empire, or Diego Garcia would contain rather more Chagossians and considerably fewer bombers.

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Being white doesn't really say a lot here in South America. While some countries do retain much of their original genetic stock, such is not the case in Brazil, nor does it appears to be true of Argentina; most of our population is indeed genetically European, for good or worse.

Sure, it is not too difficult to find other ethnies, but they are very much minorities, at least at the influential economic and political circles of Brazil. The occasional comment that Brazilians are "mostly black" is quite odd, really. If we are black, we are doing a very good job at hiding it.

Now back to the Falklands... no source that I know of claims that there is less than overwhelming desire among the kelpers to retain their UK citizenship that they always had, nor that they would like to be considered part of Argentina. And it has been so for well over a century.

In fact, Brazil has been independent from Portugal for only eleven years more than the Falklands have been in the UK. Argentina itself only separated from Spain in 1810, while the United Kingdom holds the Falklands since 1833. I'm not saying that taking the Falklands was fair to Argentina, but it is a historical fact that Argentina has a much, much weaker claim (and nearly no familiarity) to the Falklands than the British at this point. So weak, in fact, that it is embarrassing that the matter is even mentioned. By such an yardstick Brazil could well present claims for Uruguay and the French Guianna, for instance. Heck, I suppose France could "pressure" the USA into selling Lousiana back to them as well.

One can only wonder what the basis for the Argentinian claim would be. It is certainly not self-evident, and it most definitely is not the will of the inhabitants of the last 150 years or so. There is a name for what Argentina want to do with the Falklands, and it is "invasion". Better yet, "imperialistic invasion". South Americans do not generally despise imperialism so much as they hate the idea of suffering it instead of applying it, all the while decreeing their undying hatred for imperialism. Many engage in entertaining irrational justifications for that contradiction. Actually, there is significant evidence that most South Americans do not understand how politics could be made without resorting to liberal use of the idea of political submission. True political cooperation is somewhat alien to our mindset, having never quite met it in most cases.

There was talk here in Brazil that the sovereignity over the Falklands was being "questioned" after the 1982 conflict, but since there is no evidence of such, I will file that under "empty propaganda and rumors". It was utterly unbelievable even at the time, but so works the victim complex of South Americans.

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Claiming the Falklands gives them an "external enemy" that they may easily be convinced to hate and to consider less honorable than themselves.

That is very valuable for Argentinians - and for that matter, for Brazilians; research the behavior of soccer fans sometime. Social psychology explains that.

As a bonus, the threat of invasion also doubles as "defending their oil from the imperialists", in case significant reserves of oil or any other natural resources are ever found there.

Lacking knowledge of ways of rising above imperialist urges, or even a true desire to try, all that is left to them as a source of short-term satisfaction is learning to bark loud and feel dangerous and influential. The temptation is always strong, and nearly irresistible at times of economical hardship or political unrest.

Form over substance, since the substance is lacking and will be for a long time. Very few South Americans have any significant familiary with the experience of more sophisticated politics than "might makes right".

Sure, we talk about such mature politics all the time, often in quite contradictory ways without even realizing that, but we don't understand what it actually means at all easily. It is just not something that we know firsthand.

Heck, we even call our Law Schools Justice Colleges, betraying and reinforcing a basic failure to understand that Justice is attained by the choices of people and not by the political pressure of the rulers and their judges and lawyers. Everyone and their cousins engages into Law School in Brazil because it is widely perceived, unfortunately fairly, as the quickest, safest bet for quick bucks without too much work or breaking the law.

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I wish. There is a lot, a shameful lot of Brazilian support to the Argentinian claims to the Falklands.

Which is quite odd actually, once one learns about a little thing called the Treaty of Tordesillas that would limit Brazil to half its current territory, hadn't it been completely ignored.

How the average Brazilian conciliates the idea of having rights to the territory due to simply being there with the support for Argentinian claims to the Falklands, I just can't figure. But most of them do, somehow. We are generally very good at selective sensitivity, that is for sure.

I'm Brazilian too and I never seen anyone even speaking about Maldivas, let alone supporting the Argentinians. Maybe you are generalizing too much (you done this a lot in this thread)?

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Eh? Come on give credit where it's due, this particular discussion is about the falklands. These are a few stoney islands in the south atlantic with no rubber trees, not now and not in the historic past. No indigenous human population - everybody is a recent settler (ie in the past 300 or so years) and the majority of the 3000+ individuals living there are descended from British settlers.

Unless you're arguing that because Britiain has done those things in the past and in other places our territory is fair game for others to claim? Although in that case a claim from Argentina would be a nice case of the pot calling the kettle black given that country's history towards the indiginous populations which found themselves inside the borders of the state of Argentina.

As far as I recall weren't most of the independance movements led by the descendants of European settlers and aren't most of those states still dominated by the descendants of European settlers? I don't recall any of them being notably less inclined to enviromental devastation or introducing disease and alcohol to indiginous populations than the distant governments they deposed.

plus ca change...

My general post was directed at how the general view of Europe might be from other countries in the area, the ones who want to claim the Falklands as their own. I'm not disparaging the UK, but I'm a first generation Canadian with dual citizenship so I come across a whole lot of this shit and was just speculating as to what the general view of European colonialism would be in South America. And note that I used European, not British. Plus the foreign power will always be viewed in a bad light.

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The difference here is that Argentina was not the foreign power that invaded, used up valuable resources for themselves, caused ecological devastation, introduced smallpox and alcohol, massacred the native inhabitants, enslaved the native inhabitants and generally didn't give a shit about anything other than timely shipments of rubber. So y'know, Argentina is going to be viewed as slightly better than Britain even if that's like saying cardboard is tastier than shit.

Lummel said it first - the Argentinians have no right to criticize anyone on the grounds of "not being the indigenous population". Their ancestors largely exterminated the indigenous population of where Argentina is now, to the point where 86.4% of the country's population is of European descent.

My general post was directed at how the general view of Europe might be from other countries in the area, the ones who want to claim the Falklands as their own. I'm not disparaging the UK, but I'm a first generation Canadian with dual citizenship so I come across a whole lot of this shit and was just speculating as to what the general view of European colonialism would be in South America. And note that I used European, not British. Plus the foreign power will always be viewed in a bad light.

I'm not sure why the view of the UK would be so negative in the region, assuming it actually is. The UK was a massive trading partner for most south American countries in the 19th century (and early 20th century), and one of the biggest reasons why there were few overt attempts at conquering countries in South America after their independence movements were successful (aside from the US's meddling later on).

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