Tuesday 5 February 2013

Las Malvinas Son Argentinas


So common British groupthink dictates that I parrot the line that the Falklands belongs to the British. It’s obvious anyway though, isn’t it? It belongs to Britain now, and British people live there. So surely there is no argument, right?

The vapid posturing of the Argentine diplomat currently here in London is funny too. Clearly any diplomatic decision needs to be put past the actual people living there yet the fact that the diplomat contests this is clearly BONKFUCKINGMAD. Yes, there is history of the UK and Argentina beefing over this and the Brits barely, just barely, managed to smack the Argentine bottoms back in the 80s but I doubt they could do that again. So that leaves diplomacy, and for diplomacy to work then you need to have all the stakeholding parties talking around a table.  

But what if the Argentines have a point? Although clearly the population want to remain British, maybe their self-determinism shouldn’t a factor as they are not native to the island and actually replaced the native Argentines. There is also conflicting opinions, weird treaties, swapping of ownership between Arthur and Martha, all regarding who settled what and how (interestingly enough, France probably has the best claim as they first settled it and named it). So the “ownership” issue is all muddled up as well.  

So if we take those factors out of the equation we have a small settlement that is thousands of miles from London and the Brits are claiming is as theirs. It is clearly Argentina’s and the Brits are behaving like a big neo-colonial bully trying to hang on to it. 

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