Apparently, today is the 25th anniversary of the Falklands invasion. I wouldn't have had a clue if MSN hadn't told me. I was 5 months and a week old at the time, you see. The Falklands is a conflict that all my dad's generation have a high level of awareness of, because, of course, they were young adults when it happened. By contrast, I just had to look up where the Falklands are. Some people of other nationalities have told me they think Argentina should have been allowed to take the Falklands, since it's ludicrous for Britain to have them when they're on the other side of the world. Now, I'm not sure what the status of the Falklands is - apparently they're a British Protectorate, but I don't really know what that means - but I think some importance has to be attached to what the people living there want. And if they want to be British, not Argentinian, shouldn't that count for something? On the other hand, if a kid in Bombay wants to be American, well, tough luck. Go to America. At any rate, whoever should rightfully have the Falklands, I don't think invasion was an appropriate step. Nor do I think it was helpful that anything should have salvaged Margaret Thatcher's career. So that's a bit of a jumble of history, international politics, national identity and relevance of your country's military history to your life. But I wondered if it prompted any thoughts. Do you know or care about the Falklands War? Do you know or care about the wars your country has been in? Do you think the Falkland Islanders should be British, Argentinian or neither? Do you hate Margaret Thatcher more than Doors does?
I never liked Margeret Thatcher. There are only British people on the Falklands as far as I know. Argentina never wanted anything to do with it until the Falklands War (not seriously anyway), and rightly so because it's a desolate shithole only fit for penguins and yomping. It's certainly not unique for a country to have an island group that's nowhere near it's mainland, and it's not all that unusual for someone to try and claim it from them - especially if they live closer than the current owners. I wonder if we, the British, would care if there was an island in the Channel, North or Irish Sea that we've never bothered with had a few hundred South Americans legally living on it? I know I wouldn't. But we aren't even talking about being as close as that, the Falklands are 300 miles away from Argentina - if I travel 300 miles south from here I'll be in France. I think the Falklands war was as much to do with political popularity from both sides, most people actually living in Argentina couldn't have cared less about the place, or who's living there, at the time and I think it was quickly brushed under the carpet soon afterwards. Also it's not like the British claim to it is new, they've been there for bloody ages - hundreds of years - so we may as well tell the Argentinians to clear off back to Spain if we're going to ask the Falklanders to bugger off back to Britain.
As someone who was not born when it started, I do know of the Falklands War, who it was between and where the Falklands are located. I know this for two reasons: a large appetite for reading about history as a child (as a result I know a lot about what wars this country has had, although not too much details about a lot of them); and as a football fan the subject invariably gets mentioned when the two countries meet on the pitch... although I wish they wouldn't as it's not particularly relevant. I think Mal's right about the Island being populated by mainly British people, I think the reason Argentina want the Islands is because of resources, but they actually invaded as some kind of popularity stunt by a government who were less popular than the British incumbents of the time. I think position in relation to a country's seat of government is fairly unimportant nowadays. Look at St Petersburg which has a whole country between it and the rest of Russia, or even Alaska and Hawaii as part of the US. France, Britain and the Netherlands still control numerous pacific islands, so it's certainly not an isolated occurrence. I guess the nationality of the country should be decided by the people in that country. Although it would raise an interesting question on whether the english public could have a referendum to be run by, say, Switzerland.
I know about it, but admittedly most of what I know was quite a recent discovery, from an interesting documentary on a rainy afternoon. Anywhere that has penguins rocks and is worth fighting for.
When I was a small child, I always thought the falklands were off the coast of Scotland. Another invaluable Doors insight into politics.
I'm wondering if I should admit to the same thing. It would probably make you feel less lonely. Nah, I'm not admitting that.
I heard something on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart about Argentina wanting an island they've never been too. Now I know what he was talking about, although the show contains alot of humor and satire and I think the Argentinians must have gone there at some point. Why would you want something you've never seen? On a side note Wikipedia tells me that satire is from satira which is Latin for medley or dish of colorful fruits. I don't quite get how a dish of colorfull fruit play in the definition it has today.
Wiktionary gives the definition like this: satire - Wiktionary No idea where the dish of colourful fruit comes in...
Is it really invading, if it's your own territory? I try to learn about the different military actions the US has been involved in, but the 'small' ones usually get overlooked. Grenada, Panama, the many many actions against the Native Americans... The Falklands, I always thought that it was kind of crazy for Argentina to land troops there. It's kind of like Cuba invading Puerto Rico, or throwing a rock at someone with a gun. Shear madness. Sheer even...
I know very little of it, to tell you the truth, but from what I do know it seems to have been all about creating an enemy to unite the Argentinians against.
Who were you thinking of? And I agree that it can be hard to be aware of your country's entire military history! Garner and I are saddos who like to do trivia quizzes, and we're usually quite good at history questions - but we've just done a round out of our current book that was all about a war neither of us had even heard of. (The Seven Years War, I think? Britain and someone else in the 1700s.)
I took this to mean the UK's retaking of the islands. If you meant the Argentinians, then I misinterpreted.
