Club PA 2.0 has arrived! If you'd like to access some extra PA content and help support the forums, check it out at patreon.com/ClubPA
The image size limit has been raised to 1mb! Anything larger than that should be linked to. This is a HARD limit, please do not abuse it.
Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it,
follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
Our rules have been updated and given
their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
The Falkland Islands: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Tell Argentina to STFU
Posts
Colonialism!
I read all your posts in Toby Zieglers voice by the way.
This is a good thing.
I agree, but they (to the dumb of this world, who are legion) bring some kind of ridiculous validity to these issues, on top of shining a big fucking spotlight on such a stupid claim.
Has Argentina even mentioned what they would do with the people who currently live on the Falklands? What rights would they have seeing as they would be a minority who speaks another language? Or are they still pretending that the Falklanders don't exist>
I think my point was that even if Argentina did have a claim, its 200 years in the past. Bringing up claims to land that old serves nobody. Times have changed, and even if Argentina did have a claim to the Islands, the current population deserves to decide for themselves what country they want to be part of. But, since Argentina doesn't have a valid claim to the Islands, I suppose its kinda a moot point.
If their claim was upheld for some spectacularly bizarre reason, they'd probably turn the Falklanders into some sort of a 2nd class citizen, until they've moved enough people in the islands to twist the demographics to the point where they can say that the islands are wholly Argentinian and there's nothing British about them.
Wait, really? I just assumed Obama wasn't twisting their arm enough to take it. Why are we still dealing with those assholes?
I've seen the suggestion made on this very thread that the Islanders should just go "back" to Britain since there's only a few thousand of them.
Celebrities bring attention to issues. That's their sole use in these matters.
"Going back" when your family has already been at the islands for hundreds of years is the equivalent of demanding that most Americans should "go back". Who was this silly person? I don't recall reading that, although there was somebody here at one point who drank the Kool-Aid on Argentina's claim.
I believe it was the user NotSeanPennHonestly.
Stupidity and/or ignorance seem more likely, along with a hefty dose of grievously misdirected anti-imperialist sentiment.
How so? If you're aware of more complex reason for his stance other than him being a chuckle-fuck I'd be happy to hear it.
So she was waving around a UN resolution from 1985 (PDF), which if it had been anything more than a mildly worded letter would have been bumped up from the General Assembly to the Security Council (had the UK declared it was a Security Council issue) and then be promptly vetoed by the UK if it was counter to British interests.
Of course, Security Council Resolution 502 (PDF) demanded an Argentine withdrawal from the Falklands in 1982.
It may be piss weak but it's literally all she has, so she's going to keep touting it like it's a decleration from god proclaiming the rightiousness of her cause rather than a UN footnote saying maybe a discussion should perhaps happen at some point.
Diplomacy and Sean Penn is all they have now. They sure as fuck won't try a military approach. It would result in complete failure and loss of what little credibility they have.
Well I don't know exactly what is meant by white guilt in this specific context, so I have been assuming a simplistic meaning that would does not make any real sense in regards to Penn, Kircheners and the Falklands issue.
Argentina is an European settler state in the same way that the US is, that being a country formed by violent revolution prosecuted by the colonising settlers against their homeland and imperial master. Both countries then went onto expand European settlement into their neighboring hinterlands fuelled by European immigration and capital in the mid to late 19th century. Both retain strong cultural connections with their former imperial master. Both sourced vast amounts of immigrants from Southern and Central Europe. Both are still dominated by elites that represent that consensus.
So how does white guilt play into that? If it doesn't, then what does it mean? Is white guilt only something Anglos get?
I have some guilt as to being the beneficiary of my great great grandparents generation expropriating Maori lands and perhaps that could be white guilt
It's white guilt in the sense that the uneducated and ignorant believe this is a case of the big bad white man stealing the land from the "native" Argentinians. The Argentinians like to go along with this because it gives them the moral highground, it also allows them to get the UN anti colonialisim brigade involved even though this is absolutly not the kind of situation it was intended for.
Anyone who knows anything about the history of the islands knows this is utter bollocks, the Islands were originally uninhabited then owned and settled by the UK before the modern state of Argentina even existed. We didn't steal the land off them because they never owned it. But because the UK has a grand old tradition of marching into far flung places and subjigating the natives, it's a natural assumption for ignorant people to make that this is the case here too, even although the Argentinians are the decendants of the Europeans who killed all the actual South American natives. But hey, they're kind of sort of brown and whitey is always wrong so why split hairs?
It's moronic because not only is it white guilt, it's utterly misplaced white guilt.
I may be giving him more credit than he is due, but given that he has met President Kirchener, in Argentina, I would think it unlikely that he would believe that Argentina and most Argentines were anything but European.
I don't see that white guilt and negative views on colonialism are the same thing, although they could easily be linked.
If you have any links i'd be happy to read them.
I imagine it is a hefty dose of white guilt combined with a nice bearnaise of not-know-of-what-he-speaks.
A lot of people in the United States forget that every other country on our side of the planet was founded by European settlers. To the liberal minded American it is sometimes fashionable to assume that only the United States has benefited from this or indeed is run by European Whites.
This is why everyone was confused when George Zimmerman was called "white".
Frankly at this point white guilt is a bunch of hogwash.
You are not responsible for the actions of your great great great great grandfather.
I find it more believable that he is just a straight anti colonialist, maybe with a tinge of anglophobia.
Here's an article he wrote for the guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/feb/23/sean-penn-falklands-malvinas-diplomacy-interrupted
Blog
Twitter
Thanks for the link LS, the horse's mouth has spoken!
I don't really get any white guilt angle from his article, although it is more framed as a response, which presupposes familiarity with his previous comments, which he's helpfully linked.
I wonder if I should keep reading/watching, or will I descend into madness trying to understand him?!
If you stare into the abyss long enough, the abyss will start to stare back.
It wouldn't have even fallen under right of conquest, it would have been Terra Nullius.
Fact: In 1810, The republic of Argentina signed the Declaration of Independence in El Cabildo on Plaza de Mayo to liberate the colonies composed of Spanish and Italian settlers. In 1833 the Islands remained unocuppied by anyone. The lands were just another rock in the Atlantic Ocean as mentioned before. England claimed the Islands as theirs for whatever reason they wanted back in that time.
It is until today that in Argentina, kids are still being taught that England were the bad ones. I personally strongly disagree and I was born there believe me. Argentina had no right to claim the islands in my own personal opinion due to the fact they only wanted it for military advantage on the southern Atlantic sea. Although they already had massive strategic defence lines on their eastern coasts. At the end, british fleets had better experience and tactics than Argentinians. Now, it's too bad these conflicts raise again, mostly because argentinians cannot let go.
The islanders
On the Argentinian side, a whopping 89% support the government's claims that the Falklands are actually the Malvinas and Argentinian territory. The opinion of Argentina on the islanders' wish to stay with Britain? "The referendum will change nothing."
The posturing about the islands themselves is complete BS, of course, since both sides are a lot more interested in the sizable oil deposits that lie just offshore.
What I find most interesting about this whole shebang is that Argentina is using the same "claim shit belongs to you based on complete bullshit" tactic that China is using in the South China Sea, including the bit where if you don't get your way you claim the people who actually own the land are "hurting relations". Thankfully everyone else is having none of it.
I don't think that's true. This dispute has been running since long before anybody knew that oil was there.
Indeed. In practical economic terms the fishing industry that developed in the 1980s and the much larger British garrison have already massively changed the local economy.
"But guis, itz super close too us"...
Fixed. Despite all the posturing about how the Islanders are colonists and only native populations have the right to self determination, only 10% of Argentines claim native blood. And of course the rights of native people's meant a great deal when they conquered the shit out of Patagonia, so much so that it was commemorated on the 100 peso bill until last year.
Plus, you know, the native population in the case of the Falklands happens to be penguins, and I can say with a 100% certainty that 0% of citizens of Argentina are descended from the penguin population of the Falklands.
It seems Kirchner and Frankie have put their mutual hatred of each other aside to focus on Argentinas true enemy. The damn colonialist gringos.
It's like she doesn't appreciate that the UK isn't catholic and we don't care any more about Frankies opinion now than we did before he obtained a large hat. Honestly I'd be more inclined to give a shit if she got the Dalai Lama on side.
I believe the normal thing to do is ask the Pope for a Papal Banner before an invasion.
Anyway, in before "pictures or it didn't happen"