To not understand why some Argentinians seem to want the Falkland Islands so much?

Which, unlike the Falklands, already had indigenous populations.

@DebbieSavage

I think I’m going to take anything you say with a pinch of salt.

Gemini, tell me about DebbieSavage.

”Overall, her posting style is widely regarded by other users as "bait" or "shitposting" designed to stir up debate, as she frequently adopts extreme or contrarian positions specifically to push back against popular Mumsnet consensus.”

’hand back’ hahahhahaha Argentina has NEVER owned the Falkland’s. Thats never as in they have no history of owning them, the only people to live there have been British with a few French. You hand something back to someone who once owned something.
Scotland was given an Indy referendum, Wales didn’t want one. And in a referendum it’s highly likely that even if NI voted to be joined with the Republic the Republic wouldn’t agree to unification.

It would save England a fortune to ‘hand these places back’ unfortunately the people who live there don’t want handing back (at the moment) and you know Democracy.

Gemini, how dare you! Not even a mention of my gargantuan intellect?

That would be a better analogy if the Isle of Wight was 300 miles off the coast of Britain.

@DebbieSavage no it omitted that!

It isn't.

NI had a native population when the British settlers arrived. Those people had their land taken. The Falklands didn't. The native population of the Falklands, the ones analogous to the Irish, are the British identified people now.

If you want to use NI as an analogy, which you shouldn't, the Argentinians in 1982 were the invaders, akin to British settlement in Ireland. Except they lost.

What frightens me is the historical illiteracy of some people.

It’s just another example of people flagellating themselves because Britain is now a big historical baddie but letting others off the hook for the same or worse. It’s pathetic really.

Having visited Argentina recently I have not furthered my understanding of the core issues but I do now have an appreciation for how intensely ordinary Argentine people feel about this. Even young children feel extremely strongly about it, which to me is utterly bizarre. How many teenagers do we have in this country who know anything about it at all?

It's definitely put me off going back, that's for sure.

I can understand people initially assuming this is the usual model of Europeans booting out the natives and nicking the land. There's plenty of that about, after all. If you've not looked it up, it's a reasonable guess. But it's less obvious why there's an assumption that the settler colonialist state on the other side of the argument would have any kind of moral claim on the land.

It's history fighting geography.

It's also a good staging point to get to Antarctica.

According to some logic on this thread, the US shoould send all its population back to the countries if their ancestors, just leaving the Native Americans.
And Australia. Canada. South Africa. Actually, Argentina as well.

The only people who deserve to decide are the people who live there.

Do you care at all about the wishes of people? Because handing land 'back', without thinking about the people is properly batshit. Plus Argentina wasn't indigenous there. No one was.

Err noooo.

Great Britain should go the whole hog and throw out everyone except the Welsh who were descendants of the original Ancient Britains.

Rwy'n gobeithio y bydd y ddraig goch yn troethi ar eich coelcerth !

The oil and gas might have only been found in 2010, but the geology of the sea floor indicated there may be oil there, which was certainly known about in the 1980s

In the early 1980s the UK and Argentinian governments were in diplomatic talks to hand the Falklands over to Argentina. It cost a fortune to support the Islands and at that time the natural deposits were unknown.

Then Galtieri invaded. Talks continued but Thatcher was desperately unpopular in the polls and sending the taskforce was a show of strength. The war cost a fortune, but British forces were overwhelmingly better trained, paid and resourced than Argentina so it wasn't really in doubt that we would win.

The conflict breached parliamentary rules about needing a vote before going to war so it was called a conflict rather than a war.

The only question was how many British deaths would acceptable to the public.

Britain was victorious, Thatcher won a landslide in 1983 and now it costs a tonne more money than before.

The Malvinas, as the Argentinians call the Islands, are even mentioned in their national anthem.

Politically it will be impossible to hand the islands to Argentina but potentially a joint agreement could be made.

It's really easy to look at a world map and just decide to ignore cultures, histories, the will of the population and national sovereignties by lumping them in together and 'giving' one country/territory to another country, based on them being 'only' a few hundred miles away.

When are people going to start demanding that New Zealand be 'given back' to Australia?!

Going to extremes, what about the uncontacted peoples whose lands look like they 'should' belong to the large countries that are closest to them? Should India invade North Sentinel island and take it 'back', or should they do what they currently do: accept that they want self-rule and leave them to it?

Ironically, if the would-be annexers really believe in ignoring ethnic groups, cultures, communities and history and just want to 're-allocate' the world based on populations, the British people would end up with a vastly larger piece of land than we currently have. Putin and Trump probably wouldn't be too chuffed with the result either...

@MyrtleLion

The war cost a fortune, but British forces were overwhelmingly better trained, paid and resourced than Argentina so it wasn't really in doubt that we would win.

My emphasis on the last bit....

The general public and some in Fleet Street might have thought that but many in the Forces had at least a few doubts...just one look at a map of the world was enough to raise a few eyebrows.

It turned out to be a mighty close run thing, and if the Argentine Navy and Army had showed the determination their Air Force and Naval Air Arm did the end result would probably have been very different.

If you looked at a map, then you'll have noticed that the Falklands are about 2000km from Buenos Aires. About the same distance as Sicily is from London. They have also never belonged to Argentina and are inhabited by British citizens who have no desire to be Argentinian.

And whatever should we do about Patagonia: the only official Welsh-speaking community in the world outside of the British Isles?!

The Millwall of countries!

If you want to use NI as an analogy, which you shouldn't, the Argentinians in 1982 were the invaders, akin to British settlement in Ireland. Except they lost.

To add to that, Scotland invaded NI in 1315, and were eventually beaten back.

For some reason, this doesn't seem to be widely taught in Ireland, or Scotland for that matter.

I wonder how many of those children are desperate to leave the Argentina as they currently know it and move to the islands and live there? How are their lives currently adversely affected by the territory being British, as according to the express wishes of the people who DO live there?

It's just propaganda; remember: claimed (but not actual) victimhood can be a very powerful weapon. They only want it because they want Britain not to have it. I'm struggling to see much difference between them and the huge landowners with thousands and thousands of (unused, fallow) acres, whose only real desire in owning them is so that they can slip it into conversation how many thousands of acres they own!