Falklands Referendum Shock Result
Three British citizens voted against the following proposition: “Do you wish the Falkland Islands to retain their current political status as an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom?” This against 1,513 votes in favor, and one presumably soiled ballot out of 1,517 cast. We can’t assume, however, that the three nay votes are in favor of uniting Las Malvinas with Argentina, however; they might want to go it alone as an independent country. You know, like Scotland some day.
For their part, Argentina has called the referendum illegal. Argentine rhetoric in their quixotic quest to take over the Falklands is certainly meant for domestic consumption. An interesting empirical project, if it hasn’t been done already (I suspect it has, someone must have completed a dissertation or chapter on this question somewhere), is to compare variance and intensity of this rhetoric to domestic Argentine conditions, such as economic performance or public opinion approval of the government. Claiming that the views of the islanders don’t matter, that they’re a transplanted population (of at least nine generations ago), won’t win many arguments in the international community given that 86.4% of Argentines self identify as of European descent.
A comparison might be made to Canadian claims over Saint Pierre and Miquelon I suppose, an economic powerhouse contrasted with the Falklands, if only such claims existed.
Claiming that the views of the islanders don’t matter, that they’re a transplanted population (of at least nine generations ago), won’t win many arguments in the international community given that 86.4% of Argentines self identify as of European descent.
I would be absolutely amazed if you can find anyone in the international community making this point (except for the islanders themselves, of course). Actually saying “But the Argentinians are mostly just settlers themselves?” I doubt it would ever happen.
This is why I’m kind of unsympathetic with the notions of inherent indigenous rights.* Its very hard to determine who is and who is not indigenous in many instances. How long does a person’s family have to be in a place to become indigenous? Look at my people the Jews, Jewish communities were often hundreds or thousands of years old in the places where we lived be it Russia or Morocco. Our Gentile neighbors, Christian or Muslim, always saw us as strangers though regardless of how old our community was. Why were my ancestors less indigenous to what is now Belarus and Turkey than their Christian and Muslim neighbors. We certainly lived there just as long.
*This doesn’t mean I’m against restitution and justice for Native Americans. It means that I’m really not impressed by arguments about one group being in the right because they are indigenous.
if you want to really get nit picky about it, homo sapiens is only “indigenous” to one place on earth (assuming you accept the “out of africa” theory), and that would be the area between the tigris and euphrates rivers. everywhere else, they’re immigrants, some earlier, some later, but all immigrants nonetheless. if you subscribe to the “possession is 9/10ths of the law” theory of ownership, the first (or surviving earliest) immigrants clearly had a prior claim to whatever parcel of land they happened to settle on.
with respect to our own “native americans”, the discovery of Kennewick Man (who’s bone structure appears to be of european origin) would, on the surface anyway, seem to raise some questions as to who was actually the earliest immigrants to the americas. at the moment, his remains are locked away, awaiting a determination as to whether or not he belongs to a native american tribe, and scientists haven’t been allowed near them since shortly after they were discovered.
if you want to really get nit picky about it, homo sapiens is only “indigenous” to one place on earth (assuming you accept the “out of africa” theory), and that would be the area between the tigris and euphrates rivers
I think you mean East Africa. Modern humans didn’t evolve in Mesopotamia, they evolved (according to the Out of Africa hypothesis) in Africa, hence the name. So everyone is a settler, except the Kenyans.
you are correct, i had this confused with something else. which obviously wasn’t africa! this gives a decent summary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_Africa_theory
except kenyans, of course.
Sorry if that came across as a bit obnoxious, by the way.
It’s odd, really. The Kenyans are absolutely splendid long-distance runners, so you’d think that they’d have covered absolutely immense distances in the time since they evolved. But, yet, there they are, still in Kenya.
I suppose they’ve probably just been doing laps.
One, famously, made it all the way to Hawaii when only a few ays old . . .
I thought they had found human skeletons much older than Lucy in South Africa a while back.
Lucy wasn’t even genus Homo, never mind Sapiens. So on this matter, she and her antecedents have no ‘splainin to do.
Kennewick Man was first thought to be possibly of Caucusoid origin, but subsequent analysis showed a more Ainu/polynesian ancestry
I think we can do pretty well figuring out who should count as indigenous by just sticking to a relatively short time period. The closer to current year you lived in the place, the more rights to it you’ve got.
The Jews seem like a fairly abnormal case in history and not hugely useful in adopting general rules.
Ah, the Jews. A people to whom neither logic nor rules may ever apply.
I just covered Jews and Chinese as “essential outsiders” and “middle man minority” diasporas in my graduate seminar on ethnicity and race today. The Jews, or at least the ones in Central Europe, seem to have a lot of broad similarities with the Chinese in South East Asia, the Lebanese in West Africa, the Indians in East and South Africa, and the Greeks and Armenians in the Middle East. Unless one is talking about the small set of Jews that never left Palestine then no Jewish communities are indigenous in their self-conception. So they are not unique at all.
I’d love to see the readings you use for that class.
They are listed at the URL below. For today’s class I used Daniel Chirot and Anthony Reid (eds.), _Essential Outsiders: Chinese and Jews in the Modern Transformation of Southeast Asia and Central Europe_ (London: University of Washington Press, 1997). It is a collection of essays and focuses on Jews in Austria and Hungary and Chinese in Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
jpohl.blogspot.com/2013/01/i-have-finally-finished-by-syllabus-for.html
Thanks.
Don’t worry. No one really cares about indigenous rights until the old culture is almost wiped away.
If you think no one else makes this argument, you’ve never been to Hawaii.
I haven’t. You mean that Americans argue that Islanders are just settlers too? Or vice versa?
A comparison might be made to Canadian claims over Saint Pierre and Miquelon I suppose, an economic powerhouse contrasted with the Falklands, if only such claims existed.
I’m not sure that’s a particularly fair comparison. French sovereignty over St. Pierre et Miquelon was consented to by the British as part of the resolution of the Seven Years War, thus there is no plausible argument for Canadian sovereignty over the islands other than geographic proximity. The Falklands actually were settled for a period in the early 19th Century by Argentinians and I don’t think Argentina ever recognized British sovereignty over the islands.
And the British never recognised the sovereignty of Argentina over them, especially as the leader of the ‘Argentinian’ colony asked British permission to settle.
Anyway, so fucking what? Argentina might like to focus on other things, such as getting back to something like the situation 100 years ago, when their per-capita GDP was higher than Australia’s, rather than trying to gin up fake irredentism in a population most of whose ancestors were still in Europe when the British took definitive control of the islands.
But…there’s oil.
French sovereignty over St. Pierre et Miquelon was consented to by the British as part of the resolution of the Seven Years War, thus there is no plausible argument for Canadian sovereignty over the islands other than geographic proximity.
Sounds like Gibraltar.
I hate to have to point this out, but control of The Malvinas is essential for one reason: it’s the only “all-season” access point to the oil under Antarctica. Which can now be legally drilled.
What makes the islands better for this than the southern tip of Argentina?
I dunno about oil under Antarctica, or its legality (I’ve not heard of the Antarctic Treaty being repealed).
I do know various British companies have explored for oil in the Falklands EEZ. Every couple of years you get someone on the London stock exchange with some preliminary geological results and a big smile, and then, well, not much.
Most of the economy is all about fish these days.
There are two big advantages of basing yourself in the islands: it’s 300 miles nearer the job, and if it goes to ratshit, you can sue in the British courts rather than joining the queue of foreign investors trying to get their money back from Argentina.
I dunno. Having been there a couple of months ago, I’d say their chief industry was cheap made-in-China British tchotchkes. It’s like wandering the back streets of Brighton. Not that I begrudge them the industry – it’s a living.
Or than New Zealand?
Argentina has several ports on its Atlantic coast south of the Falklands.
And what the heck is the point of having an all-season port near Antartica in the unlikely event you’re trying to export crude oil from Antartica in the winter? Near don’t cut it.
1) The oil under Antarctica cannot be legally drilled: it is protected by the Antarctic Treaty.
2) the only conceivable access point for oil under Antarctica is the top of Antarctica. You can’t drill down from the Falklands and then turn the drill bit through ninety degrees and drill sideways for 800 miles under the Southern Ocean until you’re under Antarctica. What do you think this is, Fantastic Mr Fox?
I . . . drink . . . your . . . water ice!
how did the sheep vote? isn’t that an important constituency in the Falklands?
I assumed this was a poll of the sheep. The Falklands have people?
I understand there was a problem with hanging chaaaaads.
Give the Argies an inch, and the fucking Kiwis will start making claims on the Pitcairn Islands. Stand resolute, you Falkers!
I can reassure you, noone covets the Pitcairns. Besides, we’re too busy trying to regain our ancestral land, the Isle of Wight, as part of the greater kiwi codependency sphere
You. Don’t. Want. The Isle of Wight…
Does anyone have a quick primer on why the Falklanders want to be part of England so badly?
They’re terrified of having to wait several months for PBS to air Downton Abbey in mutilated form.
Was the British version any better?
No expert I, but the “kelpers’” attachment to the UK seems to be a pretty solid mix of sentimentality and self-interest. The former because the Falklanders are mainly of British origin – and memories of the 1982 war are still current – and view Argentina and its people as irredeemably “foreign”; the latter because as a British dependency, they qualify for a greater range of benefits (and, I think, through various links, an economic attachment to Europe) – which of course, is tied into the “sentimental” part…
How sentimental do you have to be to think that becoming Argentinian at this point in time is a delicious, nutritious shit sandwich that nobody would be prepared to actually eat?
You vote on whether you want to be part of the longest existing Constitutional government on earth or Argentina.
I think the land mines aren’t helping, either.
That was actually a bit of a problem for the UK government, because when it signed up to the convention prohibiting landmines in 1999, it required us to clear them all within ten years of signing. So there’s quite a push going on to clear the hundreds of minefields remaining in the Falklands in order to avoid being in breach of the treaty – a push which the Argentinians, who actually laid the things, have naturally no intention of helping or paying for. The treaty parties actually had to grant the UK an extension.
They can always through their British guards in the sea and proclaim the Falklands Empire.
My mother-in-law went to jail and was tortured (in 1976) for suggesting that Belize was not in fact part of Guatemala, or at least that the Belizeans should have some say in the matter. She’s lucky to be alive. Obviously, that was only ever for domestic consumption; Guatemala never had a ghost of a chance of actually controlling Belize.
Never mind that, I’m getting ready for the war with Canada over Machias Seal Island.
Forget Machias Seal Island; were it up to me, we’d be contesting Maine. And I’m not sure the rest of America would object.