The Islas Malvinas will never stop being an area of contention. Argentina claims the archipelago taken by the British ever since Argentina came to be. The Falklands, as the British like to refer to them, are unalienable and rightfully Argentinian territory. The British, according to the Argentinian account, display an outdated, colonial attitude, and would do better to move into the 21st century.
This Argentinian discourse is a very strange one, however, as it is so easy to point out several hypocricies in the outlook of Buenos Aires. Firstly, the reason Argentine claims the islands is not cultural, ethnic. You will struggle hard to find a repressed Argentinian majority or even minority on these islands. The Argentinian claim puts it on the same level of entitlement to the islands as the French and the Spanish. In fact, it puts them in line behind them. Because they left footprints well before any 'Argentinian' ever came to be. The British were there before the Argentinians, as well. But they came back afterwards and left a population that has been dieing and giving birth on the islands for almost 200 years now. These people consider themselves British.
'But they don't originally belong there' Argentinians would claim. Well, no-one belongs on an uninhabited archipelago then. British or Argentinian. But the most curious part of this whole reasoning, is that Argentina uses a reasoning that can be turned against them even more easily. If they blame the British for appropriating uninhabited islands, they should perhaps not be so secure in their ownership of Argentina itself. A country robbed from under the feet of the native Mapuches, Charruas, Guaranies, ...
The lack of consideration given their flimsy claims, betray then what they really are: cheap populism. Efficient maybe, but no less reprehensible. Especially given the association of this discourse with the former dictatorship. Miss Kirchner should know better than promoting knee-jerk nationalism.
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