daerest britishes: summarize + discuss the cultural reactions to the Falklands conflict

(I know you could've looked that up yourself Jon. But there's some good stuff on there.)

I remember "I counted them all out and I counted them all back", a line by reporter Brian Hanrahan (I think) which became mildly famous. My Dad worked for an engineering company who'd manufactured parts for Exocet missiles, so we had plenty of ironic roffles when they started blowing up British ships. I vaguely remember the court cases that ensued later when Clive Ponting leaked evidence suggesting that the General Belgrano had been sunk outside of the exclusion zone - that was big for a while. And there seems to have been a gradual, general consensus that it cost an awful lot of money that might have been better spent buying every Falkland Islander a solid gold castle in the UK to live in.

I think it's an exaggeration to say Thatcher went to war to stir up patriotic support, and I don't think it's generally regarded as a pretty shameful war. There were obviously shameful incidents (war to thread), and the war was exploited by the Thatcher government (this = shameful), but I've never heard anyone seriously arguing that it shouldn't have taken place or that overall it's a source of deep regret for Britain.

Also, my Argentinian cultural history = extremely sketchy, but I have heard it said that the decision to invade was taken to shore up the popularity of the Junta. Who knows.

So, to answer Jon's question, I think that while most British people regret in particular the sinking of the Belgrano and Thatcher's exploitation of it for political gain, they generally consider it a necessary war.

I was also a toddler at the time though too, so I'm probably talking out of our arses.

Not mentioned there is the funny moment in Adrian Mole when the eponymous hero bursts in on his ma and pa shouting about the argentinians invading and the dad gets all agitated before they look at a map and decide to go back to bed.

There was plenty of opposition at the time, though obviously Thatcher's will prevailed. The attack on the Belgrano led to one of the more famous moments on television when during the 1983 general election a woman from the southwest (Portsmouth?) took Thatcher to task for the attack. This in turn led to even more emnity between her and the BBC.

Definite source of regret in that she exploited it and 'the Falklands Effect' propelled her to victory in 83 and after that the economy was pciking in up and she was secure for a third term.

my Argentinian cultural history = extremely sketchy, but I have heard it said that the decision to invade was taken to shore up the popularity of the Junta

I think both of these things are true. Thatcher was extremely unpopular, the dole queues were growing ever longer, riots all over the place, but with the aid of some good old-fashioned jingoism (and the Labour party splitting in two) this war got her re-elected. The murderous Junta in Argentina were hardly top of the popularity stakes either and just wanted a quick distracting fix of nationalist fervour. It probably never crossed their minds that Britain would bother sending the army and navy halfway round the world to protect some boggy fields populated by a couple of thousand people and some sheep.

I've never heard anyone seriously arguing that it shouldn't have taken place

As wars go I'd say this was fairly pointless for both sides.

Right, but if we're speaking in generalities about the British cultural reaction, which I think it what Jon's interested in, rather than our own opinions then that obviously wasn't a source of regret to the plurality who voted the Tories in again in 1987 and 1992.

It probably never crossed their minds that Britain would bother sending the army and navy halfway round the world to protect some boggy fields populated by a couple of thousand people and some sheep.

That was silly of them. Countries are protective of their borders. Whether or not we should be arseing about in the Southern Atlantic, the fact is we are. For governments, there's an "it's the principle of the thing" thing here. I'm not going to defend those principles when they result in thousands of deaths, but the Argentinian government must have been spectacularly naive to think that their actions would have no consequences.

As wars go I'd say this was fairly pointless for both sides.

OTM.

The unlikelihood of this scenario is due to the absence of a plausible flashpoint rather than an unwillingness on the part of British governments to fight territorial wars (i.e. win general elections). I mean, where is someone going to invade territory Britain claims? Gibraltar? Sark?

But given the same circumstances in the Falklands now, I think both Labour and the Tories would do a Thatcher.

Of course, I've read that wikipedia article!

and later Dubya in another location

WHJAT?1?@!

Anyway, it would be interesting to gauge the reaction to something like this happening to America somewhere in the Pacific....

well, the PM just last week said our boys should be 'war-fighters' as well as peace-keppers.

however the correct answer is we no longer have a navy capable of putting down this kind of score.

jw: the TV film 'tumbledown hill' was probably the single biggest cultural item that came out of the war. a few years later, but nonetheless. thatcher essentially imposed censorship on TV drama in the early '80s; a decade earlier, or two decades later it would have had a TV show about it within months.

More like the Meatmen IMO.

Not mentioned there is the funny moment in Adrian Mole when the eponymous hero bursts in on his ma and pa shouting about the argentinians invading and the dad gets all agitated before they look at a map and decide to go back to bed.

Haha yes! I read the Adrian Mole books when I was like 8 for some reason, so had no grasp of most of the references. The great thing is that the joke (family are looking for the Falklands on a map, fail to find it, eventually realise it's hidden by some cake crumbs) also works on a really basic apolitical level, thus I still got the lolz

Did 'merica have "war on terror" tv dramas that quickly?

Except that the governments in question were a Fascist Junta and the Argentinians the most right-wing government in living British memory, uncertain of winning the next general election. Negotiation was unlikely to be high on either side's list of priorities.

^ wow on the african mainland!

"I mean, the swell of independence movements, colonial turnovers, and territory renegotiation in the whole previous decade -- surely this was important in the thinking?
-- nabisco (--...), January 22nd, 2007."

no because the falklands didn't have an independence movement, it's not like the UK had 'stolen' them from anyone a la africa or asia. argentina itself was a kind of anglo oligarchy up to the 20th century, i think; in any case a quasi-colonial power, not entirely unlike south africa. hardly more legit than british rule over the islands (mostly useful for refuelling and seaweed farming).

lord knows what the argentinians wanted or expected. it is kind of surprising thatcher didn't bomb argentinian cities, really -- i'll bet the tabloids of the day would have been up for it.

Have to say, YMOF is being somewhat curmudgeonly about Bell's penguins. The Falklands War actually brought on the best in Bell I think - these days he is a lazy bugger who only does one frame in the grauniad, but back in the eighties I thought his "If..." cartoon was spot on and I still appreciate Falklands era Bell today. I think the way that he turned Kipling the sailor bringing a penguin back from the Falklands a mainstay of the strip was a work of genius, speshly as the penguin in question was a real maverick compared with his avian chums on the islands (more British than the British - his Aunt Ada visits him in England at Christmas and harangues him about not having the Queen's broadcast on the telly. I think one of the best bits was when there was some breach of security at No. 10 and the strip had Thatch taking someone on a tour of the house, proudly pointing out that intruders were kept at bay by a "pitful of Tebbits" only to be bitten on the finger by said penguin who had somehow breached the security.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/stevebell/index.html

What did they want to achieve - well, they thought they'd win. There'd been sabre-rattling for years, and British government prevaricated between a public line that brooked no change of status, but diplomatic feelers and messages complicated things. The Labour government agreed to secret talks, which were interpreted as a lack of resolve; the Thatcher government's review of defence saw defending the islands a low priority and they scaled down the naval presence in the area.

Even then, they very nearly won; they pretty much knew that if the task force got there, they'd be in trouble, so all efforts were directed to the prevention of that. In that, they were very nearly successful. Several memoirs of british commanders tell of how close the whole thing was to collapsing. Their hit rate on the ships was high, but the missles were duds, and if the exocets which hit would have actually exploded, they'd have been in big trouble.

Border formalities would be fun if not for the icy rain. On the Argentine side there are three conscripts, a drug beagle, and an old radio. The conscripts struggle with a hopeless Internet connection before giving up and waving everyone through. They have rigged a giant road sign on their side of the border reading LAS MALVINAS SON ARGENTINAS, in the same way a saner country might warn BRIDGES FREEZE BEFORE ROAD. I'm told that every land crossing to Argentina is rigged with these signs, preventing countless drivers from careening off the road due to geopolitical anxiety over the status of the Falkland Islands. The effect is somewhat like bringing a new friend home for Thanksgiving only to have your conservative uncle start ranting at him about politics.

(The whole series of articles on Argentina is great.)

Did Maggie not manage to bully de-activation codes or jamming signals for them out of their French manufacturers?

All these posts and no mention of Simon W3ston? (was that his name?)

Is this something that could ever happen again? I mean, over two decades on now I can't even conceive of a situation in which Britain would go to war on its own.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Sunday, January 21, 2007 4:04 PM (5 years ago)

The Falklands war was not easy to conceive of even a week before it started. Upthread the pirate king summed up my view pretty neatly.

The Argentine junta wanted a quick injection of patriotic fervor to counter their flailing and failure at home and never dreamed that Britain would treat it as a full blown causus belli, worth the huge cost of sending in the army and navy. Thatcher saw it as a perfect opportunity to boost her own popularity, which was very low.

Given what the islands are like, it was an amazingly pointless war. But leaders miscaculate all the time and wars are one result.

i love this photo!

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/infocus/falklands033012/s_f04_73737983.jpg

Argentine soldiers buy postcards at a souvenir shop in Stanley, on the Falkland Islands, shortly after their invasion, on April 13, 1982. (Daniel Garcia/AFP/Getty Images)