Falkland Islands and the right to self-determination

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

The problem I have with this is not whether the Falkland Islanders may be considered indigenous, but rather with the definition of colonisation being used. The Falklands were not colonised, in the same sense as the majority of the British Empire, by the subjugation of an indigenous population, but rather populated through settlement of land that was previously uninhabited. They aren't therefore a colony in the same sense of the world as, for example, Australia. So I'd like to understand how Argentina's claim on the Falklands is stronger than, for example, the UK's claim on Iceland, as the nearest occupied territory to a land that was unoccupied before its occupation by inhabitants of another country.

Dave

Hang on... where have I said anything about Argentina's claim on the Falklands being stronger than anything at all? The only mention I made of Argentina was to demonstrate the problem with saying 'our people are there so it's ours'

Yes, the Falklands was not colonised by subjugating an indigenous people. Luckily there weren't any or it would have been. But that doesn't make it any less a colony or any less colonisation. It makes it slightly less bad, but I disagree with the entire idea of going round the world finding bits of land and claiming them as yours because you have the wealth and military might to make it so.

The indigenous people thing is a side discussion but it's actually a little sick-making to think that some people actually think the Falklanders are on a par with Maoris or Native Americans or other actual indigenous populations. My only saving grace in that one is that I don't actually believe that they do. They just want to win an argument.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

That definition (being that it specifically targets those peoples who were living in areas later colonised by Europeans etc) precludes most of us from being classed as indigenous.

Consequently it's a pretty pointless definition, and the Maori would not have been classed as indigenous until Europeans arrived.

It's the UN definition. If you have a better one I am all ears.

I can't see any definition or possible definition in which European colonisers are indigenous

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

For the falklands, the pre-colonial era of peaceful settlement of unoccupied land was 1840. And the colonial era of invasion was 1982.

No the pre-colonial era was 356BC and the colonial era was when it was invaded by the South Sudanese in 1432.

See... I can talk crap and make **** up too.

 

[angrysoba]

Hang on... where have I said anything about Argentina's claim on the Falklands being stronger than anything at all? The only mention I made of Argentina was to demonstrate the problem with saying 'our people are there so it's ours'

Or it could be considered self-determination by the Falkland Islanders. Self-determination has plenty of problems of its own, of course, but if they want to be considered British, doesn't Britain have a duty to them, especially when no other country has a greater claim? If the same people get invaded, doesn't Britain have a duty to defend them?

Yes, the Falklands was not colonised by subjugating an indigenous people. Luckily there weren't any or it would have been. But that doesn't make it any less a colony or any less colonisation. It makes it slightly less bad, but I disagree with the entire idea of going round the world finding bits of land and claiming them as yours because you have the wealth and military might to make it so.

The indigenous people thing is a side discussion but it's actually a little sick-making to think that some people actually think the Falklanders are on a par with Maoris or Native Americans or other actual indigenous populations. My only saving grace in that one is that I don't actually believe that they do. They just want to win an argument.

I think it is irrelevant whether you call them "indigenous" or not. Frankly, does "indigenous" actually accord anyone a greater right than a non-indigenous person?

 

[Dave Rogers]

Hang on... where have I said anything about Argentina's claim on the Falklands being stronger than anything at all?

You seem to be claiming that it's stronger than the UK's claim on the Falklands, for a start.

Yes, the Falklands was not colonised by subjugating an indigenous people. Luckily there weren't any or it would have been.

I'm sure you're right on that point; but, in fact, there weren't any, and so...

But that doesn't make it any less a colony or any less colonisation.

...is the point I disagree with you on, however subtly. It makes it a very different entity to, say, Australia, which was colonised against the wishes and to the great detriment of an indigenous people. It's in some ways more like the Norse colonisation of Iceland or the Maori colonisation of New Zealand, both settlements of previously uninhabited lands by people from other countries in historic times, and neither of which is commonly referred to as colonisation. There should, perhaps, be a different term by which to refer to such settlements. And if the right of the Falkland Islanders to retain sovereignty over the Falkland Islands can be called into question, I'd like to know whether the right of the Icelanders to retain sovereignty over Iceland should similarly be called into question; and if not, is the difference actually any more than that Iceland was settled a longer time ago?

Dave

 

[Tolls]

It's the UN definition. If you have a better one I am all ears.

I can't see any definition or possible definition in which European colonisers are indigenous

Because the UN were defining something about people's who had been colonised. They didn't care about people's who had not.

Under that definition you are not an indigenous Scot.

 

[Rolfe]

The question of motivation for the colonisation of the Falklands may have been relevant in 1840, but this is 2019.

The actual situation is that there is a population of about 30,000 people on the Falklands Islands, who farm and fish and make an honest living. They are born there and they live there and they die there. They own their land and they plough their profits back into improving it and the infrastructure, and they are developing new industries. They've been there for four or five generations and the present population know no other home.

Nobody else has a better claim to the land than they have. They evicted no previous inhabitants, and they appropriated nobody else's territory.

Are they British? I never asked anyone. They sound like Kiwis. Their economy is self-sufficient and other than defence they don't rely on any handouts from the "mother country". Many of them have never been to Britain. It's on the other side of the world! They use the pound, but loads of places use other countries' currencies. My impression from the people I spoke to is that they'd like to be a fully independent island nation like Cape Verde or Iceland, but they can't even contemplate that because of the threat from Argentina. So they remain a British protectorate. (I imagine if Senegal was determined to annexe Cape Verde they'd have begged to stay a Portuguese protectorate too.)

People spoke of being "grateful" to Britain for their defence, and wishing the economy was strong enough to be able to pay for the assistance. Not of any feeling of entitlement because they actually were British. They're certainly a lot less British than the Channel Islanders or the Manx, for example. They don't send MPs to Westminster and Westminster doesn't make their laws. They didn't get a vote in the EU referendum. (They're not in the EU, although French colonies on mainland South America are, as are the Azores, another Atlantic island population with some aspirations to independence.)

At the moment Britain is benefiting in precisely no way at all from protecting the Falkland Islanders. They may not be doing this for altruistic motives. They may be thinking about oil, or rights to the Antarctic. But that doesn't change the fact that the Falkland Islanders are an island community in a place where nobody else has a better right to be there. They should not be sold down the river because people want to play political territory games, and that applies just as much to other countries playing political terrirory games as it does to Britain.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Or it could be considered self-determination by the Falkland Islanders. Self-determination has plenty of problems of its own, of course, but if they want to be considered British, doesn't Britain have a duty to them, especially when no other country has a greater claim? If the same people get invaded, doesn't Britain have a duty to defend them?

It could be called self-determination but I don't really agree with the rest of your commentary here because it seems a little backwards.

While the UK claims the territory then of course it has a duty to protect the people there but that doesn't mean the claim is legitimate and I don't think the people considering themselves British (if they do, last I saw most considered themselves Falkland Islanders) means much.

I think it is irrelevant whether you call them "indigenous" or not. Frankly, does "indigenous" actually accord anyone a greater right than a non-indigenous person?

I think it does accord you a greater right. But in this case it IS irrelevant because there are no indigenous peoples. I was just objecting to the classification of those colonisers as indigenous people. It's quite a nasty little idea actually.

 

[Giz]

I think it does accord you a greater right. But in this case it IS irrelevant because there are no indigenous peoples. I was just objecting to the classification of those colonisers as indigenous people. It's quite a nasty little idea actually.

Archie, the rest of the world uses "indigenous people" to refer to "the first people to settle and form a community somewhere". Why do you think it matters whether they walked or sailed to the new land?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

You seem to be claiming that it's stronger than the UK's claim on the Falklands, for a start.

Can you quote where I said that? Because I am not.

I'm sure you're right on that point; but, in fact, there weren't any, and so...

So there really isn't a moral high ground from the fact that they were lucky there wasn't anyone there.

...is the point I disagree with you on, however subtly. It makes it a very different entity to, say, Australia, which was colonised against the wishes and to the great detriment of an indigenous people. It's in some ways more like the Norse colonisation of Iceland or the Maori colonisation of New Zealand, both settlements of previously uninhabited lands by people from other countries in historic times, and neither of which is commonly referred to as colonisation. There should, perhaps, be a different term by which to refer to such settlements. And if the right of the Falkland Islanders to retain sovereignty over the Falkland Islands can be called into question, I'd like to know whether the right of the Icelanders to retain sovereignty over Iceland should similarly be called into question; and if not, is the difference actually any more than that Iceland was settled a longer time ago?

I will try to explain why I see it as different then.

When you talk about the European colonisation of 'the new world' you are talking about a planned and deliberate program of rich military powers setting out a program of sending people off to find new territories to claim as their own and strip of any resources that they may encounter.

It wasn't an accident. These people didn't just end up on the Falklands because they set out on boats and ended up there. They weren't little independent groups of people striking out on their own to discover new fertile lands to grow crops.

They were a planned importation of people to take over the land for the economic benefit of the 'mother country'.

This is quite different from the Maoris who appear to have genuinely been setting out to explore new lands. And quite different from the Norse settlement of iceland - where I believe this was basically groups escaping from persecution back home.

I appreciate that this is complicated and it gets messy and there are other even messier areas - are Chagossians indigenous peoples? I believe they are actually the descendants of imported African slaves but I think we can safely say at least that they aren't colonisers.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Because the UN were defining something about people's who had been colonised. They didn't care about people's who had not.

Under that definition you are not an indigenous Scot.

The UN were seeking to define indigenous peoples. As I said, do you have a better definition?

I have absolutely no issue whatsoever with me not being considered an indigenous Scot. I think that is very very very likely to be the case though I have never really investigated my heritage.

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Archie, the rest of the world uses "indigenous people" to refer to "the first people to settle and form a community somewhere".

Evidence? This is not what indigenous people means. I have shown you the definitions. You are working with a weird and wonderful definition unique to you.

Colonisers are not, by definition, indigenous people.

The annoying thing is I actually took the time to check before I responded to you initially that I wasn't wrong. Because I could well have been the one who was mistaken. And had I been, I wouldn't have doubled-down that everyone else is wrong and I am right, or claim without evidence that the rest of the world agrees with me.

 

[Rolfe]

I was just objecting to the classification of those colonisers as indigenous people. It's quite a nasty little idea actually.

Why is it nasty? It seems it's only about time. All islands became inhabited because some people, who already had a homeland somwhere else, got in a boat and went there, intending to stay. Is there some motivation for doing this that makes their community illegitimate, even four generations down the line?

 

[Giz]

Can you quote where I said that? Because I am not.



So there really isn't a moral high ground from the fact that they were lucky there wasn't anyone there.



I will try to explain why I see it as different then.

When you talk about the European colonisation of 'the new world' you are talking about a planned and deliberate program of rich military powers setting out a program of sending people off to find new territories to claim as their own and strip of any resources that they may encounter.

It wasn't an accident. These people didn't just end up on the Falklands because they set out on boats and ended up there. They weren't little independent groups of people striking out on their own to discover new fertile lands to grow crops.

They were a planned importation of people to take over the land for the economic benefit of the 'mother country'.

This is quite different from the Maoris who appear to have genuinely been setting out to explore new lands. And quite different from the Norse settlement of iceland - where I believe this was basically groups escaping from persecution back home.

I appreciate that this is complicated and it gets messy and there are other even messier areas - are Chagossians indigenous peoples? I believe they are actually the descendants of imported African slaves but I think we can safely say at least that they aren't colonisers.

You keep going on about this 'original sin' of being a planned migration rather than an accidental one. This seems:

1) Not something that is important to the standard definition

2) Demeaning to indigenous people (as you define them). Do you think that the descendants of current day native americans crossed the Bering straights land bridge by random Brownian motion, or that they deliberately looked for new hunting grounds? They were thinking people who made choices, not randomly moving particles that happened to come to rest somewhere.

 

[Rolfe]

*straits

 

[Dave Rogers]

And quite different from the Norse settlement of iceland - where I believe this was basically groups escaping from persecution back home.

That's one explanation, but not the only one - the inhabitants of Iceland were there to get land and wealth, and there seem to have been regular trips back to the mainland, typically to pick up supplies (wood was and is pretty scarce) and to go raiding now and then on Viking trips. Previous inhabitants were Scottish and Irish monks; does the UK, via Scotland and Northern Ireland, have a prior claim?

Dave

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

You keep going on about this 'original sin' of being a planned migration rather than an accidental one. This seems:

1) Not something that is important to the standard definition

2) Demeaning to indigenous people (as you define them). Do you think that the descendants of current day native americans crossed the Bering straights land bridge by random Brownian motion, or that they deliberately looked for new hunting grounds? They were thinking people who made choices, not randomly moving particles that happened to come to rest somewhere.

Jeesus. You can't see a difference between a planned takeover of a territory on the other side of the world for economic benefit and the natural expansion of people's from one area to another?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

Why is it nasty? It seems it's only about time. All islands became inhabited because some people, who already had a homeland somwhere else, got in a boat and went there, intending to stay. Is there some motivation for doing this that makes their community illegitimate, even four generations down the line?

It's nasty because it basically compares a bunch of colonisers to actual indigenous peoples. It makes a mockery of the whole concept of indigenous peoples and belittles the genuine plight of actual indigenous peoples across the world.

Is there some motivation for this that makes it illegitimate? Yes of course there is. There are a number that would make it illegitimate and no, if you accept that there are illegitimate motivations then you should also accept that you don't suddenly gain legitimacy because your illegitimate colony stuck it out for 4, 10 or 40 generations.

I don't know how many times that the systematic colonisation of the other side of the world for the purposes of economic development and empire building are NOT the same as some people setting out on a boat and settling on a patch of land with nobody on it. And trying to draw this equivalency is not justified.

 

[Giz]

Jeesus. You can't see a difference between a planned takeover of a territory on the other side of the world for economic benefit and the natural expansion of people's from one area to another?

They were both planned. Just that one society had limited knowledge and mobility. Seriously, stop implying that early human settlers had no agency. It's demeaning and infantilizing to them.

Now, can you state why you think there is a moral difference between claiming unoccupied land after travelling on foot versus claiming unoccupied land after travelling by boat?

 

[Archie Gemmill Goal]

That's one explanation, but not the only one - the inhabitants of Iceland were there to get land and wealth, and there seem to have been regular trips back to the mainland, typically to pick up supplies (wood was and is pretty scarce) and to go raiding now and then on Viking trips. Previous inhabitants were Scottish and Irish monks; does the UK, via Scotland and Northern Ireland, have a prior claim?

Dave

Probably as much as Norway has - i.e. none. I'm not sure what that is supposed to prove.

Do you honestly think there is no difference between what happened and the King of Norway sending out a military expedition to claim the land and then settling it with Norwegians and claiming it as part of Norway?

That's a genuine question, because it seems to be a fairly obvious and stark difference to me.