
How Prosperity Transformed the Falklands - Thevet
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/06/how-prosperity-transformed-the-falklands
======
bikeshaving
The prose in this article is pretty, and characteristic of the New Yorker
style. Sometimes I want to articulate what exactly the New Yorker style is,
but I don’t read enough anymore to pick out its distinguishing features. I
think the extended simile here is very common to New Yorker pieces:

> the islands are oddly similar to the Shetlands or the Isle of Skye—the
> bleak, rocky landscape; the blustery rain; the nearness of the sea—as though
> a piece of Scotland had broken off into the Atlantic and drifted eight
> thousand miles south, past Ireland, then Portugal, past Morocco and
> Mauritania and Senegal, down past the coasts of Brazil and Uruguay, and come
> to rest just a few hundred miles north of Antarctica.

In short, it takes a mundane detail like the similarity of landscapes and
climate between the Falklands and Scotland, and adds an interpreted fantastic
explanation of it by simile (landmasses moving across the Atlantic). It can
feel excessively twee and almost corny when you identify the technique, but I
appreciate it nonetheless. I wonder if readers have identified other notable
examples of the New Yorker style from this article or elsewhere.

~~~
Papirola
I found it interesting that in the enumeration of countries, Argentina is
missing. Straight from Uruguay to Antarctica.

~~~
paganel
Must still be upset about that Maradona goal (even though I haven't checked if
the author is English, to be honest). And to partially get back on subject, I
personally find those kind of enumerations that the OP mentions pretty boring
and too intellectual, too mid-19th-century English writer that nobody reads
out of pleasure anymore.

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LeoPanthera
Wonderful paragraph about the war:

> The islanders did what they could to undermine the enemy. Reg Silvey, the
> Cape Pembroke lighthouse keeper and a radio ham, rigged an aerial out of a
> steel-core washing line and transmitted troop information to the British.
> Terry Peck, a policeman, concealed a telephoto camera in a drainpipe and
> walked around taking photographs of Argentine missile sites. A farmer named
> Trudi McPhee led a caravan of islanders in Land Rovers and tractors through
> hostile territory at night across East Falkland to Tony and Ailsa’s
> farmhouse, where British troops needed vehicles to transport weapons. Eric
> Goss, a manager at Goose Green, convinced Argentine soldiers that the lights
> of British ships in Falkland Sound were moonlight reflecting off seaweed.

~~~
redis_mlc
The reason British troops needed local vehicles is that their helicopters were
on the "Atlantic Conveyor" merchant ship, which the Argentines sunk.

Since British army doctrine is to insert away from the front, they had to
march around 55 miles to Port Stanley.

(The US does amphibious assaults near the objective, which is high-risk:
either you succeed, or get slaughtered on the beach, as in Italy and a couple
of the Normandy landings.)

------
martinald
One major problem with the Falklands is woeful internet access. Population is
too low to make a submarine fibre connection viable, so it's connected by
expensive and slow satellite backhaul.

Assuming Starlink continues to go to plan, it would be a huge boon for remote
places like this and probably very transformative to its economy.

~~~
BobTheBuilder2
Have you ever thought that maybe people go to such places to get away from the
constant interaction with an internet browser?

~~~
mastax
You can get away from the internet anywhere in the world.

~~~
toofy
But it is much more difficult to get away from the expectation that you’re
always on.

------
11thEarlOfMar
Well... why...

There are 3,480 Falklanders. My high-school had 3,900 students.

The weather is pretty bleak. Warm season average high temp in January is 57F.
Average low in June is 32F. Mostly cloudy/overcast 60% of the week pretty much
year round. I.e., it's never really warm enough to do a lot of outdoor
activities other than hiking or maybe horseback riding. Only 20% of days are
'wet' days, so you don't have to worry all that much about rain. Still, it's
too cold for swimming or beach-going, not cold enough for skiing. Admittedly,
I just skimmed the article, but this caught my eye: "Since the late nineteenth
century, islanders had wanted a swimming pool because the sea was too cold to
swim in, so nobody knew how, and, when boats capsized, people would drown."

Make no mistake, there are many folks who prefer this climate, and the
remoteness and seeming lack of immediacy that is growing in the rest of the
world. I imagine you'd stay for the sameness of each day. I could see it as an
unplug for a while, but living there would get, for me... dull.

One thing I did wonder, though, what does a Falklander accent sound like:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiHFhRyxU48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiHFhRyxU48)

~~~
BurningFrog
> _living there would get, for me... dull_

Yeah, me too. But if you grew up there it would be HOME.

Where your family and everyone you know lives. That's a lot more important
than climate for many people.

~~~
dmurray
The article says about half the population did not grow up there.

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RcouF1uZ4gsC
> At the end of 1980, a minister from the Foreign Office visited Stanley and
> proposed to an apprehensive audience in the town hall that the Falklands be
> given to Argentina in a long-term “leaseback” arrangement, similar to the
> one that Britain and China had for Hong Kong.

Glad Britain ended up taking a different route with the Falklands than what
they did with Hong Kong.

~~~
DevKoala
Argentina is not a dictatorship atm. You are glad that a super power became
more powerful here.

~~~
627467
Interested in knowing who considers the UK a superpower in 1980s, never mind
in 2020s... Argentina is a regional power.

That a population of a tiny island much closer to a single country than to any
other landmass nearby would prefer to stay effectively isolated and dependent
on a "foreign" power, says for to the appeal of being part of Argentina than
to whatever deal the UK has been offering to the Islanders.

Nothing like HK at all where majority of population actually doesn't mind
(accepts) mainland rule

~~~
lmm
> Interested in knowing who considers the UK a superpower in 1980s, never mind
> in 2020s...

I don't know about "super", but they're one of maybe four countries with a
credible second-strike nuclear capability, one of six that operate full-size
aircraft carriers, maybe sixth on the list of global reserve currencies, G7
member...

~~~
082349872349872
It surprises me that although the Falklands War (and its anti-ship missiles)
was last century, people are still eager to build full-size aircraft carriers.

(I will start taking scots' independence noises seriously after someone puts
forth a concrete proposal about what to do with HMNB Clyde.)

~~~
pjc50
What's the specific question as to why that means you can't take it seriously?

The big problem is the nuclear material, but getting rid of that has long been
an undercurrent of independence anyway. I suspect what would most likely be
negotiated would be some kind of "treaty port" arrangement for non-nuclear
vessels. Scotland would likely not be an Ireland-style neutral.

The aircraft carriers are .. very much a "power projection" thing, like
Trident, Britain buying itself international hard man status like a knuckle
tattoo. On the other hand, there's no proven alternative to carriers for
achieving air superiority away from land bases.

~~~
082349872349872
Not that I can't take the idea seriously, just that if the english were to
identify where they'd move the sub pens, it would be easier to classify as
being in the "project" category rather than in the "proposal."

~~~
pjc50
It's apparent that England isn't going to plan for it any more than they're
going to plan for Brexit. Whether it happens or not is kind of an orthogonal
question to that. Although my personal opinion is that Irish reunification is
more likely in the next decade, especially if the UK makes an EU-incompatible
ag trade deal with the US.

------
walrus01
Persons interested in this weird artifact of British colonial history should
also read up on St. Helena and Ascension island.

~~~
dugmartin
See also Clipperton Island, a French territory off the west coast of Mexico.

~~~
walrus01
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Pierre_and_Miquelon)

------
libraryofbabel
It's curious how many British overseas territories got left over from the
British Empire, simply because they are too small, or never wanted
independence, or both. Among others: St Helena in the middle of the South
Atlantic (where Napoleon was imprisoned and died), part of Cyprus, the
immensely controversial Gibraltar, various Caribbean islands, the Chagos
Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, and the very remote Pitcairn Island in the
South Pacific.

At its height the British Empire covered a quarter of the land on Earth and
claimed dominion over a fifth of humanity; the saying was that the sun never
set on the British Empire. Turns out, thanks to these various islands, it
still doesn't: [https://what-if.xkcd.com/48/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/48/)

~~~
pjc50
Gibraltar is the least controversial, surely: it's been British since the
Treaty of Utrecht, at the point where the map of Europe started to resemble
the modern one. The population is British and wishes to remain so. There
wasn't an indigenous population removed at gunpoint. Even Cyprus is more
controversial.

The fact that Spain would like it has no standing under international law.

------
ur-whale
[http://archive.is/53ykK](http://archive.is/53ykK)

------
sbassi
Good for them for not being linked to Argentina anymore, if they where an
Argentinean province they would be in default, with unemployment, and with
high poverty rate.

~~~
jxramos
What's the backstory on Argentina being an economic drag that it would be
detrimental to be connected with them?

~~~
lmm
A combination of cost disease and the resource curse. Argentina was prosperous
and its professional class gradually became an entrenched bureaucracy that
skimmed off a lot of productivity (similar to e.g. Italy today); over decades
its economy became more and more dependent on oil exports, even as its oil
production became less and less efficient along with everything else in the
country. As long as the oil price was high it didn't matter, but when the oil
price dropped all their chickens came home to roost.

~~~
diegof79
Wow, you must be confused with Venezuela. While Argentina has oil, its
production is very low and it never was a driver of the economy.

And about the comment of “its professional class gradually became an
entrenched bureaucracy”, I don’t know where you get that conclusion, but is
far from the historical facts.

Argentina had a good economic situation at the beginning of the 20 century.
But it also had a lot of inequality. That inequality created a lot of
political instability. That instability led to violence: when the people that
was “out” of the elite took the power, people at the elite did strike back...
it continued for years in cycles of stability and violence, and a cruel
dictatorship (google for Dirty War).

Related to the Malvinas/Falklands war... that war was the last resort from the
military dictatorship to gain popularity, but they were very stupid and
blind... and sent many young unprepared soldiers to die.

A good outcome from the war, was the debilitation of the dictatorship and the
return of democracy in 82.

So what this has to do with the economy? After these cycles the country ended
with tons of debt. Also our economy relies a lot in the agricultural export.
During the turmoil of the 60s/70s many industries (and scientific research)
died and the recovery took years.

Since the return of the democracy we went through two big crises (89 and
2001). Our economy still relies in agricultural exports. The professional and
worker class pays the debt every day in the form of high inflation, high
interest rates, and low credit availability.

