In 1982, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands, a self-governing UK territory.
The islands – which have been the subject of long dispute between the United Kingdom and Argentina and also Spain and France – became the backdrop of an two-month undeclared war between Argentina and the UK.
After 258 British and 649 Argentine deaths, Argentina withdrew.
Argentina’s military government lost clout.
UK’s Thatcher got a boost.
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In an interview in 1983, Stuart Hall discussed the conflict:
…a country which has ceased to be an imperial power for twenty or thirty years, and which is in the middle of a recession, picks itself up and attempts to fight the last colonialist war in an area of the world which most British people couldn’t identify even on a map. You only get into that if you are pretty deeply into the myths of the last great power, Britain’s responsibility around the world, and so on. So I think the whole Falklands episode was pretty mythic. Indeed, many people would argue that it had as much to do with constructing a particular image of the nation—constructing a particular image of the people and of British interests in the world—as it had to do with this benighted bit of territory which mainly has sheep and penguins on it.
Hall’s take on UK is an interesting lens for US foreign policy post WWII:
I think there were a number of mythic structures at work…I think that once you saw the representations, what was certainly clear was that we had enormous vested interests in constructing that war as a popular war, as a just war, a war in defence of a group that had been oppressed. We revived a whole range of myths from the Second World War. We reconstructed Galtieri as Hitler: one had to stand up to the tinpot dictator (that revival has echoes of Chamberlain attempting to give the war away by striking a peace with dictators). There was a very profound set of historical myths which have in a sense stabilised the understandings which British people have of their own history, their own past, their problems today. That was the framework within which the actual events of the Falklands war were told. One becomes aware of the powerful impact of narrative in making myth appear to be real.
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Just as the Falkland Islands conflict was a glimpse into the mythic workings of the UK over 20 years ago, I feel like the Iraq war is a glimpse into the more recent mythic workings of the US.
Have we gotten to the point where our historical myths no longer stabilize our country?
On some level, I think our actions as a country have Ponzi’d out our mythic capital just as much as they have Ponzi’d out our financial capital.
The beneficial superpower with global presence myth has been laid bare to reality of a contracting empire at a crossroads.
Ultimately, to keep America from really sucking, we will need a transfusion of new myth into the collective imagination just as much as we need a transfusion of liquidity into the global financial markets.
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Well, the reality constructing aspect of all the speeches, declarations, statements and publications along the 74 days of conflict were a sheer delight for people who understand that myth maintenance is an every day job. I did review all the propositions on both sides along the war and found the old myths of Britain and Argentina being resuscitated and given new life.
I remember one episode: the ships going to war from a British port (Liverpool? Southampton?) and fathers taking their children and telling them: this is the way we do war…
National Identity in Times of Crises: the scripts of the Falklands-Malvinas War.
Thanks for the comment!
Nora Femenia
Interesting comment