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READ THIS FIRST!

READ THIS FIRST. I am new to blogging, so this is a kind of trial project. During the Falklands conflict of 1982 I found myself writing down my thoughts about it from time to time, much as bloggers do now. Recently I found these papers and because it's topical I thought some people might be interested in what was going through the mind of a typical Guardian-reading thirty-something in 1982. It's occasionally quite surprising!
My plan is this: to reproduce the pages facsimile, so readers can see it's genuine; then to transcribe so readers can read it; then to make comments clarifying the text where necessary, explaining things, and giving my opinions (for what they're worth) on what it all means.
I shall try to upload each instalment on the date it was originally written, but 30 years later. There are 21 pages, in six bits, between April 28 and June 12.
Problem about blogs is that they are always backwards, so if you are new to it, for a linear story like this you have to go right to the bottom and work backwards, or use the dated links on the sidebar.
It's lots of text, not very bloggy, but that's its nature. And sorry no pictures!
I'm not expecting many comments for this particular project, but of course they are welcome.

Saturday 19 May 2012

FALKLANDS 1982 DIARY continued.

Oops I'm a day late. The next entry is for 18th May. It's only one page, so I'll reproduce the original. It is graced with a small doodle, and the last sentence runs up the side of the page I will carry on transcribing the manuscript in Courier and make comments in Times Roman after each paragraph as before.


18 May


Begins to look as if there will be a counter-invasion by the task force in the next few days. I can't deny I'm fascinated by the prospect of an all-out fight, and have to keep reminding myself that people are going to get killed {1}. Well, yes.  If the Argentinians have more than 200 military aeroplanes, and the fleet has got to get within range in order to invade the Falklands, you can't shoot all of them down, or keep all the missiles at bay. If it only takes one missile to sink a ship.... and of course dozens of planes would be shot down. Then once the troops were ashore, they could be bombed & strafed from the air. It will be a horrible business. {2}


COMMENTS:
{1} 1982 was before the era of computerised shoot-em-up video games, although perhaps there were clunky games-parlour versions. 'War romanticism' was embodied partly in books and comic books, but probably more in movies. It's a common grumble today that screen violence and video-games promote real violence, or at least tolerance of it, but 'war porn' is probably endemic and always had the effect of masking the real nastiness, especially in advance of a conflict, and then long afterwards when the war is part of history and heritage. It is a powerful drug, and obviously I was vulnerable to it, and probably still am.


One wonders how much this war romanticism affected professional members of the armed services. Presumably most of them had never actually been involved in real conflict before. And perhaps most relished the prospect of real fighting because it would enhance their standing and justify their training. And they expected to win. Presumably too the Top Brass like a real fight as being so much better than mere exercises in terms of testing men and equipment, and military strategy. 


So it's worth asking, if the armed forces were up for it, who was I really whingeing about?


{2} This is just a reminder that on the date of the entry we really didn't know what was going to happen. Anybody reading today knows the outcome, but on May 18th 1982 this was completely open and a genuine cause for speculation and anxiety.




I seem to have lost sight of the principles involved. Sarajevo seems easier to understand now {3}. But how could either side have pulled out, given the constituencies to which they bow at home? {4} James Cameron as usual has been shrewd and witty. Pity I missed the Panorama programme that Sally Oppenheim called 'an odious and subversive travesty'. Must have been a very model of objectivity. {5}


{3} 'Sarajevo' has changed its meaning. Now it makes us think of the recent Balkans conflicts, but in 1982 it meant 'the trigger for the first world war' in the assassination of Archduke Rudolf in Sarajevo in 1914. Evidently what I meant was that the first world war appeared to have been caused by the accident of various military and diplomatic alliances colliding, rather than any profound difference of interests. It is often glossed as the first of many pointless stupidities of that War, and I obviously shared that view prior to the Falklands Conflict.


{4} See {6} below.


{5} James Cameron is mentioned previously in the post of 28th April. Sally Oppenheim (now Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes) was a Conservative MP. My sarcastic comment shows what side of that particular debate I was on. Broadly, I bought the 'Guardian/BBC' line.




Recall that, early on, a majority of people in one poll reckoned the issue was not worth the loss of a single British life. What's happened to that sentiment? The logic of events.... {6}


{6} See also {4}: There is a kind of polarisation process in which populations become committed to conflict. Here it seemed to have an irreversible quality, more like 'curdling'. This partly drives policy {4} but is also partly created by the government itself. Today we are more uncomfortably aware how easy it is to create polarisation (think militant Islamism, Israel/Palestine, wind farms, GM foods, nuclear power) and how difficult to foster reconciliation. Committed 'polarisers' rarely miss an opportunity to create more curdling. Blessed are the peacemakers, for theirs is a hard row to hoe.




Must find a source for the Argentinians' claim, giving a clearer idea of why they feel so strongly about it. It seems that 'defeat' would be much harder for them to swallow than for us. It would certainly seem "unfair" -- the more so since they presumably don't understand the British point of view.{7}


{7} This seems a bit strange, because previous entries suggest I had discovered quite a lot about the history and the grounds for Argentina's claim to the islands. However none of these were strictly Argentinian sources, and this remark suggests I had suddenly come across some, and that had impressed me that they, the Argentinians, 'cared' in a way that we didn't.


How is this to be factored into negotiations for a 'just' result? On the British side, we were operating ostensibly on the basis of upholding international law and the rights of individuals (hardly  a real polity) to self-determination. In practice of course there were dozens of other pressures, now including 'backing our team' soccer-style partisanship, but these should not weigh heavily in the moral balance


On the Argentinian side, it must be assumed, there had been a hundred years of state propaganda, stories, textbooks, to the effect that 'foreign occupation' would be experienced as a continual affront to national integrity.  So this is how it now looks: that finally, with the invasion, justice is served and the historic balance restored. What balm to the national soul!  OK so there are international niceties to be ironed out, but surely Britain cannot possibly care that much about remote islands with a few hundred people? What on earth is all this fuss about? Look, the good guys have won!


I am not sure about historic parallels. Geographically, the Channel Islands should 'belong' to France, but there are never any political pressures in that direction. It's too long ago? Yes, but the Serbs have still not forgotten Kosovo. They constantly feed it.  And there are far more recent 'manufactured' ethnicities with even higher voltage, notably Israel and Palestine.


In contrast, you can starve these claims to death. I recall travelling in West Germany in the sixties, and seeing  government posters saying 'Drei Partieren? -- Niemals!' (Three parts? Never!). This referred not only to the existence of East Germany, but to the formerly German territory ceded to Poland as part of the post-War settlement. Meanwhile Poland 'lost' large parts of its east to the Soviet Union, later Belarus. There was massive ethnic cleansing, maybe 14m Germans having to up sticks and move (apparently insisted on by one W.S. Churchill). But now, two, three generations on, who cares? Is this the proper way to do it? You either negotiate or have a war. You lose the war, shrug your shoulders and move on. It's refusing to move on that is the toxic element.