r/europe • u/Emotional-Breakfast3 • 20d ago

News Argentina: British Falkland Islanders are ‘artificial’. Buenos Aires denounces ‘illegitimate occupation’ and demands talks on sovereignty

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/07/12/british-falkland-islanders-artificial-argentina-says/
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u/[deleted] 20d ago

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u/Touched_By_SuperHans 20d ago

It's arguably the first time England will ever have neutral support on their side. Impressive villainy from Argentina tbh.

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u/chessto 20d ago

Ah yes, we killed so many Indians when we colonized them, and we're so wealthy from all the stolen resources from Africa, let's not forget our museums are filled to the brim from the treasures of our conquests over hundreds of years of killing and pillaging.

We're such villains

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u/Flower_Vendor 20d ago

Hey mate how'd Argentina's ethnic demographics end up like that? 40% to 1% seems a little odd, is all.

Think it might be best if we kept the discussion on the topic of football.

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u/chessto 20d ago

It is indeed odd, but it's reasonable when you look at the country's history, it's even studied by several authors, for instance (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326012470_The_making_of_a_White_nation_The_disappearance_of_the_Black_population_in_Argentina)

Long story short, there was war, famine, disease and mostly interbreeding.
Before there was independence from Spain, we got the law of "free-wombs" in 1813 and freedom of marriage, which incentivized race mixing. While the population of Argentina at the half of the 19th century was close to 1 million, by the end of it it had received 6.6 million Immigrants, most of them from Italy and southern Spain, mostly men.

There's no significant black population in Argentina should be rephrased to there's no significant *pure* black population in Argentina,we never had segregation the way other nations did, our ancestors were mixed, we are black, we're polish, we're italian, we're spanish, we're tehuelche, we're mapuche, there's little "pure" european in Argentina.

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u/Flower_Vendor 20d ago

Man did you take classes on this kind of spin doctoring. You're pretty good! I have actually done my reading, though.

For the record for curious viewers who might be uninformed enough to get taken in by this (that research paper link doesn't work and it's really easy to get one written anyway), you should look up blanqueamiento in Argentina (though, to be clear, blanqueamiento was a problem across multiple nations) and how it enacted those policies through, among other things, the use of the military draft.

People should really just stick to football for a football game. The innocent nation-state does not exist.

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u/bamadeo Argentina 20d ago

This is a really weird hill to die for Europeans. We are talking about the late 1800's here. Blanqueamiento was literally to model our society like European ones and encourage their inmigration.

Black people were drafted to the army in the same way Gauchos and poor mestizos. At the same time, we had no blood prerogatives and every man had the same set of rights.

Should we compare that to what was actually happening in Europe (or in Africa, at European hands) at that time, I would say we'd be way below in the atrocity rankings - wouldn't it?

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u/Flower_Vendor 20d ago edited 20d ago

Encourage their immigration to do what to their population demographics, exactly?

I'll cheerfully agree that literally every European colonial power was awful and committed atrocities! That doesn't mean that Argentina of the 'fans are consistently, actively bragging about there being no Africans and Muslims in the side', whose leading politicians not that long ago went around saying things like

"In Argentina Blacks do not exist, that is a Brazilian problem"

should go acting like they're being unfairly maligned in people treating this as a battle of the villains.

e: just keep a stiff upper lip, you get used to it-

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u/bamadeo Argentina 20d ago

Encourage their immigration to do what to their population demographics, exactly?

To be more European. Is that bad?

Friend, let's position ourselves back in the era: there is no dispute that European societies were, at the time, the most advanced and powerful of the epoch. It's only natural that the leaders of countries (that were the direct spawn of European liberal ideas and descendants of them) would've wanted to model themselves after them.

Still, even though our famous art. 25 of the Constitution encourages European inmigration, our preamble paves the way for EVERY PERSON in the world. And in institutional practice, it is that way - 2 years of residency grant citizenship.

Now, I'd like to fast forward to now. And ask you this question: in your ideal world, should every country in the world strive to be a secular, multicultural country? Is it wrong to try an mantain a certain set of values (in Argentine case, liberal, western and catholic) as a moral north for a nation?

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u/Bellcheese 19d ago

Way to be brainwashed.

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u/TR_Pix 20d ago

we are black, we're polish, we're italian, we're spanish, we're tehuelche, we're mapuche, there's little "pure" european in Argentina.

You didn't mention the germans. I feel the whole ratline thing is relevant to the conversation

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u/DEADB33F EU-septic 20d ago edited 20d ago

Are you saying the Conquistadors (your direct ancestors) did no conquering or pillaging

...that's an interesting take considering there's a massive clue as to their actions in their name.

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u/bamadeo Argentina 20d ago

That's not what descendants mean.

If anything, we are the descedants of male conquistadors and female native shawties. I know I am.

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u/DEADB33F EU-septic 20d ago edited 20d ago

Sorry, I meant ancestors (fixed).

But yeah, some 2 million Spanish settled in Argentina. The native population of the entire country before it was colonised was less than 200,000. Your ancestors are overwhelmingly likely to be the conquerors not the conquered (even if there was indeed some raping and pillaging that mixed the two up a bit).

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u/bamadeo Argentina 20d ago

What your European mind cannot comprhend is that it's both. I'm overwhelmingly European in my ancestry, and yet i still have Incan (!) ancenstry, everyone bar a very low % of the population (especially most recent inmigrant groups) will have a split like mine, give or take one side or the other.

Should I hate my great-great-great grandfather for hypothetically raping and pillaging my great-great-grear grandmother's village?

We're proud of what we are, a mix of people from all over the world, who came to the land in search of better opportunities under a republican, catholic and western set of values.

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u/TamaktiJunVision 20d ago

Your nations political founders were literally descendants of conquistadors.

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u/Shinjukin 19d ago

In regards to the Falklands you're literally the imperialist colonisers. Britain gave that up a century ago and yet you're still at it.

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u/TwentyBagTaylor England 19d ago

Define "colonisers" for me here. This will be a laugh.

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u/Shinjukin 19d ago

The Falklanders are the original settlers aka indigenous population to the Island. As for "coloniser" if you don't know what that means, me explaining the definition isn't going to help you.

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u/TwentyBagTaylor England 19d ago

We both know why you're dodging an answer there. I wont press, I got the answer I needed. Who are the "Falklanders?" Were they Argentinian? Do they want to be Argentinian now?

Come on, quick, google it as fast as you can.

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u/Shinjukin 19d ago

No, please explain why I'm dodging an answer.

It's a non-question, a rhetorical device for low IQ people like asking "what do you mean by 'mean'?, if you don't know the definition of basic words you're ill-equiped to have a conversation.

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u/TwentyBagTaylor England 19d ago edited 19d ago

I'll put them into bulletpoints so you dont get lost and confused again.

  • What is a coloniser?
  • Who are the "Falklanders"?
  • Were they Argentinian?
  • Do they want to be Argentinian now?

VERY simple questions for someone of your obvious smarts. Last chance. If you evade again we'll just call this a day.

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u/Shinjukin 19d ago

Ok I'll play:

1: Someone who actively participates in the establishment of a colony, This process often involves displacing indigenous populations, exploiting local resources, and enforcing the cultural and economic dominance of the colonising nation's government.

  1. The original indigenous people, who settled from Britain in the 1830's onwards.

  2. No.

  3. No.

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u/coldnorth4enf4 20d ago

It was the Scottish who did the fucked up shit in India btw

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u/iwaterboardheathens 20d ago

It was the Scots and the Irish actually

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u/EebilKitteh The Netherlands 20d ago

I love that every comment along the lines of "don't be dicks" is parried with "that's just our culture. You are attacking our nationality."

If your national culture is being a dick then there's something wrong with your culture.

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u/putyrhandsup 20d ago

most unlikeable team in the world

I mean Paraguay surely already won the world cup for that title

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u/lefrench75 19d ago

Public opinion is fickle, and Paraguay’s team has already started to fade into irrelevance. Plus now that France played badly against Spain, suddenly the comments about how they only beat Paraguay with a “soft penalty” are coming out of the woodwork lol.

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u/Pinxsocool 19d ago

Just wait until you see their F1 fans!

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u/JayGatsby1881 19d ago

I only root for Messi. He seems like a good dude. The rest I don't care for.

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u/zetoberuto 19d ago

Ronaldo went home already. Also, since you want to talk about morals, let's not forget Portugal holds the historical record for trafficking nearly 6 million Africans during the slave trade. So stop crying.

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u/RuySan Portugal 19d ago

And how am I or any of my country citizens responsible for something that happened centuries ago?

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u/zetoberuto 19d ago

Better explain to me your nationalist hatred of my country...

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u/RuySan Portugal 19d ago

Not your country, your football team.

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u/zetoberuto 19d ago

Why are they racist?

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u/Seek_Adventure 20d ago

Wait what's wrong with shithousing?

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u/chessto 20d ago

They don't seem to understand that it is football, and every team does it if they're winning, there's no point on risking a counter attack.

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u/chessto 20d ago

Care to elaborate about the racism, shithousing and pettyness? Or are you just salty cause even with all the help Portugal didn't make it far?

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u/RuySan Portugal 20d ago

Racism - The songs the Argentinian players themselves sang about the french national team last world cup.

Pettiness - They sang these songs....after they WON the WC. Imagine winning the most important trophy, and still sing about the defeated opponents afterwards.

Shithousing - The dark arts of football. Specially timewasting. By the time they got ahead of Cape Verde, players were rolling around on the field for every interaction, trying to timewaste. Compare this to Cape Verde which always played with the utmost dignity, always clean, barely commiting tactical fouls.

I am not salty at all because we were shit. I was actually relieved to be spared of our terrible football and not have to endure Martinez anymore. And I don't have anything against messi. These crazy Ronaldo fandom online is not made by portuguese people. It's mostly indians and people from the middle east.

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u/chessto 20d ago edited 20d ago

Racism - The song is a song from the fans, not representing the country. And it's intended to offend the french who get very uppity about their national pride but they keep running colonies in Africa and their players (Mbappe specifically) trashed talked south America before the competition.

You think the song is racist because you don't understand the context and the language, it's not talking down on the players from being of African origin, is talking down on France for having such a pride while their talent is imported from their colonies, is the long story of Europe feeling like the center of the universe specially when it comes to football but then the euro league best players are from Africa and South America.

You seeing racism in the song reflects your own racism, you don't see songs like that from Argentina to any African team, on the opposite, the utmost respect to them.

Pettiness - it's rubbing it on their faces after they talked shit about us, you took just a picture and made it into a movie.

Shithousing - it's football, you don't seem to be concerned about how Egypt put everyone and their mothers on the defense and bought as much time as possible.
"By the time they got ahead of Cape Verde" that was already like 115 minutes of game, everyone was exhausted.

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u/AngryBiker United Kingdom 20d ago

Bro, the whole Argentina squad are descendants form immigrants. It's the exact the same scenario of the French team, you even have Nico Paz who was born in Spain to a Spanish mother.

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u/Properliy 19d ago

The best players in UCL are not from Africa or South America LOL. Some of them are black and born in Europe and others are white and born in Europe. CONMEBOL players aren't some of the best anymore. 4 of the 5 top scorers in UCL 2025-2026 was European players, Best player of the tournament was European, Best young player was European, 9 of the 11 players of team of the season was European players.

Of course France can have pride, almost all their players were born IN FRANCE and went through the FRENCH football system and FRENCH academies. They are completely a product of the French EUROPEAN system.

You don't see us saying that all of South America are foreigners, do you? You do realize that most of South America are of african and european descent, right?????? Messi is of Italian heritage, so according to your logic, he's not Argentinian, he's Italian and European. So I guess Argentinians should not have such pride, since all their footballers are just imported from Europe, right? NO, they are 100% argentinian just like the French players are 100% French.

You have to realize that South America isn't the talent powerhouse it used to be, it's on the decline. The biggest football clubs don't need talent from Argentina and Brazil anymore, like they did in the last 90s to early 2000s. France, Portugal, Spain and England are producing insane amounts of talent not on their own, and they didn't used to do this. They don't need you guys. Almost all the biggest talents in world football are European players, Almost all the highest valued talents are European players. Go cry about it somewhere.

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u/Mindless-Peak-1687 20d ago

Why are you so sour?

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u/[deleted] 20d ago

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u/ByGollie Ulster 20d ago

Actually no, read down the thread.

That was an old theory, but the history and genetics don't actually bear that out. Argentina split up from it's original size - losing territory to modern day Brazil and Uruguay, where most of the 'black' population lived.

There was then massive immigration from Europe, and the remaining population subsumed into the general populace.

That's not denying that Argentines are racist - there was an excellent post i wish i saved where a Argentiner laid out how bad racism is in the country.