Valentines Day stuff! Also, BRAND NEW EXPERIMENTAL HISTORY MEME!

[beboots]

 Good evening, everyone! Happy Valentines day, for those of you who celebrate it!

First, a brief link recommendation. If you've never heard of Postsecrets, you should definitely check them out: essentially, people send in anonymous postcards with their secrets on them. Some are sad, some are quirky, some are touching, and all are absolutely awesome

Comments

[anyjen]

History meme, eh?

Well, just to be contrary, and because I like to take people outside their comfort zone, here is my question:

In a hundred words or less, what is it you know about the history of Argentina?

(Depending on your answer, I may ask to elaborate. Yes, I'm evil. I'm also studying to be a teacher. All's fair in war and education! XD)

[beboots]

Oh god what do I know about Argentina... I actually learned absolutely nothing about the country until university, and even then I'm on shaky ground. Forgive me!

Presumably, what is now Argentina was conquered by the Spanish sometime in the 1500s or 1600s. There were silver mines? Bad stuff happened?

After achieving independence from Spain in the early 1800s, the country had difficulty defining its own culture as distinct from the colonizers. It was of utmost importance to write original literature... which was difficult because so little of the populace was literate at the time, the educational system having been neglected by the Spanish overlords.

Um... something about the Quechua language being encouraged? I AM ASHAMED AT MY LACK OF KNOWLEDGE HERE HAVE A VIDEO OF TWO KINDLY OLD MÉTIS PEOPLE HAVING A CONVERSATION IN MICHIF: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFUGfkRQ4RE

[anyjen]

It's ok; that's more than I expected you to know. Most people would have trouble even naming the continent Argentina is in. XD

[beboots]

"Most people would have trouble even naming the continent Argentina is in. XD" For serious? I was ashamed of what little I knew! D

[anyjen]

There were, though, rather hurried efforts to create our own literary works at that time, which varying degrees of succes. Even our own president at the time, Sarmiento, took a stab at the pen, and produced works that could make you scream in anger at their blatant racism and mysogyny. See, our dear ol' president (and quite a few intellectual people with him) was convinced that the Argentinian (or "criollo") people were defective and inferior because of the mix of blood between the "lazy" Europeans (Italians, Spaniards and the sort) and the brute and eneducated "indians". So, to fix this, he decided to open up our frontiers to foreigners and grant them land, and encourage them to marry Argentinian women and improve the race that way. He was aiming at the Europeans he considered the best (basically: Caucassians and Arian), and he did moderately succeed in attracting some, but mostly what he achieved was attract a greater deal of Italians and Spaniards. Scandinavian people preferred to make their way to North America for the greater

[beboots]

Canada has a secret history of racism. We have this lovely squeaky-clean reputation, but... yeah. :P Immigration policies actually discouraged African Americans from immigrating Northward "for their own good" because it was believed that they were inherently unsuited for the environment and that they'd die of pneumonia, etc.,etc.... which is patently ridiculous because what about all of the French and even Italians and other mediterranean peoples (also, other people of African descent) who'd been living in the country just fine until then? :P Racism makes no sense.

"Disappeared" is such an evocative and scary word. D:

[anyjen]

"Disappeared" is such an evocative and scary word. D:Yes it is. It brings back so many bad memories for us, that you rarely hear Argentinians using it normally in casual conversation. You don't say somebody or something has disappeared (desaparecido), you say it's "missing", "lost" or... er, the closest translation I can think of the other word is "misfiled" ("extraviado", "perdido" and "traspapelado", respectively). You don't use "desaparecido" unless you're talking about the people who were persecuted and killed by the Military Junta

[beboots]

"You don't say somebody or something has disappeared (desaparecido), you say it's "missing", "lost" or... er, the closest translation I can think of the other word is "misfiled" ("extraviado", "perdido" and "traspapelado", respectively). You don't use "desaparecido" unless you're talking about the people who were persecuted and killed by the Military Junta." Wow. That is a very interesting bit of cultural linguistic history!

"but you won't ever find a green Ford Falcon anywhere. Why? Well, because it was the car that the "milicos" (soldiers under orders from the Military Junta) used to transport people from their homes to the places where they would be tortured, interrogated and then killed." !!! Woah. Crazy. Seriously, this stuff is fascinating. (Now when someone else puts me on the spot about what I know about Argentinian history & culture, I can have some relevant things to say!)

Your description of the "Flights of Death (Vuelos de la Muerte)". My reaction: D: No words.

[anyjen]

Woah. Crazy.

Yeah... when I was little (eight or nine, I think) I made an unintentional faux pas. I like the colour green, and back then I also liked Ford Falcons (my dad had a light blue one). Being completely ignorant of all this, I once made the mistake of saying that when I grew up, I wanted to drive a green Ford Falcon... my dad immediately started yelling at me that that was not a car he would ever allow me to drive. I couldn't understand why my dad got so angry at me for saying this until my mum took me aside and explained it to me. Turns out, my dad, who played clarinet, was in the military band at the time (once of the few options that would feed my family at the time, considering he had to leave University or risk being disappeared himself; University students were frecquent targets), and he actually saw the people being dragged off the green Ford Falcons at the military bases and taken to planes. >_And it's all very recent, so you don't usually talk about this stuff unless you want the people in your parents' generation to

[beboots]

"I like the colour green, and back then I also liked Ford Falcons (my dad had a light blue one). Being completely ignorant of all this, I once made the mistake of saying that when I grew up, I wanted to drive a green Ford Falcon... my dad immediately started yelling at me that that was not a car he would ever allow me to drive." Daaaamn... ;_;

I can definitely see how this would be traumatizing to the very psyche of a nation, though. D:

[anyjen]

Still, good things were in our history, too. Most of them accidental, but still, good. Our open frontiers and neutral policies mean that, besides the Independence War and the aforementioned Falklands war, we haven't been in any military conflicts, and that a general air of accentance of your fellow human being reigns in the place. We don't care about the colour of your skin or which country your parents and their parents came from; we put more value into the effort you put into life and whether or not you bothered to get an education instead (since it's practically free, you have to be rather irresponsible, lazy and/or unfortunate in life not to get one). We've long had women in power, and though we are facing some difficult times in our economy, everybody is treated pretty much the same way... equally unfairly, maybe, but equally all the same. ^^U

[beboots]

"We don't care about the colour of your skin or which country your parents and their parents came from; we put more value into the effort you put into life and whether or not you bothered to get an education instead." That's an excellent ethos to have. :D Excellent

[anyjen]

I was just curious, then, as to when women got the vote in Argentina?

1947. I know that's later than other countries, but the thing is, it seems people just hadn't thought that women should vote before. Once the subject came up, it was relatively a short time before women could vote, a couple of years or so.

If England or America does something, law-wise, it tends to be discussed up here at the very least.Funny, that pretty much summarizes the stiuation in Argentina as well. We just tend to be a bit more drastic in our measures, but lack the funds to implement them properly right away. ^^U

[beboots]

"1947. I know that's later than other countries, but the thing is, it seems people just hadn't thought that women should vote before. Once the subject came up, it was relatively a short time before women could vote, a couple of years or so." Interesting! I think that our last province to give women the vote was Quebec in 1940, so we weren't far off either. ;) I think that New Zealand was the earliest country to give women the vote, in the late 1800s. Go them

[beboots]

I only know the last bit because I just read a brief section in my history of translation textbook. D:

[redrikki]

Interesting stuff about the post-colonial culture. Personally, when I think of Argentina I tend to think of Los Desaparasidos (the Disappeared), i.e. the folks kidnapped, tortured and killed by the military junta in the late-1970s to mid-1980s. Also, it was a really popular spot for German refugees post-WWII (including some notorious ex-Nazis), so there are a lot of folks with German last names. It's not a history book, it's actually magical realism, but I heartily recommend reading Imagining Argentina for a sense of that time period.