Nice email to

Not all Argentines send TVG hate mail. Many send pretty nice mail. For the record, we have nothing against Argentina as a nation. In fact, having grown-up in Argentina, and being exposed to its great culture, music, beautiful places and delicious food, we love Argentina very very much.

We only condemn the 1976-1982 dictatorship who caused so many innocent lives to be lost. We also happen to respect the right of self-determination for the people who live in the Falkland Islands for over 8 generations.

Here are a couple of interesting emails from a new generation of Argentines who see things differently than the hate mail crowd. We got their kind permission to publish their correspondence. Note that their emails were changed to protect them against spam,

Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2003 03:32:05 -0300
From: Martin V. <no.spam @ some-where.ar>
Subject: Falklands

Yo soy argentino y me senti avergonzado de ver lo que decian esas
personas que te enviaron "hatemail". Lamenteblemente ese tipo de
personas se los ve seguido, y no son tan pocos como me gustaria.
Yo pienso que con las nuevas generaciones mi pais se va a ir depurando.
De todos modos estas personas no gozan de la simpatía de la mayoria.
Yo vivo en Trelew, provincia del Chubut. Cerca de mi casa hay un gran
supermercado que durante la guerra de malvinas funcionaba como
barracas. Mi madre me contó  (porque yo todavia no habia nacido)
que los soldados salian a pasear por Trelew, y que la gente al verlos
los invitaban a comer y los alojaban en sus casas porque los veian
tan chicos que les rompia el corazón pensar que podrian morir en poco
tiempo. Mi tio estuvo en esas barracas durante un fin de semana pero no
llego a ir a combatir. Suerte para mi y para mi mama que casi se muere
de la angustia. Tu pagina esta buena, segui asi.
Translation: I'm Argentine and I feel ashamed reading what the
people who send you 'hatemail" say. Regrettably, these kind of people
are a common sight and their number isn't small as one would wish.
I think our new generations are getting better (purer?). At any
rate, these [hateful] people do not have the sympathy of the majority.
I live in Trelew, Province of Chubut. Near my home, there's a big
Supermarket which during the Falklands War was converted into army
barracks. My Mom has told me (since I wasn't even born then)
that the young soldiers [mostly fresh conscripts] were going out for
little walks around town and the people were inviting them to their
homes to stay and eat. They were heart-broken thinking that these
young boys could die soon thereafter. My own uncle stayed in those
barracks during one weekend but [thankfully] didn't get to go into
combat. Luckily for me and my Mom who almost died of anxiety.
Your page is good, keep it up.



Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2001 22:32:39 -0800 (PST)
From: Agustina F.  <no.spam @ some-where.ar>
Subject: Falklands
 
Hello:

  I just saw your page about the islands, and it's very sad for an
argentine to read it, but it's true.  It's really a shame to read
those "hate mails", that they sent you. Most of the people here are
not well informed about the islands.  Me as an argentine, I was never
well informed about it, not even in the school, because it's true that
they told us and they still do, that the falklands are Argentine.
No one from argentina ever lived there, no one knows anything about it,
so I know they will always belong the the United Kingdom.  And besides
they are better like that, 'cause our country has a lot of economic
problems, our government doesn't do a shit about the rest of Argentina.
How do they expect to do something about the falklands?

  That war in 1982 was totally a waste of time, that shit of galtieri
should've been killed in the falklands.  The United Kingdom should take
all of argentina, that way we would be better.  If the british would've
colonized argentina, today we could have been like australia, ...

  Anyway I think that England is a great country with great people,
and it's a pity that most of the argentines don't see that.

Congratulations for your page you made an excellent job, with a true
story about the falklands.
Greetings Agustina

I will wait for your reply.
Thank you Agustina for your nice message
We hope better days are ahead for Argentina.


From: "Morwen" <[withheld]@hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2005 21:56:31 -0300
Subject:  about "love/support mail"

Hello.
I'm an argentinian, born and raised. First of all I have to declare that
i think your page is very well written and it's content is accurate, and
the fact that I will always disagree with the english point of view has
nothing to do with the facts that your page states. I simply need to
express my shock and anguish after reading one of the letters you point
as "support mail", where an argentine girl says among other dreadful
things that she wishes England had occupied all of Argentina. I believe
this is not something a respectable site like yours should be proud to
publish, since it's utterly offensive to all argentinian readers.
The opinions expressed on it are not and will never be the opinions of
the widest majority of the Argentine people, and the ones who think this
way should just leave the country.
A letter like this should never be considered support mail, since it
does no good to the image of your site. And the fact that you gave words
of encouragement to the writer is even more shocking.
Please do not label this as hate mail, since it's just a remark.
my best regards.
[name withheld]
buenos aires
Thank you for your nice message as well. We would never consider
a polite mail like yours "hate mail". It is encouraging to see more
Argentines engaging in a constructive dialogue, even including the
understandable occassional disagreements.
We believe the previous young writer, was refering to the fact that former
(not present, and definitely not "under occupation") British colonial
countries tend to have healthier traditions of democracy, rule of law,
and economic development ("we could have been like Australia" expression).
Rather than in the negative "take by force" sense. Our "encouragement"
of that mail didn't mean to necessarily agree with every word, but mainly
to encourage civil dialogue as opposed to the hate and venom we normally
get. We appreciate both of the above mails and do not wish to suppress
any of the two points of view.


From: "Salvador Oria" <[withheld]@uk2.net>
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 20:07:25 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Your fair account on the South Atlantic War, 1982.

Dear Vanished,

Although you and me were on different sides of that atrocius war: a
stupid, government-invented war to stay in power, destroying with it some
200 years of mutual confidence, respect and even partnership, I cannot but
agree with the unusual way you put it forward.

The first ancestor of mine to come to the River Plate, did it with Juan de
Garay in 1580 to found Buenos Ayres. Therefore my roots (mostly Basque and
none from wasp parentage) are deeply sunk in this soil and I cannot be
suspected of treason or any other name with which violents qualify those
that do not think the way they do. It is not easy to concede that one,
"indoctrinated" as you say in school (I should think that kelpers are also
indoctrinated the other way round), may accept facts opposing such
teachings. I still feel that the islands, whose name is different to us,
were originally ours and that the inhabitants (many of which have roots
there equivalent to mine here) should have had a right to decide if it
weren't for the fact that another State had (or should have had)
sovereignty on such lands. I understand their hearts and if it were on my
decision I would have never dreamt of changing their style of life, their
religon, their language or their legal order. The outcome of the war has
decided who are the rulers now and who will be ruling in the centuries to
come. Good for the islanders, even when it appears that they will never
cease to be the ham in the sandwich.

I will finish this long email submitting to your consideration a poem that
I wrote. I hope that it does not rub anyone's wrong side. It was not my
intention when I wrote it, and it is not now. The English are named within
without any ill feelings. The boys were all tools used by opposed
warmongers: they were not enemies. Best Regards. Salvador Oria.


Elegy for the Argentine Dead Boys, in the South Atlantic, 1982.

He gave a last kiss to his mother
and looked around
and said to her "I will be back"
Then he jumped right into the van
that took him to the vessel or to the airstrip's barracks...
And in the same way,
scores of our multicoloured boys
from each and every corner of our vast land,
grown under different skies
showing the colours of our banner
all alike,
walked to the portal of  infinite cold
and to the unmerciful weather of the isles.

They played cards and checkers and sung
alone sometimes, sometimes together,
the journey was a dream of hope and future glory.
Black, brown, baby blue and green eyed,
theirs were wide open in excitement full of expectations,
as Byron said: courage growing out of fear;
plethoric of patriotism, self-sacrifice and of redemption
arrived in this isolated place within their hearts
known to them only as tiny specks in the map to the east of Patagonia.

Children who never knew about the Roaring Forties' drums
nor of the auroras in the clear winter night skies,
Argentine boys with names as yours and mine
went to learn about the rage of ironware,
and cordite smoke and cold steel and bombing thunder,
screams and orders in the darkness
whilst looking into other boys' eyes,
foreign boys, like them, learning it the hard way...
Many have them closed by death and by surprise;
in the following feast of blood
some lost both their names and lives.

Icicles hang from crosses with a common Christ
seen from different angles. They rest in peace now
in a fathomless eternity under the islands' soil
flanked by their British comrades reaped by the same scythe.
Plastic flowers, flying blue and white ribbons and brass plaques
eroded by that never-ending wind playing its pipes.
These boys never imagined someone would remember them
in lines scribbled in their hated tongue
as if  language could create a division between heart and soul and mind.

Many boys went to the South to grow into Men or Heroes.
Our tears have now been dry for long,
Those who did not return are still alive in us.

© Salvador Oria 1999
© Salvador Oria 2004

Thank you, Salvador, for your message. We share your and the
families great sorrow over those who were lost in this senseless
war, from both sides.

Wars almost never solve problems. They just create new ones.

Also: thank you for allowing us to publish your poem on this site.