Argentine football rejects the colonization of the Malawian Islands

Maradona said that, before and during the match, he and his teammates were thinking about the fellow countrymen killed in that war.

April 2 is not an ordinary day in Argentina, not only because it coincided with the 2014 Derby football match between the two most famous Argentine teams, “Boca Juniors” and “River Plate”, but because it is also a very important day in the collective memory and popularity of Argentina. It is the date of the memory of the Malvinian War in 1982, which was a military attempt by Argentina to retake the Malvinas Islands and liberate them from British colonialism.

Before the kick-off whistle, the Pomponera Stadium witnessed a minute of silence in honor of the ancient Argentine army, and as a tribute to the souls of the Argentine soldiers who were martyred in that war, in defense of their national sovereignty.

649 Argentines died in that war, and Boca and River players carried a banner reading “LAS MALVINAS SON ARGENTINAS” (Malvinas, Argentine).

In the stadium, the members of the No. 12, Ultras Boca, hung a large banner in the colors of the blue and yellow team, on which the Malvinas Islands were painted, and then wrote: “PROHIBIDO OLVIDARSE” (Forbidden forgetting).

Supporters of the “River Plate” team also hung large banners that read: “SOMOS ARGENTINA” (We belong to Argentina), colored in red and white, the colors of the team, and the Malvinas Islands, and another white banner in which the Argentine islands are painted in the colors of the national flag, next to it wrote: ARGENTINA AND LA BANDA NO TE OLVIDA (The band Don’t Forget You).

The Malvinas Islands became a dependency of Argentina after the country gained independence from Spain in the early nineteenth century. It is located about 450 km from Argentina, and it is a geological continuation of the Argentine Patagonia region. Spanish colonial power withdrew from it, and Argentine power took its place.

Resolution 2065 issued by the United Nations General Assembly indicates that the Malawian issue is a colonial issue, but colonial Britain considers the Malawians as part of its territory, and calls them the Falklands. The successive Argentine governments tried to regain their islands through negotiations with the colonial power, but the British government was linking its refusal to negotiate an alleged right that claims that the inhabitants of the Malawian Islands are “free to decide their own destiny,” but this right is not applicable and contrary to logic, because the islanders are British settlers who brought them British colonialism from England, with an estimated 2000 British armed forces presence.

The United Kingdom colonized the Malvinas in 1833, expelling its Argentinians and the Argentine authorities that at the time exercised overt and recognized sovereignty.

Since then, Argentine governments have not ceased to demand that England peacefully return the Malvinas to it, but the latter struck the Argentinians ’demands completely untouched until 1982, when the Argentine authorities decided to take back their islands by force of arms, after Britain’s constant refusal to hand them over Malvinas, according to the logic:“ What was taken From you by force you take it back by force. “

Thus, the Argentine armed forces were landed in Malvinas in early April 1982, and the British colonial power surrendered. Argentine officials believed “and were naive in their belief” that the Western powers would remain neutral on this issue, but they were surprised when the American government, led by Reagan, denounced the Argentine liberation process, describing it as “aggression”, and declared its support for Britain, and France also stood, led by Francois Mitterrand, alongside British colonialists. Of course, the colonialists showed solidarity with each other, while the countries of the South (the countries of the Non-Aligned Movement) strongly supported the Argentine position and its legitimate right to recover a stolen part of its land.

Margaret Thatcher, the leader of the British government at the time, vowed the Argentinians with a quick military response, describing the Argentine operation as “aggression on sovereign British soil.” British land is located more than 12,000 kilometers from England, which means that the colonialist assumes the role of the victim and the colonizer, and it is not strange for colonialism to resort to blatant lies and distort the facts, as all Western colonies resorted to such despicable practices during their occupation of Arab, African, Asian and Latin American countries.

Britain is still a colonial country, as it still occupies northern Ireland, the Strait of Gibraltar, the islands of Anguilla, Turks and Caicos, the Virgin Islands and Montserrat in the Caribbean Sea. The British authorities still refuse to consider Malvinas a colony, seeking to manipulate historical facts and distort reality, as they organized a referendum farce in March 2015 in the Malvinas Islands, in which British settlers vote.

Football fans did not forget the historic meeting between Argentina and England in the 1986 World Cup, and the Argentines beat two goals to one. The player and star Diego Maradona said that he dedicates his goal against the English to the Malawians, that is, the young men in the Argentine army who fought 4 years ago for the liberation of the Malvinas from British colonialism.

Maradona said that, before and during the match, he and his teammates were thinking about the fellow countrymen killed in that war. Recalling the memory of the Argentinians’ defeating the English, Maradona said this year: “Winning was like a victory over a country, not a soccer team, even if we were saying before the match started that football had nothing to do with the Malvinas war. We knew that a lot of young Argentines were. They died there, and they were killed like young sparrows … That was a victory in revenge. It was like taking back a part of the Malvinas. We were defending our flag, of the young men who fought there, the living and the dead. “

As the Argentinian supporters of Boca Genoese and River Plate say, like all Argentine patriots, the Malvinas Islands were and will remain Argentine. This is what Argentine football fans say in the stands to this day. And since we also oppose all forms of colonialism and imperialism practiced by Western powers on the countries and peoples of the South to which we belong, we in turn say that Malvinas is Argentine.

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