‘Videocracy’ and ‘Videology’: Argentina’s latest Falkland Islands / Malvinas stunt

A video of an Argentine athlete training on the Malvinas / Falklands Islands has stirred up international sentiment. // Youtube

In a (now controversial) short ‘vid’ sponsored by the Argentine government, we see a young Argentine athlete – hockey player Fernando Zylberberg – training all over the Malvinas / Falkland Islands. He is ready for the Olympics to be celebrated in Great Britain in July 2012.

And at the end of the ad, a slogan runs.

“To compete on British soil, we train on Argentinian soil,” it says.

It is not the first time Argentina has mistaken a wish for a reality: there’s no doubt most Argentines want the Malvinas / Falklands to be Argentinian, although it’s been definitively proven otherwise. Still, the most terrifying aspect of the video is not the message it tries to convey (that the islands are Argentine) but rather the underlying meanings it passes on to viewers and the fact that it is supported by nothing more and nothing less than by a democratic ruling government.

In the scene, the athlete is on his own, running in a desolate place. We have the feeling that he is jumping and sweating in the middle of nowhere. Although we can see a few signs that there is a civilization out there (the classic British public telephone booth, a sign for The Penguin newspaper), there is actually nobody there. We end up with the feeling that he training in a ghost city.

The conditions of production might have something to do with this emptiness: the producers shot it early in the morning in order to avoid any suspicion. To prevent local authorities from finding out the real purpose of the shooting, the team from the Argentine department of the private multinational company Young & Rubicam asked for permission to make a documentary when they were actually crafting a very political and acid audiovisual piece

There’s a deliberate decision they took when choosing which places they included in the frame; apart from the typical spots that allow viewers to feel related to the Malvinas / Falklands (the trademark landscape, the characteristic A-frame houses), they picked parts of the islands that were likely to create tension.

Criticism was instant; The Sun’s headline “Argies dance on our graves” highlighted the offense of seeing an Argentine athlete jumping on the British war memorial. The US headquarters of Young & Rubicam were so ashamed of this that they issued a public statement decrying the advert and asked the Argentine government to “pull the spot”.

UK Defence Minister Philip Hammond also demanded Argentina withdraw the video. He said it was in “bad taste, provocative and insulting,” while UK Foreign Minister William Hague declared it a “sad stunt”.

A day after these requirements, Foreign Secretary Héctor Timerman replied on behalf of the Argentine government, making it clear that there were no regrets and no intentions of taking a single step back when it comes to the vid.

Timerman said he was proud of the allegedly ‘Argentine’ form of expression.

“The world would be better off if we resorted to creativity instead of bombings,” he mused.

Once more, the style of the current Argentine administration led by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner does its best to prove its determination. For his part, the protagonist of the story, Zylberberg, the captain of the Argentine male hockey team, says he was cheated and that he wasn’t aware of the political use of the spot. To make matters worse, his coach confirmed last week that he will not be competing in the Olympics due to sport reasons.

The use of propaganda elements by governments is not new, but the way the Kirchner administration is resorting to images exhibits a slight change in the way they deal with mass media. Ever since the Kirchners took office in 2003 (before Cristina, her husband Néstor was in power), they have chosen printed forms of communication to persuade their voters they were doing the right thing; the current vid shows that they are, perhaps, evolving.

Unlike Venezuela’s leader Hugo Chávez or former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, their Argentine counterparts haven’t been au fait with video politics, that is, until now.

At present, after years of doing their best to seduce citizens through newspapers (a battle they find hard to win due to the presence of independent, private-run press companies), they are resorting to videos — and the logic of their ‘videocracy’ is communicating their ideological meanings.

In the vid, the Argentine government’s set of assumptions and viewpoints on reality are revealed to be at the core of their videopolitics; the piece says that the Malvinas / Falkland Islands belong to Argentina, that the islands are unpopulated, and that we should not give up on our claim. This way, when we cannot longer tell the difference communicating audiovisual elements and conveying hidden meanings (what’s the use of political videos if not suggesting dogmas and beliefs?), videocracy becomes videology.

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• http://pulse.yahoo.com/_7A2EJ45KVKLGGQR4AVDF2JODLU Andy Mills

  A sordid, childish, little video, from a sordid, bankrupt, tinpot democracy, using threats of violence against a sovereign people, in a desperate attempt to divert attention from its failed economy.

  Your imperialism did not work last time and it will not work this time, The Falkland Islands, always have been, are now and will always be proudly British.

  By the way, i don’t think you ever did thank us for gifting you a democracy, (something you were too spineless to do yourselves), perhaps a little gratitude rather than these pathetic publicity stunts would be in order?

• awooble

  They also sent a nuclear submarine to a nuclear free zone. Hardly routine…

• deebles

  You mean “Timerman alleged that we’re sending a submarine there”.  Since the British gvt doesn’t comment on the location of our submarines, his guesswork as to where they might be going is nothing more than propaganda and hot air.

• deebles

  If the Argentine gvt serious thought they’d have a case to make for this being illegal possession, they’d be very welcome to take it to the international criminal court.  That’s what it’s there for.

  The fact is, though, that since Argentina really doesn’t have a legal claim to the islands, they know they’d be shooting themselves in the foot if they took that particular step.

• Paul Midsussex

  Argentina does not have the technology to detect a submarines presence.
  If it did have the technology to detect a submarines presence it would not be able to tell its nationality.
  If it did have technology to detect its presence and nationality it would not be able to detect what weaponry it was carrying.

  The British govt has already confirmed that it has complied at all times with the treaty that precludes the deployment of nuclear weapons to the South Atlantic.

  There is no sense in deploying these weapons there anyway, you station a strategic missile sub away from you enemies so you can attack from a distance without fear of loosing your asset in your enemies territory.

  The only people who think that there is a nuclear armed sub in the South Atlantic is Argentines.

  The British nuclear armed submarine in the South Atlantic is a fantasy invented by the morons in charge of Argentina.