Saturday, February 25, 2012

More Dreadful Stereotyping

It's not just Andrew Gilligan - here's the Telegraph's Jeremy Warner on yet another looming Argentinian financial crisis (turns out that, like the Greeks, they've been fiddling the figures) :

Argentina's problem is that it remains mired in a politically and economically corrupt past. Until these things change, it will continue to stagger from one crisis to the next, regardless of the exchange rate regime it adopts. Devaluation is no substitute for structural reform. Given the origins of its immigrant population, it is perhaps no surprise that the Argentine economy actually has quite a lot in common with the troublesome periphery of the eurozone. In terms of its problems, it's Italy, or even Greece, magnified several times over.
I see. One set of wops and dagoes is very much like another, eh ? ... Laban takes him to task as I did Mr Gilligan.

Isn't all this stuff just the worst sort of racist stereotyping? The idea that Latins in Argentina are fiscally irresponsible because Latins in Europe are fiscally irresponsible is ridiculous.

Next thing he'll be saying that Swedes in Minnesota are thrifty and hard-working.

Mr Warner, you're an intelligent man. Surely you must have been taught that we are all exactly the same, and that's why we should celebrate our differences?

7 comments:

Carlos Fandango said...

Haha

Thats like a blast from the past. I vaguely remember a British Army officer prior to the recapture of the Falklands publicly pondering the fight they would get out of the Argies.

He said something along the lines of "if they're mainly descended from Italians, it'll be a walk over. But if they are mainly descended from Spaniards we may have a fight on our hands".

He'd would probably be arrested for saying that nowadays.

And also in fairness, from what I read of the campaign in North Africa, the poor reputation of the fighting ability of the Italians had a lot to do with their complete lack of anti-tank weapons with which to fight off the formidable Matilda tanks.

But I digress...

Laban said...

IIRC the Italians had some terrific airmen, despite often flying antiquated planes. They also had some extremely brave and skilled frogmen.

JuliaM said...

I can't accept the sobriquet 'formidable' when applied to a tank named Matilda. I just can't...

Anonymous said...

Julia - the Matilda II was quite heavily armoured for its time but had a hopless gun. Against Italian tanks it had a chance, less so against German ones.

Basically we spent almost the whole WW2 coming up with new tanks which consistently failed to match the Germans.

Foxy Brown said...

It comes as no surprise that the most enterprising and entrepreneurial group in the Argentine - and in South America as a whole - are the Germans, masters of the economic powerhouse of Europe. I can't remember my exact source for that, but would hazard a guess at it being Thomas Sowell's Migrations and Cultures.

'Eddie Willers' said...

Welcome back Laban! You were sorely missed - along with your puncturing of 'smelly little orthodoxies'.

vimothy said...

I loled.