Argentina's position towards the Malvinas Islands is an example of irredentism.
Irredentism is a political current that promotes the incorporation of an unredeemed area into a country to which it is considered to belong. The notion of unredeemed, meanwhile, is used to describe the territory that, whether for cultural, ethnic, historical or other reasons, a nation seeks to annex.
Pursue an annexation
Irredentism can be said to hold that a certain region (the unredeemed territory ) should be part of its nation . That is why it acts in different ways to achieve this annexation, which would imply that said space stops being foreign and becomes part of its entity.
An example of irredentism is the Argentine position regarding the Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands . These are British overseas territories administered by the United Kingdom , but which Argentina claims as its own citing historical and geographical reasons.
Spanish irredentism
Spanish irredentism , meanwhile, considers that Gibraltar should be part of Spain . As with the islands mentioned in the case of Argentina , Gibraltar is currently a British overseas territory .
In the history of Spain we can find other examples of irredentism, such as the cases in which it pursued the annexation of Portugal, Roussillon, Andorra, the island of Sardinia and Lower Navarra, among other regions. After the Civil War , this movement reached its climax. Various intellectuals of the time affirmed that all the territories of the peninsula belonged to Spain.
Relationship with nationalism
It is possible to associate irredentism with nationalism . Nationalists emphasize the sense of belonging to their nation and seek to establish themselves as a State. If the State already exists, they try to strengthen or enlarge it. Many times nationalism ensures that a region “belongs” to its nation, thus turning to irredentism.
Italian irredentism
It is interesting to note that the notion of irredentism was initially linked to Italian irredentism , which emerged with the unification of Italy in the 19th century by stating that the new State should also incorporate other nearby territories. One can also talk about the movement known as Unrescued Italy , which is synonymous with the irredentism experienced at that time.
Its objective was to annex some nearby or bordering territories to the newly emerged State, and it supported this need with the traits they shared from various points of view, such as linguistic, historical or cultural. If they achieved such an annexation, the supporters of irredentism pointed out, the country would recover its natural borders.
Italian irredentism pursued the recovery of the country's natural borders.
With respect to the aforementioned unification, it was the historical process that resulted in several States of the Italian peninsula uniting, including several that were associated with dynasties outside Italian culture. Other names that this nationalist process usually receives are Resurgence and Reunification ; Note that the latter refers to the fact that Rome had already unified Italy in the 3rd century BC. c.
The organization of Italian irredentism took place in 1877. By 1882 and through the alliance with Austria, it became an opposition movement. Already at the beginning of 1900, with the support of socialists and right-wing patriots, among whom were Battisti, Corradini and D'Annunzio, he made himself noticed in Trieste. Through Italian irredentism we can understand that Italy participated in the First World War to oppose the Central Empires with the desire to take over Trentino, Dalmatia and Istria.