User talk:Pablo Zampini

Welcome, Pablo!

White Argentine's credits
As far as I understand, your "White Argentine" is copied from the Metapedia. Are you its main author there? If you are not then probably a credit to Metapedia should be acknowledged. --Boris Tsirelson 11:56, 2 June 2011 (EDT)


 * I understand your concerns on authorship. The article was originally in Wikipedia, but an edit war began and I copied it in Wikinfo, Metapedia and Wikia. The version in WP was first deleted, and later restored with different name and wording, aside from not including Arab-Argentines; now it is named Argentines of European descent. In Metapedia my user's name is Parmeggiani, and I am the author of the Metapedia, Wikinfo and Wikia versions, so I think there is no problem with the authorship issue. Actually, this is a copy of the Wikinfo article, Metapedia's version is a little different. I don't know if this article fits the idiosincracy of the site; if it doesn't, please let me know. I intend not to offend any one with its content, but racial/ehtnic topics are sometimes inflammatory, and they cause reactions that I don't expect them to provoke. --Pablo Zampini 14:47, 2 June 2011 (EDT)

I see. Nice. The idiosincracy of our site? I hope it is (almost) void. My idea is as follows: we approve good articles, rather than delete bad articles. But maybe others think differently. Anyway, for now probably we have no expert (reviewer) in this field; hopefully one will come in the future. (Or are you an expert?) --Boris Tsirelson 14:58, 2 June 2011 (EDT)


 * No, I am not an expert, at least not one with a certified degree. All I know is just by amateur research and being self-taught. I hope the reviewer to come finds this article interesting; in Metapedia it was the featured article for several weeks.--Pablo Zampini 20:13, 2 June 2011 (EDT)

Pablo, welcome to Knowino. I've moved White Argentine to User:Pablo Zampini/White Argentine for the time being—here's why. I'm concerned that the article describes an artificial, synthesised group rather than a natural ethnic group. For example, the article notes, "Some definitions of this term include Jewish (both Ashkenazi and Sephardic) and Arab people, coming from Europe and the Middle East. Although these groups are sometimes considered non-White, in Argentina they are frequently classified as 'whites' for their resemblance of other European Mediterranean peoples, and in opposition to all the Amerindian, Mestizo, Black/Mulatto and East Asian ethnic groups;" but Jewish and Arab people clearly have very different cultures. Moreover, I took a look at Metapedia's Recent Changes list, and some stuff there is pretty chilling; Metapedia's article on the Holocaust, for example, is flat-out wrong. I'd prefer not to have articles like White Argentine in mainspace at the moment, at least not until we have a big enough community to iron out potential biases. Cheers,—Tom Larsen (talk) 00:25, 3 June 2011 (EDT)


 * As I wrote above, "But maybe others think differently"... :-) --Boris Tsirelson 04:22, 3 June 2011 (EDT)

I think you are mistaken about White Argentine
Greetings, Thomas Larsen. I think you are mistaken about this article. I'll give you some reasons.

1) First of all, I never stated it was an ethnic group; it is the cluster of all the Argentinians of European/Middle Eastern descent. Maybe you will understand me better because you are from a country which was made up by European immigration, just like mine. European immigrants who settled in Argentina intermarried within their own ethnicities (colectividades in Spanish) in the first and second generations of settlement, but they have intermingled extensively afterwards. See this article to get some idea of the process: Poverty has Criollo (Mestizo) features. (It is in Spanish, so you'll need a translating program). When I discuss this topic, I always put myself as an example of this intermingling of European ethnicities: I have four different ancestries, Italian (from Piedmont), Spanish, Basque and French. What am I, an Italo-Argentinian, a Spanish-Argentinian, a Basque-Argentinian? I am all of them, I am a White Argentinian, and my culture is the result of the mixing of my four ancestral origins.

2) Argentinians of European descent are considered by other people than me as an ethnic group. See Argentina's page in here. The Joshua Project: Ethnic people groups of Argentina. They list "Argentinians White" as a separate ethnic group which numbers 29,031,000 people, about a 72% of Argentina's population.

3) This article is an equivalent to White American, White Brazilian, or even European Australian. Those groups/categories collect together people from different European origins. In the case of Australia, although peopleof English/Irish/Scottish origin predominate, there are other ethnicities included. Eric Bana, for example, is of Croatian descent.

4) Concerning cultural matters, I must tell that all White Argentines share more or less the same culture, regardless of their ethnicity. Although those Argentines of Spanish, Italian or German descent retain certain aspects of their respective original cultures, all those cultural elements have melted into the mainstream Argentine culture. Today any Italo-Argentine may cook a paella (typical Spanish dish), any German-Argentine may enjoy a pizza, or dance a tarantella, or any Spanish Argentine may participate in the Oktoberfest that is celebrated yearly in Villa General Belgrano (a German colony).

5) Arabs and Jews have also integrated into that mainstream Argentine culture almost perfectly, and they may pass unnoticed as "strangers". Syrian/Lebanese Arabs, since they were mostly Christians -not Muslims- were assimilated pretty well; only in Buenos Aires City the Muslim Arabs have built several mosques, and they are only noticeable as different during the Ramadan because of their typical clothing. I watched a report on them on TV, and they dress like any Argentine even inside the buildings of their collectivity's schools and institutes. Jews in Argentina are mostly Askhenazi, so their culture was partly European on their arrival here. They retain some aspects of their culture, but they know Argentine culture pretty well; I supposed that inside their houses they may speak Yiddish (a German-based dialect, by the way) but outside they speak Rioplatense Spanish like any other Argentinian, and they share mate (a tea-like beverage typical here in Argentina) without any problem. I know this from my own experience. Also read this book, page 203. Some Jews have also married outside the community, so they are merging even more in mainstream Argentine society; some examples are TV news host Jorge Jacobson, and actor producer Adrián Suar.

6) Concerning Metapedia's version of the article, I must first tell you that I'm neither NS nor racist in any way. I agree with you that Metapedia's articles about Hitler and the Holocaust are completely biased, and I repeat that they were not my first choice to publish the article on. It was first written in June 2007 by other users, and I discovered it in April 2010, and began a major expansion of it, modifying almost all its inicial text. When an edit warring began in October 2010, and I was unsure of its outcome, I copied the article in Wikinfo:White Argentine, and Wikia:Argentinos Blancos. Almost in the same days, a friend adviced me to publish it in Metapedia:White Argentine, and so I did. I must admit that I was very naive, for when I began exploring Metapedia, I realized that it was a Nazi-biased wikisite, but it was too late to "unpublish" it. Any way, if you read any version of the article, you'll see that its wording is careful not to offend any other race, and in Wikinfo's version both Jews and Arabs are included. Wikipedia's version of this article is now named Argentines of European descent

After all these reasons, I would ask you to reconsider the relocation of the article into normal article space, for it is not a stub now. I plan to add some sections about literature, architecture and other cultural topics, but not modify what is already done in it. For you to know the immense direct and indirect influence of European culture on Argentina's culture, please read the book I cited above, pages 192 onwards. Thanks for your attention. --Pablo Zampini 11:53, 3 June 2011 (EDT)