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Welsh nationalism

In reply to ICB. In regard to his hypothetical Glaswegian-Pakistani person.

Just wondering why she would see herself as British outside of the UK (which she's perfectly welcome to if she pleases).

A former uni proffessor of mine done some studies in the area of ethnic and national identity and found that Scottish Pakistani identity generally didnt take Britishness on board too much.

Out of all the terms: Scottish, British, Pakistani and Asian (and in all possible combinations) Scottish-Pakistani was most popular followed by Scottish and Pakistani seperately.

Also, are you saying that terms like Scottish, Welsh or English are ethnically loaded?

I really dont understand why they would be any more so than British.
 
It depends. (cop out cop out)

AKAIK, most people in south Wales don't speak Welsh, so, to demand that all public jobs will only go to Welsh speakers seems to discriminate against English speakers (even though they are welsh).

But doing this adds an extra incentive to learn welsh.

I wonder why people, a lot of whom are only partially welsh, see this as a good thing. except that learning languages is a good thing. The reports in the mainstream press imply that there is a hardcore welsh speaking minority that see Wales as being defined by Welsh.

As I understand it, this is true of North Wales, but not of South Wales, and I can't see South Wales becoming welsh speaking.


Back to topic, Welsh nationalism is good when it concentrates on preserving welsh culture, and is bad when it starts ramming false identities down peoples throats. The people from Cardiff and Newport are english speaking, as far as I'm aware, so let them speak welsh if they want to, but don't demand it for their local coucils if they can't.

--------

I believe that most Irish people speak only english, and that the welsh are the only national grouping in the british isles that maintain a large proportion of mother-tongue linguists (sorry, can't think of the right way of putting this)
 
Joffy:
So what about the older generation (50+) who happen to live in and around those areas who are most comfortable speaking welsh? Oh yeah, that's right, make them speak english...

Leon: Wrth gwrs rydw i'n gallu siarad cymraeg. :)

-sub-
 
In the south, there is certainly some antagonism felt towards the 'Taffia': the Welsh speaking minority who are seen by some as elitist and self serving.

Being able to speak Welsh opens up all manner of doors - particularly in government institutions and the BBC - and those who don't want to learn the language rightly feel excluded.

But I personally wish that I'd been brought up in a true bilingual environment. Whilst it's true that Welsh is hardly the most useful of languages, it can serve as an excellent 'primer' for learning other languages - once you've learnt a second language it becomes easier to learn a third and a fourth.

Incidentally, there's a growing number of schools which are primarily taught through the medium of Welsh (including more than 25% of Welsh primary schools) and these have consistently produced above higher than average results - prompting many English-speaking families to send their kids there.
 
I consider myself as Welsh, my mum was born and bred there, I grew up there.
I went to a very 'Welsh' school, one of only a handful where learning Welsh was compulsery for 5 years.
The area where I grew up in was very nationalistic, they hated the English with a passion, we 'English' were segregated from their communities, were excuded from local activities and generally shunned, for fuck sake, we were children who ended growing up being hated just because we didn't speak their languge, they naturally ignored the fact that we were trying to!
When I was 16 I left Wales, I couldn't wait to get out, aways wondering why they accepted Welsh people from Cardiff who didn't speak Welsh yet never accepting me because I wasn't born there, yet I spoke the language!
Despite all this, I still classify myself as Welsh, it's an amazing country, steeped in history and a culture all of it's own, looking back at my childhood there I can understand slightly where the people were coming from, what with being walked over by the English for centuries, but two wrongs never made a right, my generation didn't do those things they hate the English for so why take it out on me, a child at the time?

There is nothing wrong with being proud of what you are, and where you are from but, nationalism is taking it to the extreem, it's a dangerious thing, it can turn into hate, which in turn can turn into war.
 
IJ: Interesting to hear something from an academic study, thanks, all my experience is anecdotal.

The hypothetical person was a thought-experiment reversal of a real person, the difference being that they are male and English when in Scotland or Wales (from Brum).

Perhaps it's a pecularity of English ethnic minorities that they feel more comfortable with 'British' outside the UK but are happy to join in, or can't avoid, the leg pulling and name calling within it.

To clarify ethnic loadedness: as I use them and as I would like them to be used they are not ethnically loaded, however, I believe the majority perception is that they are and since meaning is largely determined by use - they are.

It is very hard (impossible?) to come to agreement or conclusions about what is an acceptable or legitimate use of a particular descriptor, even with extensive academic research.

E.g. I'm a 'European' when talking to Americans since I feel I have more in common with other Europeans than I do with Americans, in spite of the 'common language', and since Americans have a better chance of knowing where Europe is.

What's much easier is to say when we don't like a certain usage or are offended by it - easier still to make a mistake about this. :)
 
I view myself as Welsh first, then British, then European (I know it would be hipper to say 'European' first, but that's how it is!).

And if I'm watching sport I cheer on Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland first and then England. And yes, I most certainly cheer on English teams against foreign opposition...
 
That's good to hear editor, and quite unusual, most non-English people I know always want England to lose against any opposition. A bit like wanting Man U to lose to anyone.

How I feel about identity with weightings out of 100 for importance (sorry to be so painfully hip) ;)

Human 100
European 10
British 10
English 7
West C*nry 4
Brissol 2

[ 21 November 2001: Message edited by: ICantBelieve ItsNotBetter ]
 
Leaving aside nationalism and just looking at the issue of the Welsh language I think it's a crying shame that something so beautiful and poetic causes so much division, resentment and fear in Wales.

I think most reasonable, concerned Welsh speakers like myself only want to see official recognition for the language to be used in all capacities (until very recently official documents, court proceedings etc. had very little hope of being bilingual and it is still a daily struggle to ensure that both languages are granted equal status) and for use of the language to be encouraged beyond the classroom and the corrupt Welsh media.

However these aims have been consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented by some powerful non-Welsh speakers who view the language as the tool of a narrow, middle-class elite.

Shamefully the most glaring example of this is a large section of the Labour Party in Wales which has traditionally been opposed to any form of self-representation or self-government in Wales.

The campaign against devolution in the seventies which was led by Neil Kinnock (something for which he was never forgiven by many in Wales) claimed that devolution would transfer power to a Welsh-speaking nationalist elite and that the plight of non-Welsh speakers would be ignored.

This tradition of vehement hatred of the Welsh language remains alive and well in the Labour party today.

Witness the regular attempts made by Assembly Members and Welsh M.Ps to undermine legistalation aimed at strengthening the language.

I'm not a nationalist myself and I have no real affinity with the Nationalist Party but it makes me very sad and frustrated that the right of Welsh people to speak their own language and use it freely is still viewed as an extreme demand by many.

I've lost count of the number of times I've encountered people in Wales who've been greiviously put out and offended to hear myself and friends speaking Welsh within their earshot.

Lots of people assume that we should automatically switch to English just because they can't understand our conversation. Being a passive sort of person invariably I will switch to English but there's no reason why I should other than politeness.

The onus should be on people to learn Welsh not on Welsh speakers to deny their identity.

This does not make me an extremist as I don't believe that there should be any compulsion or coercion for anyone to do anything let alone learn a language! However if more people don't learn Welsh then the language will die.

There's no question about this because the number of incomers to traditional Welsh speaking areas far outweighs the number of indigenous families.

More importantly the wealth and spending power of the average person or family who does move in is much greater than that of local people (areas like Ceredigion and rural North Wales are geniunely poor).

This prices local people out of the housing market, forces people to move elsewhere and gradually destroys the community.

Please don't think that this means that I'm opposed to immigration in any way because I'm not. My birthplace, Aberystwyth, would have been much the poorer without all the hippies and freaks who moved to the area in the 60s and 70s seeking an escape from the rat-race.

Many of them learnt Welsh and encouraged their children to do so as well. The experience that Spacegirl describes is awful and those who resent non-Welsh speakers indiscriminatley are indefensible.

However for each family which was alienated by such harsh treatment there's another which showed no regard whatsoever for the culture which it became a part of and refused even to recognize the existence of a separate cultural identity.

I know this because I've experienced arrogance and incrompehension from English people who moved into my area on innumerable occassions.

Many people are even opposed to there being signs for place names in Welsh!
If this seems irrelevant to the kind of politics and issues which are usually dicussed on this site then I apolgize but I think they are hugley relevant and important.

The right of local communities to preserve their identity, customs and language in the face of capitalist opposition is one of the fundamental ones which mainstream politics ignores, devaluse ans sometimes undermines.

Fighting to preserve and defend the language, for me, thus becomes part of a greater fight to defend the right of communities to have a real sense of self-determination and participation in their own future.

(Excellent post formatted by editor to make it more readable)

[ 21 November 2001: Message edited by: editor ]
 
I have a welsh auntie and i love her too bits, and although she lives in london at the mo, she is very nationalistic and suffers from hirath (have i spelt that right???).

I love anything that is Welsh and do think that anyone who is racist for any reason is a bit sad really! :)
 
I lived in the middle on nowhere about 6 miles inland from Cardigan, all the road signs were written both in Engish and in Welsh, all the English ones were scribbled out. The house down the lane from where I lived, which was owned by a Welsh man but who rented it out as a holiday home (umm, tourism, isn't that Wales' second largest income?) was burnt down during the time of 'burning the brits out' campaign.

I can't remeber for the life of me how to spell it, but we children, who were not in the Welsh streams at school were called 'sias' as slang name for English, and get this, in my primary school, when I had just moved to Wales, the head master put a sign around my neck because I spoke in English, he was at the time explaining that this was what happened in the olden days (a history lesson I believe), quite why I had to wear it all day I don't know, maybe something to do with an 8 year old girl who had just moved into the area, not being able to speak Welsh, oh, what a threat I must have been!
Bitter you may think I am, which I am not, like I said, I classify myself as being Welsh, the country and people have a lot more good to offer than what I experienced.
Shame really how few spoil it for the rest.
 
SG: "Saes" short for "Saesneg/Saeson" -meaning English -but you probably know that already (edit to add: sorry for the irrelevance there). Obviously your old headmaster had bad experiences of the "Welsh Not" if he saw fit to give you an "English Not". What a silly little man, pathetic really.... :(

-sub-

[ 21 November 2001: Message edited by: Sub_bass ]
 
I think that says a lot more about the headmaster of the school you had the bad luck to attend than it does about the attitude of most people in West Wales today.

Most people in my experience are very friendly and welcoming and only become hostile or angry, as I would, when people who don't speak Welsh complain about people using the language. I don't have a problem of any kind with non-Welsh speakers. I'd be a complete hypocrite if I did because over half my family can't speak Welsh.

I was just trying to point out that the language is still in decline depsite all the brave efforts and sacrifices made to save it for a variety of complex reasons. One of which is local people being forced to move because they can't afford to compete in the housing market.

Bilingual signs did not appear in Wales until the 1970s. Before this date anywhere with an Anglicized name such as Cardiff or Carmarthen had an official road sign in English only. Fact. This is one of the main issues over which Cymdeithas yr Iaith (Welsh Language Sociery) took direct action. Painting over signs in English was a part of this. It may be seen as extreme in retrospect but given the circumstances surely it was understanable?

I hope I'm not sounding hostile or extremist here because I'm not like that at all. I agree that tourism is an important part of the Welsh economy and I would feel very uncomfortable if any legal blocks or obstacles on non-Welsh speakers moving into predominantly Welsh speaking areas were imposed (as is proposed by many nationalists). But it is an issue which I worry about a lot as it is a major source of misunderstanding, discontent and division in Wales.

All too often anyone who raises concerns over the language is labelled an extremist and wilfully misunderstood by those who have historically felt alienated from Welsh language culture (justifiably given how snobby and elitist many leading figures in the Welsh language minority can be), whilst anyone who questions whether the language should be seen as such an important issue over which so much public money is spent is in turn labelled a 'bradwr' or 'taeog' (traitor).

The debate tends to be conducted in a very petty, immature way. There's a line in one of R.S. Thomas's poems about Welsh people 'squabbling over breadcrumbs under the table' which kind of sums it up. A potentially tragic situation because if the language were to diappear then one of the most distinctive and ancient featutes of everyday life in Britain would disappear forever.

[ 21 November 2001: Message edited by: calimero ]
 
There was an article I now remember reading in the paper (it could have been the Mail or the Evening Standard, can't remember!) that said that the only problem with Wales was all the other people in it who were not Welsh! Which i have to say is probably quite true! :)
 
"British has the usefulness that it's not ethnically loaded, its invention for political opression has been reversed."

You can only believe that if you're English! It certainly is ethnically loaded because it's an expression of Englishness and exclude the Celts. The SNP, for instance, has a section for Scottish Asians and there are a number of Scottish Englishmen people on the board of the SNP.

"sang 'Every Day I Thank The Lord I'm Welsh' etc"

I dunno about you but when I listened to that song, I understood it (references to Rhyl and all) as being deeply ironic (as did the couple of taffs I happened to be with at the time I heard it first).

"And yes, I most certainly cheer on English teams against foreign opposition..."

Interesting phrasing (from a certainly not being offensive, chin-stroking POV) that shows how successfully Britishness has become internalised (ie what's domestic/foreign).

Calimero – absolutely! It's crazy that people who paint over a few signs are regarded as "extremists" when in other parts of the world, these sorts of issues can be settled by a few pogroms and ethnic cleansing. Just last week the Georgian government endorsed the harassment and non-return of Meskhetians to their homelands in south, while local Armenians wanted to set up their own ethnically pure secessionist state on a tichy piece of land. The last president of Georgia was elected on a "Not a single Turk on Georgian soil" campaign - "Turk" meaning any of the Muslim minorities.

[ 21 November 2001: Message edited by: JohnWH ]
 
Editor - Diolch yn fawr! I always forget to paragraph so thanks for making my post a bit clearer. :)
 
SG: what a rotten man your old headmaster was!

I lived for about ten years in Scotland (seven in Glasgow, three in Edinburgh).
In Glasgow I encountered very little overt anti-English sentiment, being the target of such invective on only a very small number of occasions.

This was despite living in a fairly 'rough' area (Castlemilk) and spending a lot of time round the Barras Market and working in the Barrowland Ballroom. All those who had a go at me for being English were very drunk at the time anyway.

Most people there believed that I was a Cockney, and I would try to explain that I wasn't one, but this would just encourage them to start wheeling out Dick Van Dyke-style impersonations. I'd say: 'That's a good Paul Hogan you just did there.'

There was more cussing about the English in Edinburgh. But this seemed understandable, as a lot of English people I encountered there were wankers. They made very poor ambassadors for my country, and I was often angry at being lumped in the same category with them.

What was hard to understand was why Scottish nationalism wasn't a stronger force. Thatcher was in power, and the contrasts between the English and Scottish political cultures could not have been greater.

For a long time, the SNP had a crankish image. In Glasgow, they employed an old man who wandered round in a kilt, trying to sell their party newspaper. He would come into a pub, stand silently in front of the table where you and your pals were drinking, and slowly and dramatically hold up one of the newspapers, like Moses showing the stone tablets to the Israelites. This man was a universal object of ridicule.

The SNP also failed to shake off the 'Tartan Tory' label which the Scottish Labour Party had so effectively pinned on them. The SNP were able to take the Govan seat on three occasions (I think), but were helped by the poor calibre of the Labour candidates. The worst was Bob Gillespie (father of the Primal Scream singer), who was once completely demolished in a TV debate by the SNP candidate.

But the SNP were unable to repeat such successes in other working-class urban constituencies, partly due to the inertia and traditionalism of the electorates there, but also because many Catholic voters seemed suspicious of Scottish nationalism, perhaps assuming that they might become second-class citizens in an independent and predominantly Protestant Scotland.
 
JWH: "British" as an invented identity is no more certainly or necessarily ethnically loaded because you say it is than it isn't because I say it isn't. My point is that I know people (see earlier) who use it in an unloaded way and that seems fine to me (and other non-English people).

I'd rather consider myself British, as it's more inclusive (see my order of precedence). The fact that English people are getting defensive about their identity and throwing George Crosses up everywhere (there's a massive one in a student's window in my road) fucks me off royally, even more than twats with Andrew's Crosses or Welsh Dragons on their cars, etc. because it's more dangerous and less historically justified.

However, the whole "badge" thing is a pathetic affectation, whichever "camp" you belong to.

The fact that the "British Isles" geographically refers to the UK and all of Ireland is slightly unfortunate I suppose if one is prone to confusing geography with identity.

Do you have any proposals for an alternative set of (unloaded) descriptors for all these mashed-up identities? How would you go about getting them in common usage?

Perhaps we should try to make the words that we have do the job that we want them to instead of bitching about the job they were created to do and their inadequacy for the job at hand.
 
WofW

From my previous post:
The only mainstream(ish) band I can think of that doesn't go along with this nonsense are the Super Furry Animals. Guess what ? They also happen to be much more intelligent and miles ahead of all of 'em musically. I don't think this is a coincidence.
Click to expand...

i.e. - I totally agree. :)
 
'"British" as an invented identity is no more certainly or necessarily ethnically loaded because you say it is than it isn't because I say it isn't'

Well, there's a simple answer to this and that's to go back and look at what the original purpose of "British" was: to secure English hegemony over the Celtic fringe by depriving the power-minority groups of their cultural focus points of resistance.

Is the reason you feel "British" to be more inclusive because it wasn't designed to suppress English identity? You can be any British you want, so long as it's by our rules? In (the Republic of) Ireland there's a group of people that identify with Britain and England called the Anglo-Irish, so why not the Anglo-Scots or Anglo-Welsh? By comparison, how do you feel about the heavy pressure the Brazilian government puts on saying that indigenous tribes count as Brazilian?

Why is it that you sneer at people who have the St Andrew's Cross or Lion Rampant or Welsh Dragon (don't know if there's a proper name for that)? It's a legitimate expression of their cultural identity and a political statement too. Would you call the Jamaican/Pakistani flags that some Jamaican Englishmen or Pakistani Scots having in their car windows a "pathetic affectation"?

Personally, I'm not unhappy that many English people are re-examining what it means to be English - hopefully this will lead to a re-examination of their national identity and place in the world, and force them to include non-whites in their rubric (?) of Englishness. Lots of English people accept people called "British Asians" - but do they accept them as English?

(BTW, this last bit applies to Scotland as well but one rarely seems to hear of "British Asians" when Asian Scots are being discussed).
 
English seems increasingly to be thought of as the 'default nationality' as far as i can see, which is a shame. Basically, people only tend to call themselves English if they are devoid of any other nationality to cling to. I'm English, and have lived in Cardiff for a few years and i have a welsh-speaking Girlfriend. Its got to the point now when i pretty much avoid any sort of nationalist chit-chat becuase if invariably leads to a conclusion of being told 'You don't understand what its like to be Welsh' blah blah etc.....
I totaly respect the Welsh language and am learning it, i think it is historically and culturally important to *preserve* it, but i also belive that people who don't speak welsh should realise that their heritage and culture is important to, in most other countries it would be a point of interest that different lanquages have come to prevail in different cities of the same ancient country.
I find making a really big deal of the language undermines it as a modern european language in its own right (which of course it is and should be) and makes it look more like a relic that should be preserved for the sake of it, rather that the first language of many hundreds of thoudands of people. Whats the point in ramming it down peoles necks? When welsh is spoken all over wales should England recognise Middle english as a language and encourage the speaking of that - that too is of cultural and historical signifiacance . Also, welsh speakers might like to understand that they share with most other people in the world, the fact that their main language is only spoken in their own country and that other languages such as english and spainish are usefull for communicating with other natationalties. England is in a unique situation, with its traditional language being adopted as first language for a lot of the world, and second language for far more.

I have also experienced people who are so unbeliviably hung up on the idea of 'celticness' - to the point that Hitler was keen on ayrians.

in conclusion i think nationalisim is bred mainly from an ignorance and lack of respect of other cultures. I have never heard a welsh person comment on the rich heriatage and history of England. But then come to think of it, i've never heard an English person say that either.
 
Just a small point: although Super Furry Aninals are quite rightly congratulated for not 'going along with this nonsense', it should be pointed out that their album before last - Mwng - was sung entirely in Welsh.

Here's what Gruff said anbout it in an interview here - http://www.landofsong.net/super_furry_animals/interview.shtml :

So when's the album coming out?
May. It's all in Welsh.

What do you think the fans are going to think of it?
I dunno. I don't think language is the most important element of how it sounds. Otherwise you'd just write books

What's the attraction of singing in Welsh for you?
It's easier to ask the other question: why sing in English? We've always sung in Welsh. When we started out we'd sing in Welsh. We'd been in Welsh bands before this band

You used to do a lot of Welsh b-sides, particularly around the time of Fuzzy Logic. Was that the record company demoting them from the albums?
No. Between us we'd released about six or seven albums in various bands in the Welsh language. So we formed an English language band to make accessible music.

There aren't any ideological terms to decide why we sing in English or Welsh, but on the other hand there's fuzzier reasoning, which is: we don't know, you know. We just do it.

The real reason is that we speak two languages, and we end up writing in English and Welsh. So, in the past we've put out English language albums, because we've got ambition and we thought it was potentially easier for an international audience.

Also, I listen to a lot of music where I don't understand the lyrics. Even something like Nirvana. I listen to them but I don't understand the lyrics fully.

A song like Smells Like Teen Spirit, God knows what he's singing but it sounds great. I think that's very important for music. If you listen to bands like Kraftwerk, if you were singing 'Motorway' it would sound crap, but that Germanic pronunciation makes the sound. We have no commercial expectations for Mwng, but if people are open minded there's no reason why they shouldn't get into it.
 
JWH: Surely using the word "Celtic" to mean Welsh, Scots, and Irish is as bad as using the word "British" to mean English? "English" itself is widely misused - sometimes by Americans who think all natives of the British Isles are English, sometimes by people who don't know anything the cultural heritage of the Cornish or any other 'ethnic sub-grouping'. What about the fact that a lot of English probably have a lot of properly Celtic ancestry? Or the fact that most men in Ireland and Wales are (apparently) more closely related to the Basques than the Gauls?

<PONCEY KNOW-IT-ALL BIT>
"British Isles", by the way, is probably not so far off the mark, as Ptolemy referred to islands of Ierne (Ireland) and Albion (Britain) as the "Pretanic Isles".
</PONCEY KNOW-IT-ALL BIT>
 
Re MWNG,
I think the idea of Mwng is about as non-political as you can get. The whole point is Gruff, Bunf, Daf, Guto and Huw speak welsh, and they released an album in that language, the language they grew up speaking to almost everyone of importance around them (I would imagine). This is NOT a politcal statement surely, just a bit of artistic expression. Do you really ed, see a nationalistic message in such a beautiful collection of songs. We must also remember that we are spoilt as English speakers (welsh or otherwise) in that we can pretty much understand (at least on a basic level) the words to nearly all popular music released, and that people who don't understand english are far more used to judging a song on its merits, rather that being offended.
To add to your Kraftwerk point, are german kraftwerk songs in anyway at all connected to german nationalisim?
 
Good point, Mike.

I thought putting out an album in Welsh was a genuinely positive way of celebrating where you're from. It was a good album, too.

I think this differs (and is much more intelligent) than appealing to the lowest common denominator and singing an anti-English rugby song at one of your gigs.

Like I said before, I think there's a fine line between being proud of your roots and descending into nationalism. As the Super Furry Animals are clearly much more intelligent than the Stereophonics, they've found a good way of doing it.

This is a good thing and I have absolutely no problem with it.

JWH - that Catatonia song may well be ironic. I haven't listened to the lyrics in detail as I try to avoid them like the plague.
 
Sorry NVP, I was blatantly guilty of rushed skimming there! More on Welsh-related stuff later -- I may be a Landaner, but I spent many of my formative years in North Wales (see one of sub's earlier posts :eek:
Scenically beautiful in that part of the world, but socially .... hmmmmm ...
Always wanted to get back to my home city and escape the parochialism ... MORE LATER.

W of W

[ 22 November 2001: Message edited by: William of Walworth ]
 
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