Welsh War of Independence

[neprimerimye]

Castro's grandmother was from Co. Clare, Ireland, btw.

Wrt to Glyndwr; how much of his struggle was driven by the needs of the Welsh aristocracy, and how much by the needs of the masses?

ADDS:

And the obvious precedent for guerilla war in Latin America would be the Peninsular war, Napoleon's Spanish Ulcer (and possibly the revolt of Tupac Amaru in the 18th century)

Quite so.

I very much doubt that the revolts of Tupac and Kataj Amaru would have been an influence on Mr Castro. In any case they did not use any form of geurilla tactic.

I agree totally that the Spainish experience would have been a great influence. Filtered through the experiences of San Martin and Bolivar.

However Mr Castros development of what became known as focoismo was largely as a result of experience following the intial defeat following his landing.

PS Lewislewis you like the Manics? Dearie me.

 

[editor]

PS Lewislewis you like the Manics? Dearie me.

Their early stuff was great.

 

[lewislewis]

Agreed, lost track of them eventually. Seems they never had much of a problem reconciling class with nation *waits for Neprimerimye's scientific argument against this*

 

[neprimerimye]

Agreed, lost track of them eventually. Seems they never had much of a problem reconciling class with nation *waits for Neprimerimye's scientific argument against this*

Err, I can't be bothered like. Y'know for all they cracked on about class they never actually got involved politically even when at Uni. More to the point I just think they're not very good.

 

[editor]

More to the point I just think they're not very good.

I'd wager they make a more interesting racket than you.

 

[lewislewis]

Err, I can't be bothered like. Y'know for all they cracked on about class they never actually got involved politically even when at Uni. More to the point I just think they're not very good.

Some of the songs they wrote reached more people than a socialist newspaper would. Think on that.

 

[Idris2002]

[off topic](apols in advance to the Editor)

Castro? You sure? Cos Che's granny was Irish, but I've never heard of Castro being one of ours as well...

[/off topic]

I know Che had an Irish connection (there's going on 30000 Irish in Argentina) but I think it's Fidel who had the Irish granny.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

Nothing 'went wrong' with Gwyn Alf his politics were from the first formed by his Welsh identity and his early training in the Popular Frontist politics opf the CPGB. In other words his politics were reformist right from the beginning but he was trained to express them using Marxist verbiage. His excellent book on Gramsci transcends his own role as an activist and is tribute to his considerable skills as an academic. You should note that his view of the later Gramsci is fully in hermony with the views of the PCI Eurorevisionists.

Your cmment regarding herewake the Wake is crassly ignorant given that he had only regional importance whilest Glwy Dwr is of national import. Therefore Glwy Dwr is politically significant in terms of what might have been and what might still be. And I oppose Welsh nationalism you will note but contrary to you disdain both your tailism of Cymdeithas and this national chauvinism regarding Glyn Dwr

Finally many thanks for your list of the members of the SWP's Central Committee.

It's a serious point - Luke Skywalker may have more importance to young Welsh workers than Glyn Dwr . . .true, he does represent an obscurantist elitist ideology based on jedi religion and relies on the power of the force rather than the force of the power of the organised working class, but I would argue that we might be a better role model than Glyn Dwr. Maybe we could compromise and get George Lucas to make a film about Glyn Dwr.

You misunderstand the point about Hereward the Wake. He is a very similar figure to Glyn Dwr, he was part of the Anglo-Saxon guerilla resistance to the Norman Conquest, known locally as Harry of the Fens, his exploits in hiding in the marshes and holding out against the Normans for 10 years are impressive.

My point is that Hereward the Wake would hardly be considered relevant to today's struggles, yet Glyn Dwr, a figure from another age is held up as some sort of national hero. Personally, I think the militant marxism of the South Wales coalfield in the early twentieth century is far more inspirational than the exploits of a long dead aristocrat.

Can't recall tailing Cymdeithas - they probably wouldn't talk to me, at least, not in a language I could understand.

You're probably right about Gwyn Williams. Have you read Paulo Spriano's book? Gwyn Williams' "Proletarian Order" was originally the preface for this work, but it became longer than the book it was supposed to preface.

On the subject of Gramsci, I read an appalling article by Adam Price MP in Triban Coch in which he invokes the spirit of this revolutionary marxist to sanctify a coalition of Plaid with the Lib. Dems!!! The article contains the most outrageous abuse of Gramsci's philosophical concepts to support conclusions that would have Antonio spinning in his grave! I should note that Adam Price is quite impressively adept at using marxist terminology to dress up and romanticise the most reformist ideas

 

[Brockway]

I've never seen Star Wars (any of the franchise) so that's how relevant Luke Skywalker is to this particular Welsh person.

Surely you can see the symbolic value of OG to a colonized people. And we're as colonized today (we're speaking in Engleesh ain't we) as we've ever been.

Oh, and most representations I've seen of Robin Hood he is the Earl of Huntingdon - so he's a toff.

I quite like Ned Ludd mind - "Ooooooh smash it up, smash it up!" as someone once said.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

I've never seen Star Wars (any of the franchise) so that's how relevant Luke Skywalker is to this particular Welsh person.

Surely you can see the symbolic value of OG to a colonized people. And we're as colonized today (we're speaking in Engleesh ain't we) as we've ever been.

Oh, and most representations I've seen of Robin Hood he is the Earl of Huntingdon - so he's a toff.

I quite like Ned Ludd mind - "Ooooooh smash it up, smash it up!" as someone once said.

Hate to disagree with you Brockway, but I don't think that the relationship between Wales and England today can be characterised as colonial.

Out of interest, last time I heard Adam Price MP speak, he spoke about "The National Liberation struggle of the Welsh People" - this is ironic, because when it comes to a genuine national liberation struggle such as that of the Iraqi people to free themselves from British and American imperialism and wish not to be a colony of the West - Plaid Cymru (despite their principled opposition to the war, from a liberal perspective) seriously fudge the question of ending the occupation and pulling out the troops.

What exactly is the symbolic value of OG to Welsh people today - that we should go into the hills and wage guerilla warfare? I don't see that he in anyway illuminates any current anti-capitalist struggles. He might well inspire nationalists as a figure in the struggle against the English - but I think the main and most worthwhile struggle today is of Welsh people against the system of neo-liberalism not against the English.

On Robin Hood, I had a similar argument with a member of the SWP. He argued that these popular heroes were always aristocrats who didn't overthrow the system but represented a rebellion of one section of the establishment against another.

For example, at the end of the Robin Hood stories, the rightful King - Richard the Lionheart returns and sets everything right, rather than the poor emancipating themselves.

However, I think Hobsbawm argues that the turning of Robin Hood into a rebel aristocrat and the emphasis on Richard the Lionheart were themes added to the original popular ballads - but I could be wrong about that.

Nevertheless, like Grimm's folk tales, the Robin Hood myth represents in symbolic form the demand of the poor for social justice and a different order - so it has some emancipatory potential, even if it offers a false solution.

By the way, ever read any of Ernst Bloch? He's my favourite marxist.

PS. You may well be right about Luke Skywalker. Maybe Harry Potter is the true saviour of the Welsh people?

 

[nwnm]

' "Ooooooh smash it up, smash it up!" as someone once said.' Well I'll be Damned

 

[neprimerimye]

Maybe we could compromise and get George Lucas to make a film about Glyn Dwr.

You misunderstand the point about Hereward the Wake. He is a very similar figure to Glyn Dwr, he was part of the Anglo-Saxon guerilla resistance to the Norman Conquest, known locally as Harry of the Fens, his exploits in hiding in the marshes and holding out against the Normans for 10 years are impressive.

My point is that Hereward the Wake would hardly be considered relevant to today's struggles, yet Glyn Dwr, a figure from another age is held up as some sort of national hero. Personally, I think the militant marxism of the South Wales coalfield in the early twentieth century is far more inspirational than the exploits of a long dead aristocrat.

You're probably right about Gwyn Williams. Have you read Paulo Spriano's book? Gwyn Williams' "Proletarian Order" was originally the preface for this work, but it became longer than the book it was supposed to preface.

On the subject of Gramsci, I read an appalling article by Adam Price MP in Triban Coch in which he invokes the spirit of this revolutionary marxist to sanctify a coalition of Plaid with the Lib. Dems!!! The article contains the most outrageous abuse of Gramsci's philosophical concepts to support conclusions that would have Antonio spinning in his grave! I should note that Adam Price is quite impressively adept at using marxist terminology to dress up and romanticise the most reformist ideas

If a film were ever made about Glyn Dwr i sincerely hope it is made by someone better than George Lucas!

No I don't think I mmissed your point regarding Glywn Dwr and Hereward. Perhaps you missed mine however? First off Hereward is a figure of local significance and Glyn Dwr is of national Welsh import. Now I suspect it would be difficult to take me for a Welsh nationalist but that does hold significance in terms of the development of the Welsh nation in later years. if for no other reason that it supplies a myth figure around which a purely national history can be cohered.

As a Marxist i find Glyn Dwr interesting because his short lived state illustrates one of the what might have beens of history. What if the English feudal state had been split by the Percys and a Welsh state had cohered? Of course speculation about such what if's is little more than fun and not to be taken too seriously. But what if....

Yes I have Spriano's work and very decent it is too. Its actually part of a very long series in italian of which we only have the single volume. His book on Gramsci is also worthy of a read and easily found btw.

Well I once had a chat with Gwyn Alf and his Marxism was very much of the old new left style influenced by the EuroStalinist reading of Gramsci. Rather oddly hw went through a short 'Maoist' stage but like many of his generation in and around the CPGB he was enamoured of Tito's Yugoslavia which led him to the Italian CP. Bit of a mess politically but a very creative mess! His Goya is good.

Is the Adam Price thing on line? No doubt his abuse of Gramsci comes via the CP/academic marxist fashion for the poor chap of a couple of decades back. I find it hard to imagine that he is adept in the field however.

 

[Pickman's model]

so, not influenced by hoxha?

 

[Brockway]

"Hate to disagree with you Brockway, but I don't think that the relationship between Wales and England today can be characterised as colonial."

Oh really? Thanks for putting me straight on that one East Anglian person. Note to self: learn Welsh; and Welsh history; and find out more about Welsh culture.

"What exactly is the symbolic value of OG to Welsh people today - that we should go into the hills and wage guerilla warfare?"

Well he stood up to the bully and that's a fine example to anyone.

"but I think the main and most worthwhile struggle today is of Welsh people against the system of neo-liberalism not against the English."

Thanks for the advice East Anglian person I'll pass it on to my fellow Welsh people. Just been down to the local Spar here on my council estate and everyone was saying pretty much the same thing anyway.

"By the way, ever read any of Ernst Bloch? He's my favourite marxist."

No. Is there any humour in his work? I'm a big fan of Wilhelm Reich myself.

"Maybe Harry Potter is the true saviour of the Welsh people?"

I hope you're wrong Udo - he's basically a middle-class anglicized version of young Merlin. If the English aren't imposing their culture on us, then they're nicking ours. Imperialist bar stewards - East Anglia excepted of course.

 

[neprimerimye]

so, not influenced by hoxha?

Adam Price?

 

[neprimerimye]

I'm a big fan of Wilhelm Reich myself.

But do you have an orgone accumulator? (Cue Hawkwind...)

 

[Brockway]

I knocked one up in my back garden - cue Cloudbusting by Kate Bush.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

"Hate to disagree with you Brockway, but I don't think that the relationship between Wales and England today can be characterised as colonial."

Oh really? Thanks for putting me straight on that one East Anglian person. Note to self: learn Welsh; and Welsh history; and find out more about Welsh culture.

"What exactly is the symbolic value of OG to Welsh people today - that we should go into the hills and wage guerilla warfare?"

Well he stood up to the bully and that's a fine example to anyone.

"but I think the main and most worthwhile struggle today is of Welsh people against the system of neo-liberalism not against the English."

Thanks for the advice East Anglian person I'll pass it on to my fellow Welsh people. Just been down to the local Spar here on my council estate and everyone was saying pretty much the same thing anyway.

"By the way, ever read any of Ernst Bloch? He's my favourite marxist."

No. Is there any humour in his work? I'm a big fan of Wilhelm Reich myself.

You seem to think that because I come from East Anglia, I couldn't possibly know anything about Wales.

Yet, precisely because I have lived in another country, I can tell you I just haven't noticed that people seem more oppressed here than in England.

Indeed, the overwhelming amount of people I have met here who lecture me on how oppressed Wales is, are not particularly poor but happen to live in big houses and be quite comfortably well off - yet they say, "Yes, I'm so oppressed, I may earn alot more than you, Udo, and own a big house, but I'm Welsh and I'm soooooo oppressed and my culture is surpressed!"

Of course, not being Welsh and not owning a big house, what could I know about being opppressed? From what I've seen it sure sounds tough!

I like Willhelm Reich's early work where he tried quite a creative synthesis of marxism and freudianism - though for my money the best attempt (that actually works) at marrying marxism and psychoanalysis is the work of a guy called Eugene Wolfenstein, who deserves to be much more widely known. Two excellent works - "The Victims of Democracy" and "Psychoanalytic Marxism: A Groundwork".

All this however has nothing to do with Glyn Dwr!

 

[Udo Erasmus]

But do you have an orgone accumulator? (Cue Hawkwind...)

Probably Reich's worst idea - and they only seem to work in 1950s America.

I think Reich's later insanity shouldn't distract from the fact that he wrote some quite significant stuff earlier on, and as an activist his attempt to get the socialist movement to take up sexual politics was quite ahead of its time

 

[Udo Erasmus]

Is the Adam Price thing on line? No doubt his abuse of Gramsci comes via the CP/academic marxist fashion for the poor chap of a couple of decades back. I find it hard to imagine that he is adept in the field however.

Adam Price article here: http://www.tribancoch.com/article1.html

He does a quite standard use (or abuse) of Gramsci's concept of the historic bloc and creating hegemony without realising that Gramci was a revolutionary marxist and while he might talk about forming a coalition of the working class with other forces - this coalition had to be on the terms of the interest of workers

I was doing an Anti-Nazi League stall at Plaid Cymru's National Conference, a couple of years ago, and attended a couple of fringe meetings including one with him speaking alongside Rosie Kane (SSP) and Jill Evans MEP and was quite surprised at how good he was at employing marxist rhetoric and adopting socialist language (while in practice being a soft-left social democrat) - he's actually quite a good speaker and managed to sound quite radical and anti-capitalist.

In his speech, he talked about "Socialism from Below", experiments in participatory grassroots democracy in Kerala and Porto Alegre (I was going to point out the limits of these experiments, but as a non-Plaid member decided not to speak), quoted Lenin and Gramsci, alluded to Marx's phrase that "the emancipation of the working class was the act of the working class itself". Unfortunately, he didn't actually practically explain how Plaid would implement socialism from below. He made the traditional talk of Plaid being "de-centralist socialists" which seems to mean little except that they want government from Cardiff Bay rather than Westminster. I recall once a member of the SWP asking if decentralism would mean that Plaid would support workers occupuying their workplaces only to be rebuked that Plaid was a "law abiding constitutional party" supporting bourgeois democracy.

The thrust of my criticism is that Adam Price uses phrases from the socialist lexicon with out explaining how they will be implemented or really seriously supporting a real workers democracy.

It was when he started talking about being a "Liberation Nationalist", the "Welsh national liberation movement" and quoting James Connolly as if Dublin, Easter 1916 was a similar game to Wales in 2005 that I raised an eyebrow

 

[Brockway]

You seem to think that because I come from East Anglia, I couldn't possibly know anything about Wales.

Yet, precisely because I have lived in another country, I can tell you I just haven't noticed that people seem more oppressed here than in England. QUOTE]

Well the country you come from happens to be England, the colonizer, so you're socialised into having an anglo-centric perspective - you're hardly neutral. It's like a Russian telling a Chechen - "honestly you're not colonized".

The size of your house is irrelevant as we're talking about cultural rather than economic oppression (although, as it happens, South Wales is consistently one of the poorest parts of the UK). You mustn't confuse Pontcanna with Wales either - those twerps are more than happy with the status quo as they do very well out of it thank you very much. There are actually Welsh-speaking working-class people in Wales... just not in Cardiff.

Funnily enough William Burroughs had an authentic orgone accumulator in his back garden. I know someone who saw it.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

You seem to think that because I come from East Anglia, I couldn't possibly know anything about Wales.

Yet, precisely because I have lived in another country, I can tell you I just haven't noticed that people seem more oppressed here than in England. QUOTE]

Well the country you come from happens to be England, the colonizer, so you're socialised into having an anglo-centric perspective - you're hardly neutral. It's like a Russian telling a Chechen - "honestly you're not colonized".

The size of your house is irrelevant as we're talking about cultural rather than economic oppression (although, as it happens, South Wales is consistently one of the poorest parts of the UK). You mustn't confuse Pontcanna with Wales either - those twerps are more than happy with the status quo as they do very well out of it thank you very much.

Funnily enough William Burroughs had an authentic orgone accumulator in his back garden. I know someone who saw it.

it must be quite hard being culturally oppressed with a nice big house, a well paid job and a middle class background - give me a break, Brockway! I would argue that I experience more cultural oppression from this middle class set than vice versa

Odd, last time I looked I can't say that Cardiff and flattened Grozny looked very similar to me. The only place in the British Isles which can truly talk of a colonial relationship to Britain today is the North of Ireland - I can't say that I see the British army patrolling the streets of Cardiff to enforce the English occupation. Also, many people born and bred in Wales take quite a similar line - indeed the majority of Welsh people actually reject nationalism.

John Lennon also had an orgone box

PS. Are you named after Fenner Brockway?

 

[chilango]

it must be quite hard being culturally oppressed with a nice big house, a well paid job and a middle class background - give me a break, Brockway! I would argue that I experience more cultural oppression from this middle class set than vice versa

Odd, last time I looked I can't say that Cardiff and flattened Grozny looked very similar to me. The only place in the British Isles which can truly talk of a colonial relationship to Britain today is the North of Ireland - I can't say that I see the British army patrolling the streets of Cardiff to enforce the English occupation. Also, many people born and bred in Wales take quite a similar line - indeed the majority of Welsh people actually reject nationalism.

John Lennon also had an orgone box

Don`t want to butt in too much here....but yet again its the lefty line of cherrypicking which "national liberation" struggles it chooses to support.

 

[Brockway]

Like I said Udo, not every Welsh speaker is posh. And besides - is wealth the only criteria by which you measure well-being? That's a bit of a sad state of affairs isn't it?

As for Cardiff/Grozny you should visit downtown Gabalfa occasionally. Anyway it's the principle I'm on about - it is nails down a blackboard to me, to be lectured by an English person about my Welshness. And to be told, essentially, that it means fuck all. You'll never win the 'you're not colonized' argument, as far as I'm concerned, until we conduct this conversation in Welsh.

Of course many Welsh people reject nationalism - most Welsh people are so fucked up and divorced from their own history (which we don't get taught in school), language and culture that they don't know if they are Welsh, English, Britonic or British. Incidentally, having lived in England I was always surprised by the amount of Englanders who genuinely believed in an 'eternal England' and were blissfully unaware that most of you arrived here from Germany (or whatever it was called then) as colonizers.

In the video for Cloudbusting by Kate Bush which is of course about Wilhelm Reich, you'll see a book sticking out of Donald Sutherland's (who plays Wilhelm) jacket pocket which is the biography written by his son (played by Kate Bush) the title of which escapes me.

Older people and Socialists always ask me if I'm related to Fenner Brockway; and younger people ask me if I'm related to camp weatherman Derek Brockway. As far as I know I'm related to neither. Which is a shame.

 

[lewislewis]

Exactly, we're not even taught to be Welsh, and when we are its as a kind of quaint region-nation 'proud to be Welsh but also British' lie.

So the justness of the national liberation struggle depends on the amount of violence/unrest taking place?

I could extract that principle and say the justness of Udo's class struggle depends on the amount of violence/unrest taking place...crikey Udo, Welsh workplaces in 2005 aren't like 1917 Russia.

 

[neprimerimye]

John Lennon also had an orgone box

Imagine a multi-millionaire dairy farmer.

 

[neprimerimye]

Exactly, we're not even taught to be Welsh, and when we are its as a kind of quaint region-nation 'proud to be Welsh but also British' lie.

Why would one need to be taught to be Welsh?

Can one not choose one's own identity without having it thrust upon one?

If so I choose first not to be British and secondly I choose not to be Welsh.

 

[neprimerimye]

Of course many Welsh people reject nationalism - most Welsh people are so fucked up and divorced from their own history (which we don't get taught in school), language and culture that they don't know if they are Welsh, English, Britonic or British. Incidentally, having lived in England I was always surprised by the amount of Englanders who genuinely believed in an 'eternal England' and were blissfully unaware that most of you arrived here from Germany (or whatever it was called then) as colonizers.

Older people and Socialists always ask me if I'm related to Fenner Brockway; and younger people ask me if I'm related to camp weatherman Derek Brockway. As far as I know I'm related to neither. Which is a shame.

Oddly enough I was taught Welsh history at my comprehensive school and have read far more since. But I reject the notion that the history of petty princelings and schismatic sects is my history. The history I choose to identify with is the history of those who fought oppression and exploitation from Spartacus onward.

Funnily neough Fenner Brockway once stood for election in Cardiff. In 1943 he stood as the candidate of the old Independent Labour Party against the Tory Party. His Majestys 'Communist' Party campaigned against Brockway and for the Tory candidate.

 

[nwnm]

"So the justness of the national liberation struggle depends on the amount of violence/unrest taking place?" No, there actually has to BE one. The ruling class elements in Wales are happily ensconced with their partners in crime in England and Scotland. The Welsh Middle class may pay a little lip service to the language question, (but it has to be pointed out that some of those who run small businesses can't be bothered implementing bilingualism - and get away with it due to inadequacies in the current Language Act), but are more than reconciled to a comfortable life under the status quo. They are not in any way comparable to the middle class elements that overthrew the Batista regime in Cuba (and no, I don't have any illusions that the place is a socialist island - but welcome the fact that it is still a thorn in the side of the US).

"South Wales is consistently one of the poorest parts of the UK" Hmmm... try Easterhouse in Scotland, some parts of the East End of London where the swetshops are or even the North east of England where the cotton mills etc have closed and racism is on the rise. Actually S Wales at the moment is very similar to London's Docklands - we have pockets of extreme poverty side by side with pockets of extreme/grotesque affluence.

The real losers in this are of course the working class. And its not out of 'cultural oppression', its because, unlike those S4C/Pontcanna types, their kids don't get access or choice about having a decent bilingual education if they so choose, and if they do speak Welsh end up working in companies who's attitude to any language other than English is piss poor. That is why I support the fight for a new Welsh Language Act, and recognise that even the limited act we have now was a product of struggle. But I see it as part of a wider struggle for decent education (in whatever language people express a need to learn in), a decent health service and not having our pensions stolen from us. I see it as a class issue (literally and politically )

 

[colacho]

focoismo

foquismo, actually, a total fucking disaster in most of Latin America. As for Fidel and Glyndwr, who cares whether Fidel thought Glyndwr was important or not? After all, he's the guy who did his best to screw up the Angolan war. And then shot the guy who did it right...