Why is it so great to be welsh?/cymru

[bendeus]

Yep, but you could make the argument that the caribbean's recent history and fractured economy is far more shaped by slavery, human misery and the role of Britain than Wales has been influenced by England. Independence came and indentured workers were freed only in the last generation. I'd say that gives them as much, if not more, of a spur to dislike the English/British.

It's a bit of an arbitrary argument, but the point remains that it seems a weakness for a country to define themselves so strongly by their dislike of their neighbour. More national pride, less thinking about others.

I can understand your point. When I worked in Eritrea just after independence, I was amazed by the lack of rancour felt and shown by the average Eritrean towards their Ethiopian neighbours, that's in spite of 50 years of brutal repression, torture, extrajudicial killings, scorched earth policies, napalm, rape and other assorted atrocities. There's no doubt that the Welsh hate the English far more than the Eritreans the Ethiopians (at least when I was there), and for far less (contemporary) reason.

The problem, I would say, lies in a hypersensitivity towards being patronised, dismissed, ignored or regarded as 'lesser' (something the English media and political class, if no-one else, are very good at). This in turn plays on a sense of historical injustice which, to a greater degree, has some foundation.

Anyways, this thread should be about what we love about being Welsh, but unfortunately the old issue of anti-Englishness has once again raised its head.

I'll get me deckchair

 

[tarannau]

The problem, I would say, lies in a hypersensitivity towards being patronised, dismissed, ignored or regarded as 'lesser' (something the English media and political class, if no-one else, are very good at). This in turn plays on a sense of historical injustice which, to a greater degree, has some foundation.

But doesn't that seem a little bit of a national obsession and sign of weakness to you? Hypersensitivity in adults makes me want to pat the person on the head and say 'bless' in extra-patronising tones.

I like my Welsh roots, but the whole anti-English thing strikes me as an insecure failing rather than an indication of real national pride. Give it up.

 

[bendeus]

Welsh History

We were a people taut for war; the hills
Were no harder, the thin grass
Clothed them more warmly than the coarse
Shirts our small bones.
We fought, and were always in retreat,
Like snow thawing upon the slopes
Of Mynydd Mawr; and yet the stranger
Never found our ultimate stand
In the thick woods, declaiming verse
To the sharp prompting of the harp.
Our kings died, or they were slain
By the old treachery at the ford.
Our bards perished, driven from the halls
Of nobles by the thorn and bramble.
We were a people bred on legends,
Warming our hands at the red past.
The great were ashamed of our loose rags
Clinging stubbornly to the proud tree
Of blood and birth, our lean bellies
And mud houses were a proof
Of our ineptitude for life.
We were a people wasting ourselves
In fruitless battles for our masters,
In lands to which we had no claim,
With men for whom we felt no hatred.
We were a people, and are so yet.
When we have finished quarrelling for crumbs
Under the table, or gnawing the bones
Of a dead culture, we will arise
And greet each other in a new dawn.

.

 

[bluestreak]

A great poem, that.

 

[bendeus]

But doesn't that seem a little bit of a national obsession and sign of weakness to you? Hypersensitivity in adults makes me want to pat the person on the head and say 'bless' in extra-patronising tones.

I like my Welsh roots, but the whole anti-English thing strikes me as an insecure failing rather than an indication of real national pride. Give it up.

Cuts both ways though, doesn't it? Does the fault lie with the patronised or the patroniser (sic?)? I suspect that the answer sits somewhere in the middle. If the projected essence of supercilious Englishness that comes across through the media and politicians were dampened down it would give less fuel to our sense of persecution and inferiority. If, on the other hand, we were less chippy and ready to take umbrage, the instinct to patronise may not come to the fore.

I dunno, really.

 

[bendeus]

A great poem, that.

Yeah. Absolute corker.

 

[bendeus]

There's this one as well. Good response to the OP, also

Welsh Landscape

To live in Wales is to be conscious
At dusk of the spilled blood
That went into the making of the wild sky,
Dyeing the immaculate rivers
In all their courses.
It is to be aware,
Above the noisy tractor
And hum of the machine
Of strife in the strung woods,
Vibrant with sped arrows.
You cannot live in the present,
At least not in Wales.
There is the language for instance,
The soft consonants
Strange to the ear.
There are cries in the dark at night
As owls answer the moon,
And thick ambush of shadows,
Hushed at the fields' corners.
There is no present in Wales,
And no future;
There is only the past,
Brittle with relics,
Wind-bitten towers and castles
With sham ghosts;
Mouldering quarries and mines;
And an impotent people,
Sick with inbreeding,
Worrying the carcase of an old song

 

[lewislewis]

But doesn't that seem a little bit of a national obsession and sign of weakness to you? Hypersensitivity in adults makes me want to pat the person on the head and say 'bless' in extra-patronising tones.

I like my Welsh roots, but the whole anti-English thing strikes me as an insecure failing rather than an indication of real national pride. Give it up.

Let's have a bit of perspective. 20% of the population of Wales is from England, there isn't widespread anti-Englishness on a day to day basis. Certainly Welsh people aren't abnormal enough to warrant 'giving up' any of our national characteristics. It's similar to any other small nation existing next to an imperial one, not some kind of deviant behaviour we need to give up. The people in Wales have never had a chance to live by their own autonomous decisions, how do you expect them to feel towards a larger neighbour?

In any case, positive Welshness is far more prevalent than any anti-English grudge. It is liberation nationalism, not conquering nationalism.

 

[lewislewis]

Been posted here many times before but here's a classic.

Alun Rees- TAFFY IS A WELSHMAN
Taffy is a Welshman,
Taffy is no thief.
Someone came to Taffy's house
and stole a leg of beef.

Taffy made no protest,
for he doesn't like a row,
so the someone called on him again
and stole the bloody cow.

They stole his coal and iron,
they stole his pastures, too.
They even stole his language
and flushed it down the loo.

Taffy is a Welshman,
Taffy is a fool.
Taffy voted no, no, no
when they offered him home rule.

Six days a week upon his knees
Taffy dug for coal.
On the seventh he was kneeling, too,
praying for his soul.

And now the mines are closing down
and chapel's had its day,
Taffy still lives upon his knees,
for he knows no other way.

Now sometimes Taffy's brother
will start a row or so,
but you can bank on Taffy:
he doesn't want to know.

For when they hanged Penderyn
he had nothing much to say,
and when Saunders Lewis went to jail
he looked the other way.

Taffy is a Welshman
who likes to be oppressed.
He was proud to tug his forelock
to a Crawshay or a Guest.

They give him tinsel royals,
so he has a pint of beer,
and sings God Bless the Prince of Wales
as he joins the mob to cheer.

Now Taffy is a fighter
when he hears the bugle call.
Name any war since Agincourt:
Taffy's seen them all.

He's fought in France and Germany
and many another land;
he's fought by sea and fought by air
and fought on desert sand.

He's fought for many a foreign flag
in many a foreign part,
for Taffy is a Welshman,
proud of his fighting heart.

He's fought the wide world over,
he's given blood and bone.
He's fought for every bloody cause
except his bloody own.

 

[bendeus]

Been posted here many times before but here's a classic.

Never read that. Cracking poem.

 

[bendeus]

Let's have a bit of perspective. 20% of the population of Wales is from England, there isn't widespread anti-Englishness on a day to day basis. Certainly Welsh people aren't abnormal enough to warrant 'giving up' any of our national characteristics. It's similar to any other small nation existing next to an imperial one, not some kind of deviant behaviour we need to give up. The people in Wales have never had a chance to live by their own autonomous decisions, how do you expect them to feel towards a larger neighbour?

In any case, positive Welshness is far more prevalent than any anti-English grudge. It is liberation nationalism, not conquering nationalism.

This is interesting, and has been at the heart of many a Welsh nationalism bunfight here on U75. There does seem to be a prevalent attitude that we need to remove the chips from our shoulders and get on with it, that any sense of inferiority is one generated by ourselves and our small nation complex, and that, in the greater scheme of things, our wish for identity is a false construct that has little place in the modern world.

While there probably is a skein of truth in this, it does rather dismiss how we do feel, and instead concentrate on how we should, divorced from history or context.

 

[PAD1OH]

This is interesting, and has been at the heart of many a Welsh nationalism bunfight here on U75.

it was interesting to see ireland over the years develop a stronger self-confidence and a reduced animosity to the english as their economy developed.

 

[skyscraper101]

I've always found Welsh people to be some of the nicest, most polite people in the UK on the most part.

I've never had any sort of anti-English vibe when I've been in Wales, quite the opposite in fact.

 

[bendeus]

it was interesting to see ireland over the years develop a stronger self-confidence and a reduced animosity to the english as their economy developed.

I wonder if that will start to invert now that they're in the do do.

 

[bendeus]

I've always found Welsh people to be some of the nicest, most polite people in the UK on the most part.

I've never had any sort of anti-English vibe when I've been in Wales, quite the opposite in fact.

What? No 'went-into-a-pub-where-they-were-all-speaking-English- only-to-start-speaking-Welsh-when-they-realised-where-I-was-from' story of dodgy provenance?

Our standards are slipping, bois bach. Yur's one that got away

 

[Dic Penderyn]

To be brutally honest the best thing about being Welsh is not being English whilst overseas. You get a much better welcome.

I've always considered that being Welsh is an incidental thing, having the supreme honour of being born in the majestic patch of heaven they call Newport however, is quite frankly a CONSTANT thrill.

 

[Gavin Bl]

I've always considered that being Welsh is an incidental thing, having the supreme honour of being born in the majestic patch of heaven they call Newport however, is quite frankly a CONSTANT thrill.

I feel the same about coming from Merthyr, Dic. All the best places....

 

[lewislewis]

I wonder if that will start to invert now that they're in the do do.

I feel that although their economy is built on the same false market supremacy that the UK's is, they will not be as badly affected by the recession as we will be, because they are a smaller country. The problem with Ireland is what James Connolly predicted, simply changing the Union flag for an Irish flag without changing the nature of society.

 

[PAD1OH]

if you think it's great coming from Merthyr or Newport you can't imagine how great it is coming from Cardiff

it'd blow your tiny minds

 

[Gavin Bl]

if you think it's great coming from Merthyr or Newport you can't imagine how great it is coming from Cardiff

it'd blow your tiny minds

we are not the slightest bit impressed by your fancy metrosexual London-wannabe ways.


* goes to chapel with scowl on face *

 

[William of Walworth]

The best bit is that you get to cheer on Wales against England at rugby

I was doing this on Saturday and I'm not even Welsh!

I live in Wales right now though, and I've never liked English rugby so it's cool to fit in with the Welsh peeps we were drinking with as far as I'm concerned.

Might be different for me if England were playing Wales in football mind

 

[Strumpet]

Atta boi William!!

 

[Dic Penderyn]

if you think it's great coming from Merthyr or Newport you can't imagine how great it is coming from Cardiff

it'd blow your tiny minds

I went to that Cardiff the other day and it was rubbish, I walked down the street and I didn't recognise anyone.

Now tell me, where's the point in that then?

 

[phildwyer]

To be brutally honest the best thing about being Welsh is not being English whilst overseas. You get a much better welcome.

Aye. It's not just the Welsh who hate the English. Everyone hates them. It's just that we're nearest to them, so we see more of them.

 

[Riklet]

Don't think i'm Welsh at all, although maybe a little bit, who knows/cares, but I live in Cardiff... yes, horrible English dickhead n all. Nice place, and I think Welsh people are quite often friendlier than in the south of England, although I have a bit of a weird mixed accent so maybe they aren't sure about whether to spork my eyes out for helping with the slaying the last druids n all.

 

[toblerone3]

The bastard English have sunk our coracles, disbanded our choirs, eaten our cheese and mocked our cardigans! What else do we have left?

As I said Cardiff City and Community Spirit.

 

[Riklet]

Leeks are actually pretty lovely too!

 

[toblerone3]

Carmathenshire

 

[Karac]

Please tell me how you feel ? do you get a lump in your throat when you hear the anthem, or see the welsh flag flying? or not?

I do- dont know why-just do

 

[niclas]

Best thing about being Welsh is that the first question you ask a stranger is "where you from, then?"

[Apparently the most common 1st question in similar situations in England is "What do you do?" - is making this comparison being chippy ?]

Give it five minutes and you've found a mutual friend/relative and you're only on your second pint. Small is beautiful.