Land of My Fathers..And I Want To Keep It!

G.Fuller · Guest

After Wales were drubbed last weekend in the rugby by our neighbours over the other side of Offa's d**e you'd begin to wonder how much more the English could beat us Welsh people down.
Talking to several English people, the existence of a mass movement, mainly by the student body of Aberystwyth University (though the movement was founded by and American) called Cymuned and their 'Dal Dy Dir' program. Their aim is the preservation of the Welsh culture and its language against...well you English chaps.
Due to the weak welsh economy and general lack of real job opportunities beyond the average supermarket attendant and Pot Noodle machine operative (notice there are no mining jobs because you closed them all) the average Welsh citizen can no longer afford housing in their own country. Instead they are being bought by English immigrants who seriously disrupt the cultural balance of these rural Welsh communities. The main enemy in Cymuned eyes are the 'holiday home' buyers were merely by a house to visit once or twice a year taking up valuable real estate that a Welsh speaker could inhabit. The other problem is the lack of interest these immigrants have in actually learning the language. Cymuned endorses and welcomes people who come to Wales and learn the language but the people who should not be tolerated are people who refuse to respect the existence of a minority culture. Shockingly only 5% of primary school kids speak Welsh at home and this is due to the nature of the categorisation of schools in Wales, a majority of them do not have Welsh in their curriculum at all.
Cymuned's main aim is for the state to introduce legislation to set aside new housing developments for Welsh speakers and stop the out migration of the language and welsh culture. This may seem like a pretty right wing idea but your wrong. Even parts of England such as Lake District and Exmoor have a regulated housing market due to the fragile culture in the area. Why does Wales not have this sort of protection? With all this neglect to Wales and failure to develop it industrially, Wales has a poor health care system with people dying younger than any European country and is easily one of the poorest countries in Europe. Do you have the right to take away and neglect a culture and language? No one has. Lets stop Welsh just becoming a middle class language and treat it how it should be, a nations language.

If your interested in Cymuned or Cymdeithas yr Iaith (another Welsh Language Society) go to:
www.cymdeithas.com
and
www.dalydydir.com

jenc_green · Black Bloc

What is Welsh culture, and what is a nation in your opinion?

William Ap Pugh · Guest

Ye finally the Welsh have a say 'Cymru Am Byth.' And to the t**t who wrote above me look in the dictionary!

Dave · Guest

As some one who works as a volunteer on a welsh steam railway, I can confirm that the proportion of people in Wales speak English. Despite this though, this is due to the lack of a need for Welsh in everyday life.

Despite this I refute the fact that huge numbers of houses are being built in rural Wales. The village of Llanfair Caerineon has seen some growth, but at least one site has seen worked stopped for 2 years now. Prices are rising, meaning that any attempt to limit the sale of New homes to Welsh speakers would be insane, and possibly illegal (much better to limit it to people who grew up in Wales). I do agree though that the purchase of homes as holiday homes for use once or twice a year is wrong, the limitng of sales to welsh nationals only because of this though is silly as I know of several people who retired to Wales.

jenc_green · Black Bloc

Nation is a matter of belief, a community of people who feel that they belong together in that they share elements of a common heritage and a common future. Nationalism is belief in the nation. Nationalists often cling to a notion of bounded culture which somehow makes them distinct from others when cultures are not bound but dynamic and hybrid. And the ideology of nationalism holds that everyone will have a primary identity with a particular nation, with ties to a particular territory. 'Nation' is not something ontological.
An ethnic nationalist believes nation is not a matter of choice but everyone is born into a particular nation and ethnic groups are tied together by blood.
Who counts as Welsh? What is the Welsh 'way of life'?
I am effectively nationless as I don't believe in 'nation'.

stalfithrildi · Street Demonstrator

Also, in addition to the above as an example, certain 'nations' base their identities collective upon differnt values and thus it is possible to co-exist with a joint US-Irish nationality (as an example) because the United States nation is mainly a geographical affair and in general once a person moves there they are accepted as American whereas a cultural-identity such as that of the Irish can persist for many years after the last surviving Eire-born member of the family has passed on, which is most notable in the Irish communities in the US

In this sense the Welsh nation does need defining and a dictionary won't do the job I'm afraid
_________________
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head

Dear Prudence · Black Bloc

jenc_green · Black Bloc

There is a really good article by George Monbiot on his website (www.monbiot.com) entitled 'The New Chauvinism. Why should I love this country?' in which he says; after the bombings in London there were news articles and stuff on a need for patriotism, the Sun for example insisting that anyone who isn't loyal to this country should leave it. The argument is that patriotic people don't turn on each other, with a call for codes of citizenship and belief in 'Britain's virtues'. 'While patriotism might make citizens less inclined to attack each other, it makes the state more inclined to attack other countries' being able to command the support of its people. Take the USA for example.
'When confronted with a conflict between the interests of your country and those of another, patriotism, by definition, demands that you should choose those of your own. Internationalism, by contrast, means choosing the option which delivers most good or least harm to people, regardless of where they live.'
Patriotism is f**k dangerous.