It has been announced that the Children’s Commissioner for Wales will not be investigating the claims made by anonymous, anti-Welsh language website BiLingo. (While the website seems to be still open the Twitter account has closed.) There could have been no other decision. The real mystery is why the Commissioner ever took the slanderous and unfounded allegations seriously.
And yet, despite failing to persuade the Commissioner to get involved ‘BiLingo’ was a huge success. For the Children’s Commissioner wasn’t the real target at all, it was major English newspapers like the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, both of which accepted the allegations and even embellished them! Which meant that BiLingo’s unfounded allegations reached millions of people. Just think about that. Add all the other anti-Welsh propaganda in the English media in recent months, including gems like Roger Lewis’ ‘Welsh Taliban‘ piece in the Daily Mail (though the term itself was quickly dropped from MailOnline) and appreciate what we’re up against.
In the run-up to the Scottish referendum in the autumn of 2014 we can expect more racist bullshit such as we’ve been subjected to in recent months. It might even get worse. My reason for saying that is as follows.
In the run-up to the referendum the eyes of the world will, increasingly, be on this island. With memories of the Irish Troubles still fresh, people from Trondheim to Tierra del Fuego will wonder why many Scots now want to break away from England. That the Scottish referendum is happening at all will reflect badly on England’s reputation and prestige around the world. Also, foreign journalists will simplify the debate into a Scots versus English thing; and the Scots have a head-start in the popularity battle: Great people – gave the world golf and whisky . . . red hair and kilts . . . Wully off The Simpsons . . . bagpipes . . . Scotty from Star Trek . . . Braveheart . . . never oppressed other countries . . . Making Scots instantly recognisable and popular; the English less so, for all sorts of reasons: attitudes to the EU, imperial legacy, even Hollywood casting so many English villains nowadays.
This being so, the last thing England needs in the autumn of 2014 is a third troublesome province. Because if that happened, governments and journalists around the world would really go to town. (Just imagine how it would rankle with London if the Chinese government accused England of treating its ‘minorities’ badly!) So we Welsh must be cowed into submission and silence. And it will be easy. As we saw before Christmas with BiLingo, and the attacks in the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph, we have no media to question and expose such slanders; certainly not to take on a London daily! Our political class is nothing more than a desperate collection of drunks, dilettantes and deadbeats. There is no extra-parliamentary opposition. So to all intents and purposes, we Welsh are defenceless. And silent. Which means we shall be ignored.
A great pity, because as I say, there will be journalists in Britain from all over the world looking for stories. They will soon realise there are three countries, and three administrations; which will, inevitably, lead them to ask about Wales. What answers will they get? If we leave it to the Welsh Management, or the Wales Office, or BBC West Anglia, they’ll get some cheesy, touristy image telling them that everything is just hunky-dory. So do we stay silent . . . or do we capitalise on this media attention to publicise the wreck that is Wales? Exposing the poverty, the deprivation, the colonisation, and all the other ills. I say it’s an opportunity too good to miss. Start preparing!
Dont want to be a perpetual optimist but there’s another couple of ways of looking at this:
1. “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win”. Our masters in England have ignored us for a very long time. They have always resented, disliked the Scots but the most they have ever felt for us is contempt; we werent worth hating. We have now officially arrived at “then they ridicule you”, that means we are one step away from winning. We are more than half way there.
2. Yeah sure our image in the English media isnt too hot at the moment, but i cant see how this is anything but a positive thing. In the first place it raises English awareness of the fact that we are different, we speak a different language and mostly, we have a different agenda here one that they might not like. If anything is going to keep the community and language killers away it will be a weekly story in the mail, sun and telegraph highlighting how different and racist we are. Secondly what we need in our country to bring us up to speed with the Scots is less fence sitting. The more they attack us (and any attack on any part of Wales, Welsh speaking or not, is seen by 90% of Welsh people as an attack on us all. There are very few Welsh people who buy this north and south, Cymraeg and English speaking divisive nonsense, it just so happens that those who do, the Billy Britains, are very vocal) the more people will be forced to chose between the status quo which sees us as the butt of every english joke or Welsh not British!
We live in ridiculously exciting political times. Look back over the last few years and see that the goal posts have moved so much theyre on another pitch. At worst, in a few years Wales will be part of a Federal State, at best a member of the UN (not that i’m a fan of that self serving gravy train but its a good bench mark).
I love your posts Jac, should be compulsory reading in Welsh (and English) schools, but we Welsh love to see the glass as seven eighths empty and its very difficult to get motivated enough to change when youre despondent and think the journey involves an uphill road through a wood you cant see for the trees, and a tunnel with no light at the end.
In adversity there is opportunity.
karen i dont believe any of the paras who murdered unarmed innocent people in derry in january 1972 were either welsh or welsh speakers……will you be reporting those murders to the ‘appropriate authorities’?
In fact we can put Press TV to the test, report our concerns here http://www.presstv.ir/ureport/
For most of the last four years I’ve worked abroad and watched many foreign English language TV channels, one such TV channel that would publicise any anti-British subject would be the Iranian supported Press TV. This TV station often reports on issues that were never broadcasted on the BBC, reports about N Ireland, Scotland, rioting in English cities and I once seen a report on Cornish separatism.
I must admit I’ve never seen them reporting on Welsh concerns but I’m sure they would be only be too happy to sent their team down from London and publish Welsh nationalists anxieties if contacted.
Have a look here http://www.presstv.ir/section/351021802.html
No doubt, the next 2 years or so are going to provide the greatest opportunity of our lives to gain real international recognition and understanding of the situation in Wales, and thus to pressure the British/English establishment into making substantial moves to greater Welsh home-rule as the Scots head towards the polls, whilst simultaneously pressurising the Welsh Government to take the necessary steps, once and for all, to putting in place the synergistic policies that Wales so desperately needs for a viable, sustainable, Welsh national future.
Russia Today put the approval of the Scottish referendum by Westminster at the top of it’s (6 o’clock) news this evening. Good for them.
Terry – Chin up! Your books on Wales and her people, and your efforts in producing them are a real inspiration to me, and I’m sure to many others too.
I’r gad.
Karen,
Are you talking abut the 80% of the world’s countries which Britain have invaded and killed in and stolen from?
If you know of any mis-deeds, including murder and theft, perpetrated by Welsh speaking soldiers, or indeed any other soldiers from Wales then I would urge you to contact the appropriate authorities.
There is no doubt that the Yes campaign for Scotland is very well organised and has no problem getting their message across. It’s a shame that we Welsh nationalists can’t do the same, we find it difficult to unite, is it the language issue, the North/ South mistrust or pure apathy?
Sadly, I doubt if we’ve got the enthusiasm for any kind of united front come 2014 unless attitudes change.
There’s no better a mouthpiece than Russia Today. The love reporting stories on the demise of the UK. In fact, last year they did an article on Wales and might it possibly follow Scotland in requesting a referendum. And, unlike the BBC, all the voices on it were Welsh and pro-Wales even independence. More recently, they produced an article on the UAV’s at Parc Aberporth and how they were annoying many locals.
Scotland, together with the England and Wales, represents Great Britain. For this most of the world will remain forever thankful. And grateful.
Perhaps the real story here is why ‘the Welsh speaking Welsh’ are so unhappy and dissatisfied with their fellow non-Welsh speaking countrymen. And what and how can England, Scotland and the non-Welsh speaking majority of Wales help to improve matters.
The problem in Wales is not between Welsh speakers and non Welsh speakers, it is between the people of Wales and their colonisers.
BritNats like yourself will never understand how disgustingly hypocritical your brand of nationalism is.
Sharpen the pencils then – it’s time to play them at their own game! One thing we’ve never been short of is preachers, poets, actors & literary craftsmen – we’re famous for it!
Getting a bit of scandal going also suits us down to the ground!
I don’t know if you have noticed, but almost every person from the public interviewed on BBC TV Wales has an English accent, as do most of the ‘official’ interviewees, e.g. quango reps, councillors etc. The real tragedy is that Wales has been taken over, and the Welsh keep quiet, suffering, as always, from tall poppy syndrome. Wales as a nation has had it – there are no politicians with the nerve to address its problems, which mainly stem from in-migration and a lessening to non-existence of Welsh nationality and culture. In my 66 years, Wales has declined every year in wealth and opportunity, and turned into a fast-growing suburb of Ingerlund, taking in its social problems, overcrowding, elderly population and insane energy policies. The nation is being concreted over to cater for 90% of its population growth being outsiders who bring little and destroy much. Politicians claim that the language is thriving – it may be in Pontcanna and Llandaff, but on the Ceredigion-Carmarthenshire border and in the rest of its true heartlands, it is dying rapidly. For these comments I may be termed a racist – which only shows how political correctitude does not apply to the original British inhabitants of these isles. Immigrants receive more respect for their culture, religion and language than do the Welsh.