PLEASE APPRECIATE THAT I GET SENT MORE INFORMATION AND LEADS THAN I CAN USE. I TRY TO RESPOND TO EVERYONE WHO CONTACTS ME BUT I CANNOT POSSIBLY USE EVERY BIT OF INFORMATION I’M SENT. DIOLCH YN FAWR
♦
FASCISTS TO THE RIGHT, RACISTS TO THE LEFT RIGHT (ALSO)
For various reasons I wasn’t at the Merthyr march and rally last Saturday, organised by YesCymru and All Under One Banner Cymru (but I was there in spirit). To compensate, I’ve had feedback from many quarters. This feedback even includes a copy of the special edition of The National produced for Merthyr.
As someone reminded us on Twitter, this one-off issue was a collaboration between that Scottish newspaper and Plaid Cymru, which explains the Plaid membership application form that came with each copy.
Though, given that the rally was in Merthyr, and Plaid is supposedly trying shake the image of being a party primarily for Welsh speakers, I was surprised to see the Welsh version of ‘Come and join us!’ at the top of the form larger and more prominent than the English version.
The National also contained a series of articles by Plaid Cymru luminaries, and a rather strange contribution from Yasmin Begum, who was unknown to me, and who seemed to fear that the movement for independence might be a front for the Ku Klux Klan, with the Merthyr rally perhaps organised by the Dowlais branch of the Broederbond.
A strange, hysterical little piece, that also managed to be insulting. Particularly, “Wales has an uncomfortable relationship with colonialism and the slave trade which is yet to be fully explored and unpacked”. Wales was England’s first fucking colony and has been exploited ever since, but this woman wants to load onto us the crimes of the British Empire so we’ll feel guilty and be more receptive to her fatuous and self-serving drivel.
As I say, I had no idea who Yasmin Begum was . . . and then I checked her Twitter account, and was not surprised to learn that she is obsessed with thoughts of race. It seems that she thinks about nothing else. (Unless it’s ‘non-binary’ sexual identification.)
Entirely predictable then that she considers AUOB Cymru to be dangerously white and almost certainly infiltrated by fascists.
Though I was glad to see her retweet the news that Paddington Bear is a liberal. I was beginning to have my doubts about that furry little bastard, what with him being foreign and all.
Going back to the title of this section, I suppose all fascists are racists, but are all racists fascists? Discuss. (Because these things really concern me.)
◊
PRO EU BUT ANTI EUROPEAN
Something else I noticed about the rally – and this can be applied to the wider independence movement and Plaid Cymru – was the obsession with staying in the EU and thwarting the dastardly plans of Boris Johnson. (Or, if you prefer, Dominic Cummings.)
I wasn’t the only one, a friend who was in Merthyr reminded me of the attacks on Brexit-supporting Plaid Cymru stalwart Emrys Roberts, and sent me a copy of his letter published in Llais y Sais, responding to Wales for Europe. Which, predictably, is just the Welsh branch of People’s Vote.
Despite being pro EU the left is generally anti European, and too many on the left are anti Western. They want to do away with the capitalist system and replace it with societies in which nobody works but we’re all supported by taxing those who are no longer making any money because there’s no economy. It’s clever stuff. Too clever for me.
Though in fairness, such a system might have its plus points. It should help the environment because nobody’ll be making anything – except ‘artisans’ using hand tools – and only the most important comrades will be allowed to travel. Rewilding will occur naturally as veganism is enforced and livestock farmers are summarily executed. Their animals will then be released into ‘the wild’, which will further reduce the stock of humanity; for those of us that don’t succumb to malnutrition will be trampled by roaming herds of feral cattle.
This liberal elite and its foot-soldiers – the far left, the woke and the reverse-racists – is critical or dismissive of European civilisation. It seeks to undermine the social and economic frameworks of Europe; it has always sided with the enemies of the West, from communism to ISIS; it believes in open borders; and of course it rejects Christianity, which has done more than anything to shape Europe and the West.
Whereas I, on the other hand, admire European civilisation and values, on both sides of the North Atlantic, and from Argentina to Australia. I’m proud of the Europe peoples and their achievements. And like Burke, I understand the compact between generations past, present and future.
Which might explain why I am opposed to the European Union. But I will always be European.
◊
CHAOS
The Merthyr rally took place to the backdrop of a prorogued parliament and a minority government hanging on for dear life. On the other side we are presented with an unseemly coalition rejoicing in two victories: the first, over a no-deal Brexit; the second, from denying Boris Johnson the chance to call a general election before Hallowe’en.
Alternatively – and this is how I see it – those who never accepted the 2016 referendum result are now close to stopping Brexit altogether; while denying us the opportunity of giving our opinion on the matter in a general election they fear they’ll lose.
(Though of course the Scottish National Party will win a handsome majority, and push on for independence, but Scotland is now a different country.)
Make no mistake, what we are seeing in Westminster is a victory for Remainers. Over the past three years they have done everything they could to undo the 2016 result. They may have achieved it now partly thanks to the clumsy chutzpah of Boris Johnson, and partly due to Jeremy Corbyn being forced into a position he would never have adopted had he been free to make his own choice.
Somehow, a liberal elite and its supporters has managed to unite the white working class with Old Etonians, with many in the areas that voted for Brexit prepared to support an English nationalist party led by Nigel Farage in the upcoming general election. And that also applies to Wales. This is a remarkable achievement.
And it explains the reluctance in parts of the Labour Party and sections of the trade union movement to have a general election, for union bosses are far more attuned to the mood of the lower orders in Sunderland, Stoke-on-Trent and Swansea than the denizens of Islington (or Cardiff Bay) will ever be.
Which leaves Labour’s electoral support reduced to a rump white working class, middle class liberals, supplemented by migrants and minorities. Not enough to win an election, certainly not with Corbyn in charge and Labour in Scotland all but a memory.
◊
DANGER AND OPPORTUNITY
For it can’t be stressed enough that the 2016 vote was decided in the ‘Rust Belt’ areas of southern Wales and northern and central England, and settled largely with the votes of poorer white people. Many of whom saw the referendum as a chance to express their anger towards an arrogant elite, based largely in London, that they believed cared nothing for them and their communities.
I’m repeating this because there are many out there who gave little thought to the European Union or European unity before the 2016 referendum. Since losing that referendum they have managed to turn a bureaucratic construct they never fully understood, and rarely thought about, into the most precious thing in their world.
The far left in Wales has adopted the EU enthusiastically since the referendum because it gives the comrades the chance to portray the opposition as ‘far right’, or even ‘fascist’, and the left is never happier than when confronting the forces of darkness.
And if real fascists are a bit thin on the ground (which of course they are) then anyone they disagree with can be envisioned in jackboots. Plaid Ifanc, Undod, certain elements of YesCymru, Yasmin Begum and other individuals (so many of them members of my fan club) bear this out . . . with mind-numbingly monotonous regularity. There are no half measures with these absolutists – contradict them or highlight their idiocies and you’re a fascist.
That would be bad enough, but mainstream politicians have caught the same virus and now demand that we remain in the EU . . . irrespective of what poor and stupid people think.
Though the SNP is playing a canny game of stirring things up in Westminster while at the same time preparing Scots for a second independence referendum – ‘Will ye no look at that shambles doon in London, Wullie!’ (Did you see how I slipped into the vernacular there?)
Plaid Cymru on the other hand has thrown itself single-mindedly into ensuring that Wales remains in the EU and the UK and, eventually, Englandandwales. And there will be a price to pay in the shorter term. For at the imminent general election, that will be dominated by Brexit, the Remain vote in Wales will go to Labour and the Lib Dems, while Plaid will lose Brexit-voting nationalists.
And for what?
The new independence movement is making the same mistake, and by so doing threatens the movement’s cohesion and potency. All because liberals and leftists believe the EU is ‘progressive’, and must therefore be defended.
The UK is falling apart, and civil unrest – if not worse – is on the horizon. We should be preparing to guide Wales towards the safety of independence. But instead, Labour and Plaid Cymru have rushed headlong into an English civil war, aligning themselves with external enemies and Seoinín, from which Wales can only emerge seriously harmed. If we emerge at all.
Premised on the belief that those with whom they have allied themselves give a fuck about Wales. They don’t, and they’ll betray us at the first ‘difficult choice’.
It could all have been so different. We could have exploited this chaos, this English culture war, to Wales’ advantage. But that was impossible when we have politicians and activists who burden the national cause with their pet obsessions and vanity excursions, piling on new and ever more absurd distractions to compete with the old and discredited abstractions.
There is no hope for Wales until we can build up a strong enough body of people determined to focus only on Wales, and to demand what is best for our people and our communities. Wales has no future if it’s left to dilettantes and local allies of the metropolitan elite preciously fighting someone else’s battles.
I happen to believe that decent homes and jobs for our people in a prosperous and independent Wales is more important than obsessing over the EU, or gender, or gender reassignment, or race, or sexual orientation, or . . .
There must be a seat for everybody on the Independence Express; but no group must be so noisy and demanding of attention that they drive other passengers off at the next stop, or bring the train to a halt.
♦ end ♦
Correct regarding Brexit, after all Rhondda went all rebellious and she has to watch her manners in her own back yard! However her conduct in most other aspects of her political activity suggests that she is probably beyond the point where she could respond to a wake up call. Either the wall of the bubble is too thick or she has moved into that parallel universe where priorities are totally subverted.
Many years ago there was a very professional probation officer in the Rhondda. She had the art of assisting offenders back into a positive lifestyle and one of her best pieces of advise in dealing with the courts and police was to teach her subjects to express themselves honestly in a respectful manner. Such advise elevates an offender out of a cycle of offending. The key to success was for them see others as equals, to treat others as they’d like to be treated themselves, and how to be assertive without being offensive. Which begs the question – what happened Leanne?
Forgive me, but late yesterday I spent an hour watching the soppy self indulgent Cameron “confession” on BBC. Imagine my surprise when we got to the 24th June 2016 a faceless voice could be heard in a barrage of comment about the Leave decision stating that …”this is a wake-up call for the political classes…”. That was Leanne, our Santes, telling it with crystal clarity.
When and where did she decide to wander off the path of her own wisdom and insight ? Today she is firmly among the ranks of those isolated political careerists who do their own thing regardless of the needs and wishes of the electorate cos she is now one of those who know best.
I’m not so sure. The clamour against Brexit has been led by Plaid MPs and AMs representing safer seats or areas that voted Remain. I can’t remember LW saying that much.
How long will it be before the Standards Commissioner at Y Cynulliad is branded a “fascist”, “nazi” or even “mysoginist” ? At least he’s dished out reprimands to A.M’s, male and female, although that will not stop supporters of Santes Leanne from arguing that whacking the idiot David from Caerphilly was fair enough but any negativity about her holiness just cannot be tolerated.
An independent Wales will most likely have an Upper House and Sir Roderick should be appointed even though others will need to be elected. Keep up the good work, I appreciate it’s a grind maintaining any semblance of discipline among feral juveniles.
Your tweet column informs me that Marc Phillips was and maybe continues to be the consort to Helen Mary Jones. Does that make him THE Big Girl’s Blouse or just a minor button ? FFS, if you don’t know the answer, please don’t research it as god knows what you might unearth !
That’s a good question, but I’d rather not go there for fear of being called misogynistic, or even blousist.
It really is astounding how one person’s comment has caused so much hurt. You give her/him comments credence by being soooooo upset. But it is revealing how much others are now turning and twisting about the amount of Welsh involved in the slave trade. One is enough. And as for the totally ignorant comment that others were slave trading and Africans were selling other Africans as slaves when they could have run into the bush… total bullshit. Africa is a massive continent and much bigger than Europe. Demanding a collective African conscience is bollocks. Also that particular slave trade ran into the millions and millions. It does not matter if it was a Welsh person, an English person, an African person or even a martian – it was wrong as all slavery is. Shall we blame the whole of White Europe for the rise of fascism and Hitler (much supported by our white royal family before the war)? I won’t get started on the role of Welsh soldiers in the subjection of other countries to the benefit of the English ruling class who were themselves subjecting Wales. Servitude has no borders and racism exists in all countries – and has no colour.
Off topic, but does anyone have any information on Simon Card at Brecon View Eco Village Garnant ?
Simon Card lists himself at Companies House as resident at Kings Arms Vaults, Watton, Brecon, LD3 7EF, and also at The Oaks, Bryncethin Road, Garnant, Ammanford, SA18 1YP. He was born in 1958, of a nationality of British.
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/11560537
and
https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10908314
Simon has previously published online some details of himself such as “From racing cars in my 20’s to establishing my sports injury clinic, I have always enjoyed new challenges.” Two other directors involved in these ventures are Richard Thomas who is from the Amman valley and Neeltje, which is her nickname, and Simons partner.
Neeltje has a real name of Cornelia Stefanie Van Hofwegen who claims former service at inspector rank in the Dutch police stationed in Utrecht. Neeltje says “we met through AirBnB in Wales in 2016 and fell I love”. This suggests the lady was at one time a paying guest at a Simon property.
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/neeltje-van-hofwegen-81064936
Neeltje also offers massage therapy from the premises in Garnant, and previously ran a sports injury clinic in Garnant, after gaining her skills at a one-year course at Gower college in 2018.
Is he Welsh? He seems to make a big thing about being Welsh.
and Adam and Plaid think that Wales could become independent in such an Empire which may behave like China and engage in reprogramming? Same goes for Nicola in Scotland. He really is showing himself up or out, entering into pacts with those who sanction empires. The equating with TB is apt, he coaxed the LibDems and promised Paddy Ashdown a ministerial post only to ditch them once he was in Downing St. Adam will be similarly left at the altar.
With regard to Rewilding – I see little difference with the Lebensraum programme. Clear out the natives and then ship in the people from England or elsewhere.
Over the weekend , Guy Verhofstadt preached to the LibDems conference on the theme of creating a new European Empire to compete globally with USA, Russia, China, India and others, including possibly Darth Vader crowd and that lot with pointy ears, Vulcans I think.
The audience, all yellow LibDems applauded the cnut ! This tells you all you need to know about the LibDems, modern day Empire builders evolved from that craven bunch that helped Cameron butcher public services in the name of sorting the nation’s financial situation while protecting bankers and other institutions.
It also confirms our worst suspicions about EU and the jackals that lead it. They have “Corporate gangsterism” written right through them like a stick of Rhyl rock. Some call it the New World Order, I don’t think it’s quite there yet but this is a classic example of the kind of jockeying for position that will lead to a global order led by the few for the benefit of just a few more !
Adam has really done a job of picking allies this time. He is proving to be as big a twat as Tony Blair was when he fell in behind George Bush en route to Iraq. Adam didn’t approve of that so why is he behaving in such a Blairite style now ? Has he been promised a place at the top
trough, or does it just show the decline in his critical thinking capacity ?
Not only that but La Swinson says that if her gang gets to form a government, with maybe 30% or less of the votes cast, then that will be the Lib Dems’ mandate to throw Brexit out the window. But if the SNP wins every seat in Scotland then that is not a mandate for independence or even another referendum! And these buggers are accusing Johnson of threatening democracy!
Swinson is yet another example of declining standards in politics. Yapping like a small dog but no grasp of any reality. Stupid Bitch ! Even duller than Cable, Fallon and Clegg, and that took some doing.
Oh boy, the day real Fascists came to town and the bold anti-Fascist Plaid Ifanc and Co were nowhere to be seen. Guess when the crunch comes it will be left to real patriots to make sure that we have a country fit and safe to live in. As for the young Plaidistas, poor fuckin’ petals, we’ll probably have to look after them as well.
On the subject of distractions, I wonder if Adam Price the leader of Plaid Cymru who spoke at the “Peoples Vote Rally” in Newport this weekend compares the crowd attending the “Independence Rally” in Merthyr the previous week?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-49693658
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-49619554
Merthyr 5200.
Newport 400.
Perhaps he should spend more time fighting for Welsh independence than throwing his efforts into helping London stay in the EU and making pacts with the British parties in Westminster. He should take a hint from the trajectory of the Welsh people.
Independence for Wales is now directly tied up with Brexit, and, as Jac predicted, the support for indy is increasing as the economically-negative side of leaving is revealed.
The solution might be for Price to let Brexit happen, then to promise a Welsh referendum on the EU once independence has been achieved, so that an application to join as a sovereign state could be made if that’s what Welsh people want. So, yes, Brychan, Adam should be pushing as hard as he can for independence first, EU membership (if said Welsh people want it) afterwards. Remaining in it as a part of the UK will never deliver independence.
There are Plaidies claiming that many of the right wing pro-independence Twitter accounts are either Russian Bots or are being funded by Steve Bannon!
Don’t they realise how ridiculous they sound?
I can just picture a group of Russian agents slaving away in some provincial back office with a copy of Geiriadur yr Academi, a history of Cwmsgwt RFC, the High Hopes DVD boxset and a Gren calendar on the wall.
Grow up, mun.
It’s all true. I’m funded by Putin, Trump, Mexican drug cartels and the Cavinistic Methodists.
It’s those Methodists that worry me. They make Jesuits look and sound like amateurs in matters of strict orthodox beliefs. Maybe that’s where Leanne, Adam and the Plaid inner clique got their early training in intolerance. Gee has often referred to “Sons of the Manse”, well now you can add the Apprentice Boys and Girls of the Capel to the list of dangerous people.
Yasmin Begum is misinformed. The Welsh involvement in the slave trade, as well as the ferocious Welsh opposition to it, have been matters of constant discussion and conflict for centuries.
I also have to point out that I believe you have oversimplified the left. What about the old Labour voting bloc from the former industrial north of England during the post war period? I can imagine this demographic by and large as being “British” to the core, to the point of being xenophobic even. Look at the white guy in the sitcom Love Thy Neighbour – staunch Labour, trade unionist, but also a flagrant racist, and obviously a representation of an archetype because comedy that does social commentary does not exist in a vacuum. “Taking our country back”, “British values” and the like are not only the preserve of conservatives, small C or otherwise.
An interesting portmanteau that Yasmin uses for her twitter handle, “punkistani”. I very much doubt that punk as a form of musical expression, or a way of life would have ever been allowed to exist in an authoritarian theocracy like Pakistan.
There is a whiff of an anti-Welsh agenda behind Miss Begum’s professed support for Welsh independence and her getting into bed with Undod. She has condemned the Eisteddfod for having no ethnic minorities on the stage at the Maes, even though the festival has never had a colour bar and would probably welcome applications from that source. She has also spoken critically of what she calls the “glorification” of the Welsh Gwladfa in Patagonia in terms that make it sound like a British imperialist venture rather than an attempt to ensure the survival of Welsh language and culture in the face of colonialism.
This is all you need to know about Miss Begum,
I’m sure I heard some idiot claim that Welsh language requirements for certain jobs are a form of proxy discrimination against ethnic minorities who by and large tend not to speak it. I can imagine said commenter being one of an archetype I’ve spotted, those faux defenders of the marginalised, in pursuit of their own larger agenda. I can’t ordinarily envisage those so unenlightened to be hostile to an at-risk native tongue being at once “down with the ethnics”.
Similar to how I’ve clocked people on Twitter who hate the Labour Party take up the cudgels against antisemitism, as per their bios. Would taking such a stand have even registered to many of these people prior to this current scandal in the party, or is it just another convenient bullet in the chamber?
I’m away for a few days and so I may be slow to allow readers’ contributions and may not not comment myself. Normal service should be restored on Monday evening.
Historically, many of the “Welsh Surnames” of back families in the United States were ‘given’ by industrialists in the northern states upon free employment, or in the south by non-conformist baptism. At home, Wales as a nation, has nothing to apologise for slavery, mainly because Welsh people within Wales, with only a very few exceptions, were not involved in the slave trade.
When the Westminster House abolished slavery in the eighteenth century it paid compensation for loss to the slave owners. The addresses to which payment was made has been digitally collated by University College London and mapped here…
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/maps/britain#zoom=7&lng=-3.087158&lat=51.303145
Wales was not complicit in the British slave trade, for three main reasons. (a) Non-conformist religious beliefs prohibited slave ownership, (b) the resident Welsh population had no capital to invest in slave owning estates as for many centuries previous had been banned from owning the capital to do so, (c) the birth of the early industrial revolution in Wales required literate, skilled, waged labour to operate. Slavery was not suitable for process engineering.
Early Welsh industrialists were critisised at the time for paying equal wage and board to all their employees regardless of race and national origin. I did not meet Yasmin Begum, in Merthyr. Had I done so I would have taken her to the remains of the Dowlais Ironworks. In the early 19th century an attempt was made to sue the proprietor of this iron foundry for poaching slaves from Bristol into “negro apprentiships”, and awarding equal pay.
http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/Images_D-H/DowlaisIronworks_C1870.JPG
A non-truck wage, a Unitarian school, and freedom.
In the United Kingdom slavery was an English (and Scottish) matter. Upon abolition, other than 26 individuals who were almost all English landed gentry domiciled on their estates in Wales, our nation played no significant role.
It’s a bit like blaming India for Ugandan Asians.
It’s a bit ironic that an article entitled “Distractions” about a pro independence march becomes a discussion on the history of slavery. I can’t help thinking that Yasmin Begum would approve!
I’m sure she would.
her family may have made a pile out of the trade. I don’t think any less or more of her because of that. It’s in the past our efforts should focus on preventing it recurring, and by all accounts certain parts of the UK are not performing so well on that score.
Sadly, I too was unable to attend the rally.
Let us hope that there will be many more, each one bigger than the last.
Have a look at this website:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk>lbs>details
You’ll be quite surprised to see the amount of Welsh people who were involved in the slave trade, and who were granted compensation when their slaves were taken away from them when slavery was abolished.
It is a part of our history that we really should be taking steps to acknowledge. Just saying that we are Welsh, and therefore good people, is not enough to exonerate us.
Of course Welsh people were involved, slavery was a global phenomenon because it was accepted as the norm. The Muslim Turks used to raid into Slav lands and round Christians up like cattle before taking them to the slave markets of Istanbul. The point I’m making is that slavery was never a simple white on black business as some try to argue for contemporary political advantage. All part of the ‘wicked white man’ trope.
It’s lies, and it distorts the historical reality for contemporary political advantage. And because it’s a lie it must be challenged. Read about the raid on Baltimore, West Cork, in 1631, by North African pirates.
You are the one that stated ‘I’m not sure there were many Welsh plantation owners.’ I was just letting you know that there were indeed implicated Welsh people – some with very Welsh names.
I’m sure there were, but very few.
Your last paragraph should be tattooed on the insides of the eyelids of all those bogus ‘patriots’ who fail to see that the nation must come before sectional interests. The time for that discussion is after the Liberation, when such debates will at least be guaranteed some sort of outcome, rather than being merely a circle jerk.
Incidentally, it’s notable that those self-same, self-regarding fakes never explicitly state who exactly they regard as ‘faaaaaascists!’, but it’s clear that they regard Ein Gwlad as such. I have read the party’s draft manifesto for the next elections to our pretendy parliament, and I would challenge anyone from what someone wonderfully called ‘Woko Haram’ to point out what exactly there is in it which would remotely justify the smears of ‘alt-right’, ‘identitarian’ and, yes, ‘faaaaaascist’.
On an allied note, given the power that words have to set moods, should we not avoid using the word ‘unionist’ to describe our enemies and instead use the word ‘colonialist’; to refer to the ‘unionist’ parties as ‘colonialist’ parties; and to describe our status far more prominently and frequently as ‘a colony’? After all, the way we have been ruled, exploited and generally shafted fits the classic model of colonialism to a ‘t’.
I’ve often thought that ‘unionists’ should be called imperialists instead, especially in the context of Ireland. It’s mad that those who divide that island are called unionists when those who seek to unify Ireland are not. We need to seize control of language from the imperialists, not letting others define us and therefore control the debate.
That is a very interesting comment Sofraniaeth. you may have highlighted something we should consider about our vocabulary, when it comes to describing the ‘foreign’ parties on our soil.
In the north of Ireland the vocabulary is very much considered before being used. Even the reference to the ‘north of Ireland’ rather than Northern Ireland’ has a huge bearing on what is conveyed. The latter being a name attributed to the Six Counties by the colonisers. The same of course applies to Derry – rather than Londonderry. No respectable Irish republican would ever refer to the second largest city in the north as ‘Londonderry’.
We should, without doubt, apply the same rule when it comes to referring to our own cities, towns & villages here in Cymru.
Perhaps we should apply a bit of deeper thinking, before we attribute names to certain political elements that operate from Bae Caerdydd!
Reminds me of a Frankie Boyle joke about the unionist stance of people sharing an island should be one country, unless that island happens to be Ireland.
Re that tweet about Glyndwr – He could have been 95% English for all I care but he chose to be Welsh. Good for him electing to fight for an ideal that had been violently suppressed in the late 13th century by Edward 1 and his successors in the 14th.
Today we have people who can reasonably argue to be almost 100% Welsh yet they spend their entire lives sucking up to the AngloBrit Establishment. Some even develop an elaborate pretence of being “right-on” nationalists but when the chips are down they rush off to join the Establishment’s internecine squabbles in Westminster despite being habitually regarded as fringe players whose interests can be ignored or discarded with ease.
I don’t dispute that Glyndwr had English blood, it’s the reference to Welsh ‘tribes’ that pissed me off.
I can cope with being regarded as “tribal”. In fact it’s a sight more attractive than being a rootless fuckwit, like so many of those you mentioned above, drifting around fashionable groupthink cliques trying to be ever so smart.
Any English person ( anything from 5-100% !) can join my tribe as long as they respect our culture, language, heritage, rights etc and promote our right to self determination.
I agree entirely. There was a bloke lived in this village from Bolton, quite a character; when he split with his wife he moved to Scotland, where he’d lived before. He came back on a visit just before the 2014 referendum and we got talking. His attitude was, ‘How could anybody NOT want to get away from them thievin’ bastards?’ (The London elite.) For him it was a no-brainer.
You’ve just listed them in the text up above ……” Plaid Ifanc, Undod, certain elements of YesCymru, Yasmin Begum and other individuals (so many of them members of my fan club) . . .”. By their behaviour towards those with whom they disagree they reveal their own innate fascism. I think we should send them each a brown or black shirt with appropriate flashings so they can live out their nasty fantasy to the full. It would be a shame to see them unfulfilled.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. Slavery is part and parcel of history, and the greatest perpetrators of this vile ‘business’, (because a business it was and still is) were the North African countries. It was very much a way of life for the Arab nations, who stole not only white Europeans but black Africans. Also many, many nations enslaved people after conquests, then either used them as slaves or sold them on for money. We should be ashamed of it, but finger pointing and demanding apologies is a bit late in the day. If we go down that path, then because it was so rampant, we’d be spending the rest of our lives doing it! It needs to be taught in history lessons, lest we forget, but then leave it at that.
When it comes to black Afro-Americans, it was very widespread, and in fact the economy of the country was built on it, especially in the southern States. However the biggest culprits in that era were the British, whose wealth is founded on the slave trade (the sugar trade triangle) for their own use, in the colonised West Indies, but the vast amount of money made was by being middle men in the trade. They were the traders, the plantation owners were the buyers.
I’ve used the word ‘British’ with care, because like it or not, many of our own Welsh ancestors were often the ‘buyers’; the ones who had made fortunes in the New World and worked themselves up to owning cotton plantations in the south. You only have to look at the surnames of Afro-Americans today to see the evidence of that. Because they were given the surname of their owner, to this day they walk around with surnames like Williams, Davies, Jones, Lewis etc. So there’s no ducking the reality or blaming others.
On Fascism, we have a wave of young people who today have no understanding of what the term means. Consequently any of these little progressive liberal socialists who encounter anyone a smidgen to the right of Corbyn start to get labelled.
I recently wrote an article on that very subject titled ‘21st Century Fascist Confusion‘ on our News Portal – click on the link to read it. You’ll find it says very much the same as Jac has pointed out on the subject of young anti fascists in this post. They should also be ashamed of themselves.
I’m not sure there were many Welsh plantation owners. The explanation I recall for so many Black Americans having Welsh surnames is the they were given the name of the captain of the ship that brought them to the Americas. Given the great sea-faring tradition in your part of the world, and the number of Welsh pirates, this makes a lot of sense.
Their names were given to them by their slave owners, following their disembarkation from a slave ship, they were cleaned up and and the healthier ones taken to a slave market. When bought they were given a name by the plantation master that bought them. In fact some were branded with the initials of their owners – so that they could be identified if they ran away and got caught again.
Didn’t you see the drama ‘Roots’ Jac?! Kunta Kinte got half his foot chopped off for refusing to accept the name given to him by his slave master! The ship captains were halfway back to England by then – with their precious cargoes of sugar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq7lID_KfKY
And we think we’ve had a tough time of it! Maybe if we’d had a bit more of the hot poker treatment, all of us would have more fire in our bellies – rather than the few that do.
A schooner from Lowestoft would barely make Antwerp. A cape Horner square sail were the ships that ploughed the Atlantic routes. Of course the best sea captains were Welsh. To use them to apply empire guilt to Wales is daft. Tell me how many locomotive engineers, firemen and train drivers were held to account at the Nuremberg trails? All the Jews gassed at Auschwitz, Sobibor and Birkenhau were transported by these railwaymen. It’s a bit rich for middle class dilettantes who were educated within sight of the tall buildings of Lloyds of London, Sea Containers, Cunard and Marrick, amongst the palatial Georgian buildings and streets built by profits of the slave trade to now suddenly appear in Wales and start throwing guilt tablets around is hypocritical. May I also point out that Cardiff was a small inshore fishing town with aspirations of gentility at the time slavery was abolished. The largest Welsh (and speaking) towns at that time were Merthyr Tydfil and Tredegar/Blaenafon. The canals of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire were the jewels. Dic Penderyn was hanged in the same decade that slavery was abolished. His comrades were transported to the colonies. So don’t come third sectoring to Wales and start issuing out platitudes of guilt about empire, especially in Merthyr Tydfil. Yasmin should consider that ignorance has no skin colour. Maybe Plaid Ifanc should look to the people and land of Wales for political direction rather than the ishoos of the student campus.
I fully agree with what you’ve written Brychan. I was not attributing blame for the slave trade on Welsh sea captains, conversely, what I said – in reply to the theory that Jac suggested, that Negro slaves may have been given names that reflected the names of the ship captains, that is very hypothetical and a bit absurd – for the reasons I suggested. They did the carrying, (like the railwaymen you mentioned) in their roles as sea captains. It was just a cargo to them, and they were employed to do the job of transportation and no more. That’s why I suggested that by the time the slaves were attributed European names, the sea captains would have been on the return journey back (in the trading triangle) laden with sugar bound for the British Isles. I’m not sure where schooners from Lowestoft come into the picture.
The names given to those poor souls usually reflected the names of their owners on the plantations. There is no doubt that some of those plantation owners were landed gentry of Welsh origin, probably in that position because of their crooked relationships, arse licking, and favours syphoned from the English colonial power of the day, with reciprocal favours returned in the form of land in the colonies. From Henry VII to captain Harri Morgan – a pirate who became the governor of Jamaica – this treacherous symbiotic relationship can be seen in operation. It still exists to this day. Look no further than the Welsh speaking Alun Cairns and the Prince of Wales Bridge fiasco. Simple grovelling favour seeking.
The religious principles of the Welsh Nonconformists would indeed be opposed to such barbaric activity within the English empire, as was the case with other religions like Quakerism – but not everyone in Wales was Nonconformist or Quaker! There were plenty of other unscrupulous swines lurking about. Non conformist religions have guilt to bear on the way the Welsh psyche has developed, but they can be left out of the slavery scene. I say John Calvin has a lot to answer for, but was not guilty of support of slavery!
Slavery is not the domain of the white skinned people alone. Slavery has been witnessed in the form of black on black, brown on black, white on white and brown on white. It has no boundaries based on skin colour.
As a nation we have nothing to apologise for, but we can’t dodger the fact that some in our midst were responsible for getting involved in the evil deeds of their own slave masters – the colonial masters, who they chose to side with.
Another plausible scenario I have read is the role of quakers, non conformist in freeing slaves. When they reached the north, they adopted the names of those that freed them. Very few welsh arrived in America early enough to own the mega large plantations of the south; mostly coalminers in pensylvania etc.
The miners and steel workers migrated in the 19th century. There was migration for two centuries before that, and much of it to the South. Always remember that the only Welsh president was Jefferson Davis – of the Confederacy. And his wife was also Welsh.
That’s an excellent point, and very plausible Anonymous. It’s something I had never considered before. That may well be a big factor in the naming puzzle.
So how does it explain away the number of Afro-Americans who live in the south today, with very obvious Welsh names, who have been there from the time their ancestors were first taken to the southern states as slaves?
Re your comments about slavery and piling on the guilt.
I am absolutely sick to death of being pilloried for an historical wrong. Sure, selling and buying humans is a crime, we all agree.
So why do the African nations never look at the truth, which is that they were very happy to capture neighbouring / enemy tribes and sell them into slavery for a handful of glass beads and other tin tat? They had no concept of sticking together to fight off white slave traders.Given that west Africa in particular was ‘white man’s grave’ they could have just disappeared into the jungle and avoided capture, but no, they sold fellow countrymen.
Why doesn’t anyone ever ask about that?
Slavery is disgusting; plenty of people were taken from England back to Rome but I dont hear us asking Italy for an apology.
Women are pushed into sexual slavery even today, where is the justice for them?
Correction ! – no such place as England way back in Roman times. It was part of Ynys Prydain inhabited by several largely Celtic tribes who often fought among each other but co-existed quite well at other times.
That some people got flogged off into slavery at any time between 300 B.C and 300 A.D by whoever happened to be the top dogs of the time is neither here nor there. We should just celebrate the fact that we have moved on from that kind of way of life although there are some nasty bastards out there today who are trying their best to bring back slavery as a trading proposition. Some of them living in London, a few have been found in South Wales !
Slavery was a global phenomenon, and throughout history, but to listen to some it was only black slaves and white owners in the 16th – 19th centuries. But in the same period millions of white people were stolen into slavery by Arab ‘traders’ from North Africa, raiding as far as Ireland, and by Turks. So should Greeks, Bulgars, Serbs, Russians and others claim reparations from Turkey?
It’s just more ‘evil white man’ anti-European/white propaganda.