This is a piece that I’d planned to get out earlier in the week, but things cropped up. For example, I had to make a trip to Swansea. So for that and other reasons it got delayed.
◊
DRAMA QUEEN PERFORMS
This piece took inspiration from a report in Saturday’s Llais y Sais, but it links with other things I’ve written in recent years. Let’s start with the article.
It’s about Jessica Dunrod. Who a few days before had resigned as Amgueddfa Cymru’s “project manager of decolonising collections“.
The first point I want to make is that if you employ someone to ‘decolonise’ your collections then that’s an admission your collection needs decolonising. But who decides in the first place that a collection needs decolonising? And what criteria do they apply?
What exactly is a colonised collection? Is it a collection that has been taken over and is now being brutally exploited by another collection?
I suspect not.
In her resignation letter Dunrod accused our National Museum of high crimes and misdemeanours including a “toxic working environment“, being a den of “unresolved racism and bullying“, before sparing none with, “institutional racism across Wales in general“.
That final attack might appear to be an accusation of collective or national guilt. If so, then it’s a slander against us all. Which is why I’m going on the offensive, and not just against Jessica Dunrod.
∼
I wrote about our national museum a couple of years back, when it came under attack from certain quarters.
My coverage began with Corruption Bay and a Tale of Cymrophobia (23.08.2021), in which I related that surveys commissioned by the Arts Council of Wales and Amgueddfa Cymru concluded both bodies were racist!
Yeah, ‘surveys’.
My attention was soon drawn to the Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union (WAARU).
My follow-up piece was Arts Council of Wales and Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union, an update (31.08.2021). And the third was Welsh Arts Anti-Racist Union unmasked (06.09.2021).
In a nutshell, what I found was a bunch of far left shit-stirrers moaning about racism, with WAARU (in its ‘report’) even accusing the Arts Council and the Museum of “upholding white supremacist ideology“.
Wow! there’s an ideology!
But as with all the other allegations, and the cases of ‘discrimination’, there was nothing specific, nothing tangible. Just wild accusations that make the report a work of fiction more worthy of funding than anything else produced by these mediocrities.
But while the race grifters were getting the publicity, plus the jobs, grants and other goodies, they were in some ways just a distraction. For there were other beneficiaries.
Allegations of ‘racism’, campaigns to bestow ‘inclusivity’ and other joys, or funding and appointments, are all used to increase ‘Welsh Government’ influence over certain bodies, even to the point of total control.
A phenomenon I’ve dealt with more recently with, Taking Control, Of Everything (19.06.2023).
Though the use of one tactic does not preclude the use of others. And once you appreciate what’s happening then a number of things become clear. For example, the contrived furore over rappers being banned from the National Eisteddfod was clearly a warning shot about the Eisteddfod’s all-Welsh rule.
With the Eisteddfod so dependent on ‘Welsh Government’ funding, and Vaughan Gething being Drakeford’s heir-apparent, things look bleak for the Gorsedd.
Jessica Dunrod’s sinecure at Amgueddfa Cymru as project manager of decolonising collections was perhaps a result of similar manoeuvring.
∼
Following the WAARU assault Amgueddfa Cymru capitulated and set up a Decolonising Group, with Black Lives Matter apparently playing a big role!
Yes, it actually says: “The Black Lives Matter movement has fast-tracked conversations about the stories that our collections and displays present, calling for us to confront history and challenge present-day injustices.”
How thoroughly decent of them to “fast-track”.
It seems reasonable to assume that BLM also had a hand in the adoption of A Charter for Decolonising Amgueddfa Cymru’s Collection.
By 6 December 2021 we see Amgueddfa Cymru advertising the vacancy that was filled by Jessica Dunrod.
The wording says: “We are recruiting for a Project Manager, Decolonising Collections. The closing date is 13 December – apply now to be part of the de-colonization of the national collections.”
Which I find revealing.
Because so much of what passes for debate on the subject of race and racism is simply slogans imported, without adaptation, from the USA, often unfit for purpose in Europe; and especially in Wales, which had neither an empire nor slavery, and is itself a victim of colonialism.
This wholesale importation of Americanisms extends to the spelling “de-colonization” in the job advert.
One final word on Jessica Dunrod, who sees racism everywhere, to the point of absurdity.
You’ll recall the case of nurse Lucy Letby, who was recently convicted for the deaths of a number of babies in Chester. As far as I’m aware, all the babies were White, a number of them born to Welsh parents.
Well, someone tweeting as ‘Dr Ruby’, somehow linked these killings to the bizarre case of a woman kicking a big horse, and believes that the tragedy of the murdered babies and the horse incident can be attributed to “white supremacist structures“.
And Jessica Dunrod agrees, for she retweeted it.
How unhinged, how obsessed with ‘racism’, do you have to be to see white supremacist structures (whatever they might be) in the Lucy Letby case?
Or to put it another way, how far down the woke rabbit-hole do otherwise sane people have to fall to not call this out for what it is?
◊
SELECTIVE ATTITUDES TO SLAVERY
Slavery is all the rage nowadays.
Well, obviously not the real thing, or certainly not in Western countries, but talk of it often dominates certain political discussions. Based on the absurd premise that slavery was only and ever practised by White people against Black Africans.
And for this, we White folks must be forever repentant. All of us.
I do not believe in collective guilt, even less in inherited guilt. We don’t blame all Germans for WWII, or all Americans for the unspeakable horror that is basketball. And if my great-great-great-great-grandfather killed somebody then that was something he did and for which he alone was and remains responsible.
Similarly with slavery. Though others choose to see it differently.
One of those being Malik Al Nasir, described in the article below as “a poet and an author”, also a PhD history student at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. He has focused on former MP and Assembly Member Antoinette Sandbach.
It seems that she had a slave-owning ancestor named Samuel Sandbach and Al Nasir wanted everyone to know. This resulted in death threats for Sandbach.
The article doesn’t tell us when Samuel Sandbach flourished, but seeing as Britain outlawed slavery in 1833/34, it had to be over 200 years ago.
I further assume that a man like Malik Al Nasir, so concerned with the horrors of slavery, must be aware that Black Africans are today being sold in North African slave markets by his fellow Muslims.
Come to that, how many Black Africans were enslaved by Muslims over the centuries? Why is it, as this article suggests, “a taboo subject“?
Well, we know why, don’t we? (And if you don’t know, then keep reading.)
After all is said and done, Al Nasir is free to condemn the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but he should be honest enough to accept that slavery was universal.
And by the same token, I am free to condemn the countries of the Sahel, and Turkey, for their part in enslaving millions of White, Christian Europeans in the same time frame as the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
The more I think about the left’s attitude to slavery the more I see the response from the same quarter to ’emissions’ and fossil fuels. China can open a coal-fired power station every other day, the same with India and other countries . . . but climate change is still the fault of Western countries currently impoverishing their populations with degrowth strategies in pursuit of Net Zero.
Which should tell you that it’s not really about slavery, or emissions. These are just elements of the Globalist agenda being implemented to undermine the West.
◊
WHITE BUGGERS ON BIKES
We turn now to someone who’s appeared on this blog before, it’s Gareth James, who runs Irie’s Rum Bar and Reggae Lounge in Aberystwyth. He appeared in Welsh Independence And The Left, back in January.
He got a mention because Aberystwyth seemed to be home to a number of those I wrote about, with Gareth James himself, in his piece in the Cambrian News, arguing that Dyfed Powys Police should be more Woke!
(Most people would settle for them being awake.)
His most recent offering was in last week’s Cambrian News. It’s a truly strange, and worrying article, but it’s very clear that Gareth James has issues with middle-aged White men riding motorbikes.
I won’t dissect it too much, but a few questions must be asked.
If the problem is the noise he claims they make, does it really matter that these bikers Gareth James complains about are White? To put it another way, would the noise be acceptable if these, “elderly dickheads on ear-splitting motorbikes” were Black?
But then, he seems to think that if they were Black they wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near Aberystwyth. Thanks to un-Woke local Plod.
I know Aberystwyth prom, and I’ve seen the bikers parked near the Prom Diner many a time. Yes, there are a few preening wankers among them, but by and large they’re just ordinary blokes who like motorbikes, and like getting together to talk about motorbikes.
Some are middle class, but most are not. Many come up from the south. Let me make it absolutely clear that I’m thinking now of southern Wales, not Dixie.
I make that clear because the piece gave us another jarring Americanism with Gareth’s reference to Harley Davidsons. Jarring because I don’t think I’ve ever seen one on Aber’ prom.
But Gareth’s rant is obviously informed by American movies, and the perception that all-White motorcycle gangs are inherently racist.
Slow down, Gareth; it’s Aberystwyth promenade, not Sturgis, SD.
That sad piece says more about Gareth James than it says about the problems caused by a few middle-aged bikers in Aberystwyth.
Its confessional nature was disappointing because even though rum and reggae are not my thing I was still warming to Gareth James. Possibly because I’ve spent many happy hours – days, even! – in establishments of public resort wherein alcohol may be obtained.
To the extent that I believe there’s a special place in Heaven reserved for bar-keepers. And if I’m right, then, when my time comes, you’ll find me there on a bar stool.
But I’d rather spend eternity being served by a bosomy slapper (Black or White) who enjoys a risqué joke than being lectured on the evils of Whiteness by Gareth James.
◊
CONCLUSION
If Jessica Dunrod was the best of those that applied for the post of decolonization (sic) officer at Amgueddfa Cymru then it don’t bear thinking about the unsuccessful candidates.
Malik Al Nasir is a wannabe academic riding a wave. Promoting himself by putting an innocent woman in danger was unforgiveable.
Gareth James really does need to take a long, hard look at the town and the country he lives in. It’s nowhere near as bad as he seems to think.
Combatting ‘racism’ has become a way for some to expose their own frailties by using the most absurd pretexts to attack White people. Thankfully, an increasing number of people, White and Black, see it for what it is. Which is why Dunrod, Al Nasir, James, and others, need to remember the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
Otherwise people will ignore them when the fascists really do appear.
For I see it now . . . hundreds of the noisy buggers, astride Harley Davidsons, demanding the immediate implementation of “white supremacist structures” as they ride up and down Aberystwyth prom seeking Gareth James.
♦ end ♦
© Royston Jones 2023
Way off topic but have to get this off my chest !
Government agrees to “invest” big money to eliminate thousands of well paid jobs with nothing but promises of a bright future for displaced people in their new “green heaven on earth” vision
£500m Tata Steel aid package confirmed amid job loss concerns | Insider Media
Way I see it this is just another case of Big Globalist Business palling up with, or bullying, a UK government with delusions of being “big”. Big ? Sunak is a fuckin’ dwarf ! and his Cabinet a bunch of intellectual dwarfs.
Result ? Eradication of thousands of well paid skilled jobs while the parties to this deal engage in another round of self congratulation, getting aroused at the thought of being pace setters in the race to be more green.
In the meantime Drakeford can spout as much crap as he likes about those wicked Tories but he knows damn well that his tame acceptance of anything remotely green makes it so much easier for the London criminal elite to make such moves. Maybe it’s blue collar unions that will trigger a revolt in favour of common sense. Another union leader was voicing his concerns recently that the green “revolution” had not yet delivered anything much of real value to his members. Look forward to the day when those members turn nasty.
Hello Jac, Thought it worth pointing out that a friend of mine is a transgender woman. Her transition was not in anyway motivated by anything more than she felt she was a woman. One does not undertake such a radical physical transformation lightly! Further, she is a raging, old-school, Welsh Republican, and a YesCymru activist (she left Plaid due to its continued insistence on championing “woke” causes.
No issue with what you describe, Gruff. Sincerity always wins out with me. It’s liars and hypocrites I target.
The problem I have is with those men who tart themselves up and demand to ‘entertain’ children. Those men who say they’re women so as to win in women’s sports. Those men who say they’re women so they can flaunt their penises in front of women and girls in changing rooms and other places. And of course, rapists who suddenly decide they’re women so as to be sent to a female prison.
It’s all bullshit. It would be bullshit on that one level alone. But this particular bullshit is more dangerous because it’s being encouraged as part of a wider campaign to spread anger and division in Western societies. And we both know where that comes from, and who hopes to gain.
Interesting viewpoint
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFkG6PIsTEs
Since the left lost the White working class (obvious by 2016) we have seen the rise of transgenderism, environmental hysteria, BLM, open borders. All used to fulfil the same role of destroying capitalism / the West. But now directed and encouraged not from Moscow but from Davos.
A good example of how these matters should be handled if it becomes necessary. I think we all know of cases that have made their journey without much fuss and bother and with the support of their communities. It contrasts completely with the shrieking hysteria of those demented men who just have an overpowering urge to dress up as gals, expect to engage in any and all kinds of unusual behaviour to public acclaim, and no intention to ever engaging in the transition process. When they cross into criminality they should always be treated as men despite their preferences.
Massive Renewable Energy Projects are being developed, with far more proposed, all over Wales. The Wales Labour Government, in a cooperation policy agreement with Plaid Cymru, are bypassing “due processes” of the established democratic planning system in Wales. Localised nimby groups wake up only when a project comes in view of the windows of their cosy homes. Each individual community is like a “pin” on a skittle bowling alley. Eventually the ones rolling the balls (Labour with Plaid) are flattening them all. All for an erratic unreliable flow of energy that will lead to a disastrous economy and tragic loss of our countryside. There is not one single political party or politician or ‘mab darogan’ left in Cymru willing to stand up to this heresy of of our nation. The ‘skittlers’ need to be scuttled, but who has got the balls to do it !
I implore anyone reading this to watch ‘What is a Woman?’, by Matt Walsh. Illuminating and shocking.
OK David Smith – please tell us exactly how and where we can all watch ‘What is a Woman?’, by Matt Walsh.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1UBkLcSGaSHGGdqKnBnXhvZASigmmZnCZ/view?usp=drivesdk
I am led to believe that the Welsh Arts Council gets a hefty Grant of our money from Wales Government, that is run by Labour, with its little butties Plaid Cymru, in a tied up binding agreement of co-operation on a number of agreed policies. Is that correct?
I am also led to believe that certain Welsh Language Publications in turn get hefty grants of the same public money – our money – from the Welsh Arts Council. Is that correct? Can someone tell us which publications and how much. Perhaps that is why such Welsh Language publications make no space for reporting on major Welsh issues like the Bute Energy erratic giant Wind Turbine proposals that will desecrate much of Wales. Much of what they report is safe sanitised news of Chapels and Eisteddfodau. Come on “Jac Readers” tell us some money facts on this situation that has led to silence on major issues like the Bute Proposals. Also how the Welsh Local Government Pension Scheme is investing £ millions into Bute who have no known track record on yet building a single Wind Turbine yet. A lot of Welsh speakers work in the public sector. This is more important than S4C TV reporting the pathetic strange people seen in drag on Y MAES at the recent Eisteddfod. I notice those drag queens were not seen in such prominence at the Royal Welsh Show!
……Come on “Jac Readers” tell us some money facts on this situation…….Perhaps you should aim those questions at your local A.S who has either participated in various funding decisions ( some seem very convoluted) or should have scrutinised them while sat in Opposition. Of course many “funding” decisions are made in more opaque ways, headline budgets get approved but the fragmented spending during any fiscal year often goes unreported until long after ( or after the horse has bolted!). It would be of interest to read your A.S ‘s responses assuming they do you the courtesy at all.
As for the WLGA and the pensions schemes that is an area of activity that makes the Freemasons look totally transparent. ldeology and fashionable projects get priority over financial performance and track record hence the need to keep on topping up to keep these schemes half way viable to meet their future obligations. Your local County Councillor probably know next to sweet F.A. about these matters although he/she/it may be better briefed about the current value of being involved on planning committees !
BLM ………..Buying Large Mansions!
The overarching intent of the players of Rummy’s hypothetical account is odd and contradictory. To deign, is to do something that you see as beneath you. Why would a gang of Black yoofs get together to make some noise in Aberystwyth when they really can’t be arsed, and then get umbrage when told to piss off by the fuzz? This guy needs to invest in a dictionary.
What sort of deranged bastard do you have to be to try to score some woke points off that monstrous case of serial infanticide? I’m sorry, but if Letby was some sort of ‘beneficiary’ of white supremacy and/or privilege, then that is a fucking infinitesimal ‘crime’ compared to any failure of oversight in a general sense, let alone the heinous and unspeakable acts she perpetrated. Maybe these cunts can explain their thesis to any of the number of grieving parents for a short, sharp reality check?
I suspect she used the Letby case because it was all over the news, but it could have been any case, because that’s how they operate – choose a subject or scenario people are familiar with and then ‘interpret’ it for them. Most will react like you, but as long as there are some who’ll buy it, they win.
I note that “There is no single definition of what decolonising a collection means”. OK. We can’t tell you what we want. We’ll make it up as we go along, and you’ll go along with that. Because we are better than you. To disagree is bigotry.
Grifters latch on to a post-religious need to feel guilt and they exploit it like hell. The non-white world is now the crucified Christ for whose sufferings it has become necessary to atone. The New Left was largely grown in the USA, so appropriates religious psychology to manipulate its victims. The correct response to any attempt to impose guilt is ‘The debt you claim as yours does not exist outside your imagination. Maybe educate yourself?’
One thing I’ve noticed increasingly is how wokeness seeks to capture and curate the normal. When ‘woke’ is defined as being caring, compassionate, empathetic, and other positive things, this is an example of emotional appropriation. Since all these positive things are normal emotions, shared even by the resolutely non-woke, what is gained by bundling them up as a new word? What is gained is a ‘walled garden’, in which the agenda-setters lay claim to a monopoly on them and police any attempt to interpret them in any wider context. When ‘woke’ is everything positive, critics necessarily become everything negative.
The monopoly on virtue of which you speak can be summed up, ‘Be kind, innit – or we’ll fucking kill you!‘
It used to be called Common Courtesy and in any sensible society it would be the only requirement alongside the Golden Rule of “Do unto others…”
If not met, the ‘Invisible Hand’ provided correction by rendering tossers and gobshites as social pariahs. Self-flagellation and unending repentance, nothing else will suffice in these modern times, though.
In a way they are as bad as any racial purists they claim to rail against with their black/white – good/bad distinctions.
Craig Murray has a recent post on that expunging of the difference between social sanction and political persecution:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2023/08/the-scottish-gestapo/
We’re back to the 1640s, when the distinction between morality and law likewise disappeared.
There was and remains a need for de-colonisation of our museums and history in general here in Wales. Too much emphasis on artifacts and “heritage” attributable to the Anglo-Norman invasion, subjugation and oppression. When Kinnock Snr dies he can be an exhibit in the new “assimilation” section.
Ms Dunrod could have been forgiven for not being fully aware of what happened to Wales between 1066 and today had she not been so keen to work in a national institution devoted to our past. Had she acquainted herself with that history she might have seen fit to moderate her attacks on Wales and Welshness and drawn parallels between our experience and that of her own ethnic forefathers. Instead in the classic approach of those who wish to destroy our minority identity she and others will home in on the (relatively) few Cymry who made their fortunes trading and shipping slaves. Sadly these people seldom if ever investigate their own forefathers and identify who among them who did exactly the same thing.
As for Malik al Nasir he really needs to get his head out of his arse. Not only did Arabs trade slaves of all ethnicities in the past, they are still at it today. Homing in on people because ancestors were traders is a pretty shallow cheap distraction when there is plenty of it going on today. Taboo ? Maybe but these people need to be confronted about it today because the suffering inflicted on millions of people by people of their own ethnicity is mind blowing. UK seems to be a touch too polite in how they respond to this phenomenon and our Bay regime just can’t bring itself to even acknowledge its existence electing instead to inject a hefty dose of self flagellation into our institutions.
On reflection (and after you reminding me, drat!), I should have made the point about the real decolonisation that’s needed. Though the thought of a stuffed Kinnock on display, frightening the kids, may be going too far.
Malik Al Nasir, as you say, needs to refocus. He of course knows about the Muslim record in slavery. But he’s allowed to get away with his myopia by a left-liberal establishment in the West that will destroy the West . . . in the interests of ‘inclusivity’, of course. And these grifters know it.
Talk of forebears by these sorts will always end up in a logical quagmire. What about modern day black descendants of Uncle Toms, or those who sold their fellow Africans to the whites? Perhaps they too should repent; where does it begin and end?
It should begin and end with those who are / were directly responsible. No one else.
I do understand that there is obviously a hangover of past wrongs in the States, (probably more recent wrongs like segregation rather than slavery itself). A lot of black people there are part of an underclass, and deftly applied government intervention to improve their lot is to be welcomed. But dwelling on the past, the blame game and other crude, knee-jerk measures are not the way to go about it.
I think Black America in a lot of instances is in a vicious cycle which no doubt began with racism, which is obviously still a factor, but is also today being perpetuated by generational bad habits like drug addiction, spousal abuse and broken homes, and the glamorisation of the ‘thug’ lifestyle by rap ‘music’, Blaxploitation cinema and the like.
I do believe it can be too easy to glibly implore those with a poor lot in life to just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, as no person is an island and we are all products of our environments. This is probably conservatism’s biggest failure for my money.