Why is it still surprising news to academia and the commentariat that government (of any flavour) is largely ineffective, in the short term, in changing people’s attitudes to life and community?
THE impact of government policy in reducing poverty in Wales in the past 12 years has been “at best marginal”, a leading anti-poverty adviser has claimed.
In an essay entitled Still Living on the Edge? published in the University of Wales Press academic series Contemporary Wales, Prof Dave Adamson, who helped shape the Welsh Assembly Government’s Communities First initiative, claims:
There has been little change in poverty levels in many communities since 1996;
Source: Martin Shipman, Western Mail
Obviously, governments can change people’s physical lives relatively quickly by sending them to war or changing their work/living environment but it is still educational opportunity over generations that is the main driver of community and attitude change and, of course, governments should be to blame for any failure in this provision.
Prof Adamson says: “This educational failure is the foundation of poverty in Wales and relegates a significant proportion of the population to labour market failure and consequent patterns of low income, unemployment and benefit dependency.
This suggests that Academia itself should also share some blame as there is no doubt that there are some very poor quality, mis-trained and demotivated teachers and jobsworthies out there in our schools. This is not wholly the fault of government policy but the fault of academia in not inculcating a sense of worth and societal value in a vocation that will always be underpaid but shouldn’t be and isn’t unappreciated. That said, the setting of ludicrous targets by government or interfering in how schools manage themselves does not help either.
The Myth of Community
What should change is how the concept of ‘community’ is defined and understood. People have this idealistic notion of ‘community’ being a collection of people and businesses and schools say in a nice rural farming community village like say, Llandysul, all knowing each other and working and living in a ‘community’ served by local government services. This ideal (if it is an ideal) is a MYTH in Wales just as ‘choice’ of public services and amenities is a MYTH. Many so-called ‘communities’ (even Llandysul) are in fact commuter dormitories, urban conurbations, Brookside Closes, poverty ghettoes or post-industrial wastelands like the ‘list of shame’ localities of Rhondda Cynon Taf, Aberdare, Gurnos etc described by Professor Adamson as having shown little change since 1996 in their standards of health, well being or education.
What ’sense of community’ these areas used to have historically and they did have a strong sense of this formed by bonds forged of extraordinary hardship and industrial exploitation , (as the BBC’s Roy Noble has extolled many times on the radio, and Gwyn Thomas in his wonderful books ) , has now largely disappeared. The area is changing as a result of migration, enormous public expenditure on infrastructure and ‘initiatives’ for regeneration. What is patently not being regenerated is that sense of community which may have been lost for ever.
The fact is you can’t force people to become a member of a community, or even to behave in a way conducive to community. Communities exist by a combination of historical circumstance, locality and employment opportunity. It has been shown time and time again (cf. Liverpool, Milton Keynes) that trying to create a true community or foster a sense of community by government initiative is an extraordinarily difficult and lengthy undertaking. Therefore, it is largely a myth.
No government policy can regenerate hiraeth – it comes from within.
You forgot to mention other dead communities like those in tourism areas like Pembrokeshire. Newport (pembs) is practically closed for most of the year as it is more less entirely made up of holiday cottages and second homes.
Isn’t this what Labour want….Here are Hain’s words…..”There are now more people from England settling in Wales than there have ever been: one in five of the whole population and increasing by the day. This enriches Wales culturally, socially and economically.”
I can see how some people moving into an area may have positive effects…..but the scale at which it’s happening with it’s negative effects cannot be good for any society.
I wonder if there has ever been “community”, except possibly where conflict has existed for a brief historical period, and that “community” is in fact “group preservation”.
I can remember “community” during my military service, particularly during times of conflict, that was controlled “community service” and to do with group cohesion.
If I am correct then government and the chattering classes are chirping for their own personal motives, or possibly as a “political community”, under duress.
I’m sure the historical evidence for true communities in Welsh social history speaks for itself – the death of ‘community’ probably originates from a time coinciding with Thatcher’s “no such thing as society” speeches, along with both mass unemployment in industrial areas and the gentrification of rural Wales.
In rural areas such as Llandysul community was probably based in the relative stability of the rural population and the viability of the rural economy. Nowadays, many rural villages house professional commuter families, enjoying a rural setting while climbing their way up the housing ladder.
In industrial areas, community existed because the entire working class population found employment in a tiny handful of massive businesses; factories/foundries etc. Through that, and the remaining amenities of a town ‘community’ was palpable
Beyond the loss of the above, the loss of organised religion in Wales, as well as the decline in popularity of working men’s clubs etc. have spelt the end of community life, and brought in a new age of socially insular and materially aspirational families.