Nationalists to ‘frighten the old horses’
Time for Plaid’s ‘older generation’ to wise up on independence
In a speech to Cymru Yfory at last week’s Eisteddfod, Plaid veteran Cynog Dafis declared …
“by putting the emphasis on independence, we take our eye off the really important ball, which is to achieve things for Wales in the here and now.” “We need to be getting things right in the short term”, he continued, “rather than becoming too concerned about ‘the wonderful place over there’.” Dafis also warned of Plaid’s enemies reviving the spectre of the ’slippery slope’ argument “according to which, if you give the Assembly greater powers, you are inevitably on a slippery slope to independence.”
Diplomatic as ever – as any future leader of a ‘broad church’ party such as Plaid has to be, and let’s not make any bones about it, he is the leader Wales is waiting for – Adam Price praised Dafis for expressing his concerns which will, Price writes,
“be shared by many of the older generation in the party”. He continues “We need to create a new generation of nationalists. We do that through presenting clear arguments as to why our vision of an independent Wales offers the greatest opportunity for social progress and prosperity.”
Quite so, but why this reticence on the part of the ‘older generation’? Those who joined the party in the 1960s and before will clearly remember the three very simple aims set out on the membership card long before the party got bogged down in pensions and PFI. Point three included the stated objective of gaining a place for Wales at the United Nations. What part of that aim did the ‘older generation’ – then the ‘Young Turks’ of the party – fail to understand? And if it understood it then, why does it fail to understand it now?
The aim of any dependent, colonised nation must inevitably be independence, and Wales, like Scotland – and like Ireland before them – is no exception. Self-government along federal lines may suit a more-or-less homogeneous nation like Germany, but not a grouping of very different nations such as we have in the British Isles, some of which have been brought together by force, but have never lost their identity – nor, indeed, sense of destiny. Independence, one might say, is THE manifest destiny of nations.
It was one of the greatest Irish statesmen Charles Stewart Parnell who said
“No man has the right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation. No man has a right to say to his country ‘Thus far shalt thou go and no further.’”
Parnell demanded devolution for Ireland not as some sort of reward for good behaviour nor as the answer to any particular political or economic situation, but as an absolute right to be taken by whatever means necessary. Wales waits for her Parnell, but the end will be the same.
Examples of recent accessor states to the EU, all former colonies or ‘dependents’ just like Wales (think of the Baltic states, or Slovenia and Slovakia) provides an excellent paradigm for the future of the ‘United Kingdom’ as the ‘Untied Kingdom’. Which of these countries, despite initial doubts and in some cases considerable reticence, has not benefited enormously from independence? Which, indeed, would want to reverse the process? Ireland perhaps? Estonia?…. Which has not found prosperity and a renewed energy in the sense of dignity which independence has brought?
For a nationalist party, whether Scottish or Welsh, Flemish or Basque, aiming for independence is the equivalent of stating the bleeding obvious. Not only is it ‘it’s the economy stupid’, it’s like wondering whether your crawling toddler will one day get up and walk. And yes, once the devolution process has started, let’s not shy away from it, it’s less the ‘slippery slope’ than the bright highway to a prosperous and dignified future. Cynog and his ‘older generation’ had better wise up to it or get left behind.
Plaid Cymru is dividing into two clear camps on independence – the ‘Drys’ and the ‘Wets’. Adam Price and Helen Mary Jones are fast setting the ‘Dry’ agenda with a growing following of enthusiastic young nationalists joining the ranks. It would seem that Cynog Dafis and the old plastic-mac-with-peppermints-in-the-pocket brigade weighed down with post-non-conformist guilt and a debilitating inferiority complex are dead set on holding Wales back. These are the Home-Rulers, happy with “Dominion Status”, smiling in the shadow of the frayed and fading Union Jack with their perks and payouts. On the other side are the people of tomorrow, the Republicans for whom anything less than real self-government is an unacceptable compromise.
Cynog Dafis has set out the agenda for the ‘Wets’: let’s not frighten the horses. The Drys now need to set out their stall in the most forthright manner possible. The economic argument for independence is pretty clear. The SNP does not prevaricate at all about the clear, indubitable aim of independence, and the Scottish people are responding vigorously to the call. Half-truths and ‘newspeak’ – Plaid Cymru’s traditional response to the ‘I’ question – are a big mistake. No-one, least of all the ‘older generation’ of Plaid Cymru, however venerable and worthy that grouping may be, has the right to define or question the limits of the march of the Welsh nation. The ‘Drys’ must speak out and speak up. Then we can really go for it.
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Your “The aim of any dependent, colonised nation must inevitably be independence,”
This is scary stuff; Wales has never been a colony, defeated sometimes in battle, likewise the victor in battle, most recent in the middle ages. Its common people, the likes of me included, consistently sold out by our native leadership, Owain Glyndwr a well connected member of the landed gentry who studied law at the Inns of Court in London, and interested in himself first and foremost, how did he become hero.
The economic activity of the 18th and 19th century absorbing people from elsewhere in the UK, how many Welsh families have an ancestor of Scots/Irish/English origins. Where are the genetically pure welsh? The move away from monoglot Welsh to English, not forced upon the people, but adopted through social and economic necessity in a world becoming dominated by English as a language, not English as a nation.
Your “Dry agenda” in Wales is in fact “Independence”, the most frightening aspect of Plaid’s agenda, particularly as its economic agenda is rooted in Marxism as “decentralist socialism”, the notion that state socialism can be decentralist by definition is quite contradictory, but much of Plaid’s history is contradictory, very scary stuff.
Stonemason – Scary is that people like you actually believe what you are spouting: “Wales has never been a colony” – I find it beyond belief that you can deny 1000 years of historical fact with a straight face. What would you call one nation being ruled over and economically exploited from the remote capital of another? And all that stuff about “genetically pure welsh” what planet are you on? Since when has genetics even been on the agenda? Its another one of those straw men built by Brit-nats like yourself in a vain attempt to discredit the legitmate nationhood of countries other than your imaginary nation of ‘Britain’. Last time I checked didn’t Plaid Cymru have the highest ethnic minority representation of any of the parties in Wales?
The one nation was the United Kingdom ruled and exploited by, in the first instant, Welsh and English landowners, the Welsh and English elite, they loved each other, they exploited the people without a thought, and it mattered not where they were.
I used the word genetics, maybe the word was incorrect, but what preceded it “how many Welsh families have an ancestor of Scots/Irish/English origins” and followed “English, not forced upon the people, but adopted through social and economic necessity in a world becoming dominated by English as a language, not English as a nation”, is true, not “straw men” as you put it.
That’s twice I have been called a “Brit-nats”, not true, as I wrote elsewhere ……
“Born in Llwynypia nursing home, very Welsh, very British, find communism not to my taste, Plaid is too far to the elitist left for me.”
No Nationalist’s here.
At last! A voice of reason. Cuneglas has cut through the cant and hypocrisy and put the issue centre stage.
If Plaid Cymru would only embrace this issue fully they would mirror the success of the straight-talking SNP. It’s time for Cynog Dafis and the bewildered old guard of dodderers and doubters to move aside and make way for those who are not afraid to forge Wales’s future.
It’s not rocket science: independence = prosperity / dependence = poverty and the dependency culture. There is a proven correlation between small independent-nation economies and prosperity. Just look around.
Let’s concentrate on showing the Welsh people the way forward. Dal ati Adam a Helen Mary – you’ve got the youth of Wales behind you even if the old farts can’t see the wood for the trees!
Surely stonemason, the ‘English’ language now dominating the world has become American, ie; paitriot not patriot. theatres of war, Coalin not Colin Powell, need I go on. I continualy argue the point to my children to no avail. It is what they hear on the television, films etc
We may as well face up to it, the United kingdom as we know it is in decline and on the way out, it is a spent force. The English themselves will see to that eventual end, they are already becoming quite agitated about what we have, that they don’t.
I notice you never mention the fact of independance from the Scottish angle your diatribes always seem to be against Plaid Cymru. Your statement about the Welsh Gentry who sold out to the English or was it French or German, I’m not sure there have been so many nationalities who have invaded us and colonised us but not conqured us, we are still Cymru and still here The fact is that there were many Scots also, who ’sold’ out to the English or whomever. Scotland seems at the moment to be well on the way to independance and if it comes about, it is only a matter of time for the rest of us, even the beloved England.
If not independance at the very least a federal UK.
Cynog Dafis was part of the ‘conspiracy of idiots’ that stabbed Dafydd Wigley in the back , an act of treachery that but the cause of Wales back 2o years . Think Salmond – Wigley was better. Dafis is a man of questionable political judgement , given to pontificating in a pseudo intellectual way on issues he really does not understand . When Dafis appears on television this song always springs to mind http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=51Ve_aqkyHg
The individual hiding behind ‘Stonemason’ proves the point. Utterly ignorant of Welsh history “Wales was never a colony…” Uhhh??!, he is a typical example of the ‘ultra Wets’ – an extreme version of the group of which Cuneglas writes: Cynog’s cringing cronies.
There is now no doubt that Wales will one day be free. I personally believe that Adam Price is the Parnell Wales is looking for. But, as we all know, ‘comparisons are odious’. Price is his own man and is of the same rock from which Tom Ellis and Gwynfor Evans were hewn.
You cannot colonise without conquering by definition, Wales has never been a colony except in the warped minds of the nationalist’s.
Price will not deceive the Welsh people into believing that independence is anything other than a nightmare of Stalinist proportions, you only have to listen to his embittered drivel to understand, and there are too many listening to miss a vowel, unless of course he resorts to Welsh when 85% will fail to understand his diatribe upon the rest of the world.
As a “Dry” I thoroughly agree with the points made in this posting.
It is high time that we left behind the stragglers on the path to independence and followed Scotland’s unequivocable lead. There has never been a question that independence is the ultimate and inevitable goal. The future of Britain lies with the people of the four distinct nations asserting their identity as modern, mature democracies within Europe.
Will Adam Price and Rhodri Glyn please job swap?The Assembly needs Adam and Rhodri needs to get away from the back stabbers in the Bay. Madam editor will you please start one of your i-petitions ?
Put me in the dry camp! Really don’t know what the hell Stonemason is talking about. Has he forgotten the Welsh NOT? The great dam building exercises of the 1960s? The fact that all our infrastructure – our roads, pipelines and powerlines – all lead to England? The fact that we pay the highest electricity and gas bills in the whole of the DisUnited Kingdom?
If the Union is so fantastic Stonemason, please explain to us what the benefits are. I’m certainly not feeling them…
Draig,
I have researched the “Welsh Not”, its not as it seems, I was surprised, from an earlier post of my own ……
This period is associated with that most hated symbol of English cultural oppression, the Welsh Not, a means of forcing Welsh children to speak English at school. A stick or plaque was given to any child heard speaking Welsh during school, to be handed on to whoever next spoke the language. At the end of lessons, the child left with the Welsh Not was punished. There is strong evidence of the Welsh Not in Carmarthen, Cardigan and Meirionnydd before 1870, but it was never official government policy. A number of school organisations used it, from the national schools of the Anglicans to the British schools of the nonconformists, but attendance at these schools was voluntary and if a headmaster had a Welsh Not policy it was with the approval of the parents.
…….
I have my electricity and gas currently from “Scottish Manpower”, on a fixed term, its manageable.
The dam building, roads, pipelines and powerlines I cannot dispute the facts.
Naive of me, would you wish a permanent drought on the people of Birmingham and the Wirrel, including Liverpool, the newest pipeline is taking gas into England why would you stop the flow, the customers of all the gas companies share the flow, would you wish the people of England cold houses in the winter, the power lines across Wales bring power to our homes from England as well as from our power stations into England. Should we cut off our nose to spite our Welsh faces.
How can we hate anybody as you seem to?
Cynog Dafis engineered a pax with the Greens years ago and while he got elected as an MP he stalled the party’s progress to its main objective.
If the Party’s main objective is not independence,what is the point of the party?We need an Alex Salmond with a clear objective a FREE WALES!
Owainyndeffro, you “FREE WALES”
Are you seeking freedom, freedom from what?
stonemason
your last sentence is rather ironic as your website and all you diatribes in every blog I go to are evidence of your total hatred to anything related to Plaid Cymru. It seems to be your total lifes preocupation.
That is very weird and disturbing it is also the mindset of the Labour movement in Wales.
George Bush and his Neo Cons, Stalin, Hitler and many other fanatics throughout history have thought the same way about people and nations who just want to be in charge of their own destiny. Though it as always been for the control and power over something those people had that they wanted
I give it back to you.
How can we hate anybody as you seem to?
I don’t hate Plaid Cymru, though I do admit to dismay with a party that has a singular aim to unpick a society woven together over several thousand years. And it is my intention, if I am able, to stand in the way of devolution, my recent correspondence with Dafydd Elis-Thomas is not reflected in the majority of blogs about the Welsh condition, I have written of these other blogs having a …..
“rhetoric of nation and ethnicity, of division and elitism, and having a barmy army of Jackbooted supporters” …..
Not my view Dafydd Elis-Thomas and many hundred others like him.
Stonemason supports Wales being run from outside.That is his right. He doesnt want democracy here. He wants to return to the days of unelected Tory Guvenor Generals when eighty percent of the poeople have voted for other parties.
By his logic he will cheer when Putin marches his troops in to Latvia to save the Latvians from democracy.
“The power lines across Wales bring us power from England”.
This is typical of the dependency mentality of so many people in Wales. Rather than actually look at the facts, make up facts to fit an ingrained cultural assumption.
It’s true that South Wales imports electricity from England. For this reason we pay some of the highest electricity bills in the UK. In North Wales, meanwhile we export electricity to the north of England.
Wales as a whole is a net exporter of electricity.
But because North Wales exports to Merseyside, we in the south pay higher bills. The UK Grid splits our country in two.
So seeing as you want to pose silly questions, let me ask you one;
How many Welsh pensioners in south wales will you be happy to see freeze to see Merseyside well supplied with electricity this winter?
Draig…..
It’s almost as if you have a vision of some massive ethnic event designed by Westminster to harm the pensioners/citizens of Wales, is it a political conspiracy you see?
Owainyndeffro…..
We have democracy here, we have democracy throughout the UK, imperfect maybe but at least our votes are counted, consider what Stalin said, it was a short entry in my blog at http://john-tylers.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!412CAFF550DF0A30!1918.entry .
There are no Governor Generals, Tory or otherwise, in Wales, we send our wishes to Westminster, if we choose to, with our elected representatives, the same proportion of MP’s to voters as in Manchester, or Edinburgh or Belfast. Imperfect maybe, but if you expended the same energy to improving our democracy instead of advocating division and seperatism you could improve conditions for 60 million rather than a Plaid elite through its advocated “decentralist socialism”.
stonemason
You don’t have to be a member of Plaid Cymru to be a devolutionist. I am a member of no party, but I am a passionate believer that Cymru has a right, as much as any of the previous Eastern European states who broke away from the USSR have to thier individuality
as seperate nations.
America is even invading or interfering in countries with our Governments backing for that right. That is what ‘they!!’ pertain to call democracy, your brand of it seems to say we should be controlled from the centre.
Can you honestly say we have not been disadvantaged by it over the centuries.
Your inclusion of Arglwydd Ellis-Thomas’s comment in your defence doesn’t mean much because he is a pragmatist who looks at the long term efect of things, one can never be fully sure what his motives and reasoning realy are.
The comment about the barmy army of jackbooted spporters can equaly be aimed at the Labour Party (of whom I suppose are the majority of the hundreds of suporters you claim in your defence) as was experienced in the Neath Valley area during the recent Council elections.
Finaly for stating you don’t hate Plaid Cymru you have addmited to me in the past on Bethan Jenkins blog about your prejudices against them and anything relating to placing Wales in the forefront.
What is being prejudiced but the outward feelings of a deep seated hatred of something we fear.
You also have highly inflated opinion of yourself as an individual I am afraid, stating it is your intention to stand in the way of devolution. I am sorry to disillusion you in your fantasies but it is already here and it is going to stay and progress.
Those who do not remember the past are doomed to relive it. The facts of history are facts of history and the facts of Welsh history show that Wales was conquered in 1282 and colonised with near genocidal fury. Wales rose again in 1400 and was again defeated. Virtually all Wales’s natural resources were looted during and after the Industrial Revolution. (On the other side of the Celtic Sea, Ireland gained her freedom after the War of Independence in the 1920s.) Wales rose again in 1997 and just managed to win in a very different battle. The ‘process’ of Devolution set us firmly on the slippery slope!
The past gives a good indication of the future of these islands and of the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland”: Scotland will become independent within a few years. When this happens a rump state of England, Northern Ireland and Wales will be left. Ireland will be re-united – the artificially created ‘plantation province’ of Northern Ireland will be subsumed into the Republic.
Wales in her turn will be free once again and take her place amongst the nations of the world. Wales and Scotland will join Ireland in becoming enthusiastic members of the EU. And England….well a bit like Austria probably, the rump of an empire with very little choice other than knuckling under and facing reality as part of Europe…or becoming the 51st state of its big butty, the good ol’ US of A!
Who on earth is this ‘Stonemason’ berk anyway. Where has he been dredged up from? Sycophantic English twaddle has no place in our Wales. The nonsense this guy spouts defies belief.
If the majority of the people of Wales voted for Independence, what would happen to the minority?
stonemason
Huh?, you are rambling now.
Or are you trying to draw us into your trap of what would happen if it went the other way.
Nice one, but I think that is a long way into the future we have to walk before we run, as much as I can’t wait for the eventuality
You still haven’t explained to us the benefits of remaining in the UK, Mr. Stonemason.
I’m waiting…(but not holding my breath)
I have responded to your verbosity at item 21 at my blog,
http://john-tylers.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!412CAFF550DF0A30!2135.entry
The question at item 23 remains, and at sometime in the future it will require an answer, it’s not rambling, it’s probably the question that, although not provoking hate as others have previously suggested, makes me oppose Plaid Cymru as I do.
I reiterate my view that the “dry camp” is founded on the “rhetoric of nation and ethnicity, of division and elitism,”, I withdraw my comment “barmy army of Jackbooted supporters” in deference to the “wet camp”.
Draig,
The benefits of remaining in the UK are many and varied, but for me the greatest is the knowledge that I will remain in a democracy, albeit imperfect, rather than, as described in item 26, live in a country founded on the “rhetoric of nation and ethnicity, of division and elitism” …..
….. where the “English Not” might become reality, not with the “wet camp” though.
stonemason
Looking at your blog it is you who suffers with verbosity, I say again it is weird.
In answer to 23 I will drop into your trap, they will have to accept it as the Welsh people have had to accept their lot up until now.
A century of Labour local controled Governance in Wales.
But then, when we have achieved what is our right we will hopefully learn from the bitterness of the past, unless we still have people around who can not accept the inevertability of the will of the people.
If it did go the other way I suppose we would have to accept it like good little ‘British’ people that we have always been told that we are.
In response to your last paragraph was it deference to the ‘wet camp’ or to my remark about the Council election campaign (20) in the Neath Valley area
Roger, I have never denied a tendency to verbosity.
It was no trap, if you cast around the world at other instances of cultural separation, the “remainder” rarely accept it as you have indicated they must. So often the consequences of not finding a means to co-exist without one group coercing the other, is catastrophic.
Thank you John ’stonemason’. Good point!!
I have had my fun!!
Good night, God bless.
Sorry to be so late in responding to a comment but I want to congratulate Stonemason on his assertion, “you cannot colonise without conquering by definition”
hysterical.
I conquered england once
more of the same please
Stonemason is, in fact, a satirist of the first water. He has clearly set himself to parody the kind of unthinking, exuberantly ignorant apathy that has enabled the Welsh political class to get away with murder for generations. (Well, all right, not murder, just theft.)