Welsh Daily Newspaper

If Plaid Cymru Ministers are not willing to fully support the establishment of a Welsh language Daily Newspaper when in Government, what exactly was the point of voting them in? We wanted something different, not the same tired Labour policies!

Below is a copy of an email I received yesterday. I've signed the petition, and call on everyone else to do the same!

SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION - http://deiseb.cymdeithas.org/

Keep to your promise Rhodri - Welsh Language Daily Newspaper:

We call on you (Rhodri Glyn Thomas - Plaid Cymru) as minister to ensure that the government honours its clear promise to establish a Welsh language daily newspaper announced in One Wales.

"We will expand the funding and support for Welsh-medium magazines and newspapers, including the establishment of a Welsh-language daily newspaper."

We ask for a new statement from the government that sufficient funds will be set aside specifically to establish a national daily newspaper in the Welsh language.

http://deiseb.cymdeithas.org/

More info available here - http://cymdeithas.org/english/

Nationalia - Welcome to the Real World!

I'm a regular reader of the Eurolang website so it was good to hear about another similar site.

Nationalia is a Catalan site (in English too) which opens the window on the politics of stateless or semi-autonomous nations like ourselves, Kurds, Inuit or Basques. You know, the kind of news that rarely gets covered under the heading of 'nationalism' or 'ethnic tension' presumably because no people are (thankfully) killed.

Ciemen puts the site together, the Catalan linguistic rights NGO. These are the same people who produced a map of the nationalities and languages of Europe in the 1980s - the map of the invisible people who were submerged under the USSR of official maps. Well, the East Europeans like Estonians and Slovenes are not invisible any more and the Welsh, Scots and Catalans are stepping out too.

Nationalia is a site with news from the true nations of the world not just the artificial states, you know those nations and languages which Brit / French / Spanish / Turkish Nats tend to 'forget' about.

Bonkers!

So Paul Englandandwales Murphy thinks it's 'bonkers' to want to reduce the number of Welsh MPs in exchange for more Assembly Members.

Yes, 'bonkers' like it is for the Scots... don't see them being 'bonkers'; Bonkers for the southern Irish (where his great grandparents came from of course) who have no MPs in Westminster... don't see them bonkers either. They all seem pretty grown-up to me.

No it's just bonkers that we Welsh would want to see a proper Parliament on our own soil. Better to keep it a jumped up little talking shop and leave the real politics to real people in a real parliament like Westminster 'mother of parliaments’ - yawn!

Bonkers? Yes, Murphy thinks it’s bonkers because it will mean less jobs for his British Nationalist friends in London. Labour MPs looking after their own careers once again!

So when the Tories win the next UK election, will it still be 'bonkers' to want more power for the Assembly?

Wales Without Frontiers!

Were you there? I was, well in a pub actually, but wasn't it amazing. Amazing to see Wales, a small nation of 3 million beat England a nation of 50 million? It's no disrespect to my English friends, but it was a great feeling.

Wouldn't it be great if we could bottle it - grown men cwtching the man next door, people of all hews of Welshness singing along - a great unifying and positive force in Welsh life. And Wales making the headlines across the World. No doubt the Brit Nats will also come over all Welsh now, and some Labour AM or Paul Englandandwales Murphy will patronise us with some obvious comment.

So, now that everyone's agreed it's such a great feeling, such a good unifying force, such a great positive way of creating a civic Welsh identiity, I look forward to the Brit Nats supporting Adam Price's suggestion that Wales has it's own international athletics team as well. We wouldn't be able to compete in the Olympics. In fact we'll have to suffer the Brti Nats fest which that will be in 2012... and see our culture suffer financially to pay for not being represented there whilst Estonia or Malta or Montenegro hold their heads up high. But we can compete at the World Athletics Championship.

Imagine the positive effects of that, imaging the massive pr for 'brand' Wales, imagine the confidence and inspiration it would give our increasingly fat children to take up sport. All that is within our reach... we're just waiting for the Brit Nats in Labour to put Wales before Britain.

I look forward to see Labour take up (or turn down) Adam's offer. I look forward to Plaid asking Rhodri Morgan and Paul Murphy are they for a Welsh international athletics team or not. And if not, then why make an exception to rugby. Why not get rid of the Welsh rugby team in the name of Britishness? I look forward to see Plaid (and all other supporters) make this a campaign to unite people across Wales

C'mon Cymru! We can be Champions!

It's Too Late Lucas

Sad really, the Scandinavianisation of Britain is keeping poor old Brit Nat MP Ian Lucas up at night worrying. He sees his identity slipping away and is feeling down about it. Maybe I should feel sorry for him - I know how he feels - but, no, he's never shown any remorse about the disappearance of Wales or the Welsh language so, let him suffer.

His latest idea (hat tip to Ordovicius) is to decentralise England. So let me get this right, he doesn't want more power to a devolved Wales (which according to recent polls, is supported in various forms by the majority of the Welsh electorate), but wants more power to so-called English regions (which isn't supported by anyone really).

I've got nothing against English regions, in fact if I was an Englishman, I'd probably support them in some form or other, but unlike Lucas, I'm not English, and it's none of my business. The fact is, Lucas, an Englishman who's shown no interest in Welsh culture, is wasting his time (and everyone else's) promoting Britishness/Englishness because he knows that the more power Wales has the stronger Welsh identity will be... and as he hasn't been arsed to show any interest in Welsh identity, then he doesn't want more power for Wales.

But I'll say this. The English won't go for decentralisation (the Balkanisation of England would be the probable New Labour tag for it, or is Balkanisation only applicable for smaller nations?) until they have an English parliament. I'll support Lucas and the Brit Nats if the balkanisation of England includes powers for Cornwall on a par to the other 'English' regions.

Fact is, Lucas and the Brit Nats are too late, the horse has bolted the stable. What kind of powers will these new regional assembly's have - the same as Wales in 1999, or Wales now or Wales after 2011 when we'll have won the next referendum, or the same as Scotland after 2011 when they'll either be independent or have maximum devolution?

The only way I, and any other self-respecting Celtic nationalists, would support this from the sidelines is if Cornwall is recognised as a constituent part and not lumped with Slough or Bristol as this thoughtful posting and map explains.

But then Lucas' support has less to do about devolution, and more to do with his fear of Wales becoming 'too Welsh' for his own liking.

Brit Nat Double Standards

Are the British nationalists taking the piss? The Telegraph runs a lead story that English is a minority language in 1,300 schools in England (wonder how many schools in Wales?). Nothing wrong in that - I believe that people who move to England have a responsibility to learn English - it was their choice to move there after all.

However, you could have run this story in Wales today, ten years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago but with the concern that Welsh was a minority language in Welsh schools. That is, the gradual diminishing strength of the Welsh language moving through Flintshire, Gwent and Glamorgan westwards over the last hundred years or so. And the process is still happening today. Of course to point this out would be 'nationalistic', 'divisive', 'xenophobic, 'anti-English', 'narrow-minded', 'harmful to children's jobs prospects' ... or probably all six.

Heavens, Welsh is a minority language of the families of most children who attend Welsh medium schools too. No one writes about that. The miracle that happens every day is that these schools, despite their many difficulties, manage to ensure that those kids leave school speaking Welsh and English fluently. No one gets medals, there's no leading articles in London (nor Welsh) newspapers. The English teachers must be a bunch of ninnies if they're complaining!

And if more money is to go to accommodate and immerse kids from non-English speaking backgrounds into English schools, what about the same for Wales with the Welsh language? Why has there been no articles in the Welsh press about the difficulty in accommodating linguistically the English kids who move into Gwynedd or Ceredigion - are the press and politicians too scared? But why?

Immersing English kids in Welsh schools is linguistically much more difficult that immersing Pakistani kids in English schools. It's difficult enough when those kids come from homes where the parents have made a conscious effort to take their children to a Welsh-medium school - it's even more difficult when parents have decided to move to Wales and just happen to be in a Welsh-speaking area. No leading articles in the 'say your British' press about this nor either by Gordon Brit Nat Brown.

If immersing non-English speaking kids is difficult in England then isn't the same true for Welsh in Wales (especially considering the weaker position of Welsh in society and media)? So, where are UCAC and the other teaching unions asking for more money for Welsh schools in this important task? Where's Plaid Cymru AMs on this matter? Welsh teachers need all the support they can get to ensure that Welsh is a medium of instruction in our schools and they deserve the full backing of all political parties (yes, including Labour) on the matter.

What's right for English is right for Welsh too.

The Age of the Small State

Even the Financial Times is now cottoning on to what many of us have known for years to be the blinding obvious - there's no point to states like Britain, France, Spain or Belgium. The hubris of the Brit Nats gets more and more obvious every day.

I saw this piece on the Brussels Journal site. If you read the comments you'll see there's a good reaction by a Breton reader with an interesting link to another article.

Labour's Brit Nats are standing in the way of history and progress - it's time they just moved over. There's no economic, moral, cultural nor practical reason for their nationality just a colonial arrogance towards smaller nations.