Mebyon Kernow - Putting Cornwall Back on the Map!

BTW doesn't know enough about Cornish politics - why didn't the Welsh media give it some space, not even the eclectic Vaughan Roderick. But in any case, with a blue tide washing across the UK (it would include Wales were there local elections here - don't fool yourself) Mebyon Kernow got three of its members elected.

Especially heartening was the thumping and well-earned vote for MK leader, the 21st century's An Gof, Dick Cole - 78% of the vote! Overall the party managed 4% of the total Cornish vote. A good vote for the Cornish nationalists considering the lack of publicity which MK suffers from (as opposed to bigoted British Nationalists) and the fact that the party didn't stand in many wards. Their vote would undoubtedly have been higher had they fielded more candidates.

It seems the election of the first Cornish unitary authority ... I'd expect the first step to a Cornish Assembly... was a straight battle between LibDems and Tory with the Independent holding up well.
The Tory's took Cornwall which bodes badly for the LibDems at the next General Election. That could be good news for MK if they can garner the anti-Tory vote in the future.

I'm not sure if the MK team are disappointed or not with the election as there was no commentary on their website as this was being written, but from where we're standing it seems they have a lot of work to do but a good platform to work on. MK have done a heroic job to place St Piran's flag flying higher than ever and get a Cornish national agenda on the Cornwall 'county' council. A stronger Cornwall means a stronger Wales.

Kernow bis vykhen!

Greenland Awakes!

Change is afoot in Greenland. In a national election held to elect a government as it enters a new enhanced form of self-government within Denmark on 21 June, the voters have gone for a left-of-centre nationalist party Inuit Ataqatigiit, a sort of Greenlandic Plaid Cymru .

This is good news. The voters in Greenland have seen that after 30 years of rule by the more cautious devolution party, they want a new party for a new constitutional set-up... will the same be true of Wales? Lets hope so.

BNW is all for independence for Greenland but as we've written before, we believe that the Danish connection is an important one as trilingualism - Greenlandic, Danish and English is better for a small linguistic community like Greenlandic than bilingualism where the second language, English, is such a strong and potentially fatal one for the smaller language. From the Greenlandic point of view, keeping Danish as a second language would enhance Greenland's independence not undermine it. The lesson from Nunavut, the semi-autonomous Inuit Canadian province next door confirms this. For small linguistic communities like Greenlandic or Welsh isn't that speaking another language is a threat but that speaking only one other language is a threat - it's best for us to be trilingual not bilingual.

It seems, that now the Greenlandic language and community is the dominant one in terms of number and confidence that Danish is no longer a threat. There's a lot to be said then for keeping the Danish connection therefore... a connection which stretches back centuries and is a window on a wider (and quite appealing) Scandinavian culture.

Maybe Greenland could have independence within a Danish commonwealth along with the Faroe Islands - another nation, were it governed by a more powerful linguistic community, English in Scotland or the UK for instance, would have seen it's language lost and economy weaker - see the Shetland islands as a comparison.

In any case - Greenland leads the way where Wales will follow!

Brittany - A Nation Reborn

The French Cup Final on Saturday 9 May was anything but French! The two teams in the Final were both Breton; Gwengamp (a small town) and the capital of Brittany, Roazon (Rennes). The euphoria surrounding the event it seems to me will renew Breton confidence and politics for a generation to come. http://cymru-llydaw.blogspot.com/

Not only did the French press make much of the event - the sports daily Equipe gave a Breton make over but the Bretons made most of the day.

The nationalist Parti Breton asked for the Breton national anthem, Bro Goz ma Zadou (Hen Wlad fy Nhadau - literally the same title and same tune as ours) to be sung before the final a la Cardiff City at Wembley last year. Of course, the French wouldn't allow that, but they did allow the Bretons to sing their anthem before the game (that's big of them!) ... and tens of thousands did.

A huge Breton flag the Gwenn ha Du (yes, gwyn a du - white and black) covered a good part of one of the stands and thousands of Breton flags were flown with pride. To tell the truth, I'd be damned if I could see any French tricoleurs being flown by the fans at all.

This is incredible. After two hundred years of the awful French republic which has tried its best to kill off any significant sign of Breton language and culture beyond the folkloric, the events on Saturday prove that the Bretons are a nation reborn. Their flag is the Gwenn ha Du, their anthem is being confirmed as Bro Goz ma Zadou and they're not a cowered and beaten nation which the French have come to expect. That Breton, the nation like Kurdish, so long humiliated by the French like the Kurds by the Turks, is still fighting is proof that the French state has not won.

The Breton, for so long humiliated by the French and the French state (and it is a French state) have turned a corner. There's no turning back. I don't expect Brittany to become independent any time soon, but with this historic football event, the ongoing campaign for the reunification of Naoned (Nantes) with Brittany and the continuing call for Breton status, Brittany is on the march. President Sarkozy stayed away - a quite incredible decision for a head of state. Maybe after implying he'd support reunification of Nantes he didn't want 80,000 booing him and making him keep to his word.

All in all, a historic day for Brittany. A Nation Awakes. Good news for the Breton language and culture and all who believe that the beauty of Europe is the plurality of her languages and her peoples.

Good for Leanne, Alun Ffred and Jenny Randerson

Had a quick look at the Western Mail phone around asking the AMs for their view of the Assembly's achievements over the last 10 years.

Wasn't much to say really - Labour spend the first 8 doing as little as possible so as not to upset London. A lot of stuff about the Children's Commissioner - who's done sod all to change the life of any kid in Wales as far as I can see. Some stuff about 'free' (working people pay for it) transport and 'free' prescriptions, and erm, that's it. Not much to boast about. Some of the answers (if important in their own way) were very parochial for a Q&A in national, as opposed to, local paper.

The much-respected John Griffiths, Newport spoke some sense (he usually does) but my hat is donned to Jenny Randerson, Alun Ffred and Leanne Wood for actually saying that one of the achievements of the National Assembly was to do something about one of the biggest things that makes us special and unique as a nation. Not just hospitals, buses nor parking, but the Welsh language. Good on them.

However, one hopes to God that in 10 years time, the Assembly Members will have much more to boast about.

Labour Voters are Racists?

So, has Kinnock admitted that a large section of traditional Labour voters are racists when he says the BNP can attract votes from his party?

Is the former Labour leader dog whistling to appeal to the less attractive side of Welsh Labour voters? Can one imagine were Ieuan Wyn Jones to say 'Plaid needs to do something in case our traditional voters go over to the BNP?' Hmm, you can hear the Labour attack dogs barking at the press straight away!

So, how do Labour apologists and members think this sounds to Welsh nationalists (and Tories for that matter)? Years of inane comparisons between Welsh nationalism and racism/Nazism endless quoting of a couple of sentences by Saunders Lewis or misquotes of Dafydd Iwan or Simon Glyn or Dafydd Glyn Jones or any one else who raises any issue other than schoolsandhospitals? It really does grate.

Are most Labour supporters racist? No, I don't think (though a fair number have hostile views towards Welsh medium education). But no, they are not! Are the BNP a threat? Yes. Do I like the BNP? No. Trouble is, after years of having Labour accuse good people who are Welsh nationalists of being xenophobic or racist, I've started thinking to myself, 'hmm, aybe Labour are just calling wolf here too? If they were wrong with Plaid/Cymdeithas/Cymuned over the years, what's to say they're not wrong with the BNP?'

And you know what, it seems to me that a good part of the traditional (read 'white' English-speaking Britishers) of the Welsh Labour party have maybe come, independently and from a different position, to the same conclusion. Labour are to blame for the rise in the BNP. Difference is, I won't be voting for the BNP in June but it seems a lot of Labour people will.

Fantastic Speech

Take time out, do yourself a favour, read Adam Price's speech at this year's Plaid Cymru Spring Conference.

How hollow the charges of 'narrow minded' flung towards Welsh nationalists by British nationalists; how Philistine their appreciation of the world's complexity and subtly of language and culture; how ignorant their knowledge of countries, economies and peoples except the Big Boy Nationalists of their own ilk; how Darwinian, wrong-footed, flat-footed, genocidal their actions. How stuck in the past the British nationalists are.

Price puts it better than I ever could. Wales is the future. The politics of the future is the politics of Welsh nationalism. We have much to learn from the world and I say it humbly, maybe some have things to learn from us.

Viva the Welsh nation-state, independent with the Kurds, Tibetans, Greenlanders, Sarahawi, West Papuans, Bretons ... and yes, English, Germans, Russians and Castillians.

South Tirol Against Fascism

This is really obscure I know, but taking a look at the www.nationalia.cat website I found the Plaid Cymru and the SNP's grouping in the European parliament, the EFA (which also includes the Greens) has extended it's membership. Among the new members are the Sued Tiroler Freiheit (South Tirol Freedom). South Tirol, of course was cut off for some reason from north Tirol following the First World War as a way of rewarding the Italians for coming in against Austria-Hungary.

The region has more power than our poxy Assembly does (and will for a while unless the leaders of Plaid and Labour get their act together and start campaigning for a Yes vote in the referendum). But people are keen for more power. My German isn't good enough to work out if the STF want actual independence, union with Austria or just more autonomy (grateful for any clarification by German speakers).

In any case, one thing struck me about their website and especially the YouTube video on the right hand side, 'Marsch gegen Faschismus' (March against Fascism). It's obvious that a monument built by Mussolini is upsetting people and they've organised what looks like a very effective rally against the Faschis Denkmal (Fascist Monument). Contrary also to Welsh Labour prejudice (and also some left wingers in Plaid) the traditional costume usually associated with being reactionary and fascistic by some has become a badge of anti-fascism, democracy and rights by the Southern Tirolers. Maybe we Welsh should worry less our Labourist hang-ups (the successful St David's Day parade being a case in point) and confirm our traditional costume a badge of identity and anti-fascism and like in the Tirolean case a badge of anti centralised British/Italian nation statism.

Freiheit fuer Sued Tirol!