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Gerry Foley

A Thread is Broken

[Socialist Outlook 57]

I lost one of the basic threads of my life with Ceri’s death. He was the first Welsh fighter I met and the most complete Welsh revolutionist. I learned Welsh at the age of 13 or 14 back in the early 1950s. It was part of my self-education in the cultures of the oppressed. Welsh was the first language I learned from a book. I made the acquaintance of a Welsh bookseller who took it on himself to teach me about the world of Welsh culture and books.

I learned the dilemma of the Welsh people early and saw it in connection with the dilemma of my own people, the Irish, as did Ceri, who as his understanding of the Welsh national question deepened took up the study of the Irish language. I think that he had this in common with the best radical Welsh cultural activists.

When I started coming to Britain in the 1970s and 1980s, I looked for Welsh revolutionists. I was directed to Ceri, and we started a life-long friendship and correspondence. A shared knowledge of an oppressed culture also provided an intimate bond. When I was working as a full timer for the Fourth International in Europe, I sometimes wrote to him in Welsh.

He was delighted to be able to communicate with an international revolutionary centre in his own language. He had a deep sense of the oppression of Welsh speakers in imperialist and racist Britain. He came to understand it more and more consciously as he grew older

In the last few years of his life, he came to a more complete understanding of the revolutionary meaning and potential of the fight for Welsh national liberation. He was excited about his conclusions, which he shared with me. He wanted me to come to Wales and help him to discuss them with the influential figures in the liberation movement that he was meeting, and help to put the question in a broader international context for them. I and he were disappointed that I could not come. My expulsion from Britain some years ago under the Thatcher regime made travelling to Wales just too difficult when the opportunity was there.

All working class and progressive movements have suffered blows from the reactionary governments put in power by the capitalist offensive that began in the 1970s. The Welsh nation suffered grievous wounds from Thatcher’s crushing of the miners strike. There is no telling how many people have suffered because of the running down of the National Health Service, which the reactionaries hate but do not dare to destroy outright. This seems to be what finally cost Ceri his life.

When the workers and the oppressed regain their breath and fight back against this capitalist offensive, there are many wrongs that will have to be avenged. But some losses cannot be recovered. One of them is Ceri’s life. But I look forward to meeting the Welsh revolutionists who will arise to take his place. Having known Ceri makes me confident that they are coming.

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