| RETURN TO INDEX | A Bydded i'r Hen Iaith Barhau? The Crisis of the Welsh Language and Our Work in the Language Movement [February 1990; International Socialist Group internal discussion document] The Welsh language faces a possibly terminal crisis, brought on by a worsening of the economic conditions which have underscored its decline for many years. Thatcherism has resulted in a further impoverishment of the Welsh speaking areas, forcing migration or acceptance of desperately low paid jobs. The boom in house prices has also been particularly severe in these areas, which coupled with the shrinkage in public sector housing has created a chronic homelessness problem. Conversely Thatcherism has created an affluent, largely English, middle class eager to acquire 'bargain' homes for holiday or even permanent use often buying a small business for the price of an inner London flat. These newcomers overwhelmingly possess a chauvinist attitude to the Welsh language and regard it as an imposition. Almost without exception they have attempted to anglicise their chosen area in education, public sector and business life. We have to be completely clear that these reactionary and chauvinist immigrants, who seek to impose dominant Great British Chauvinist values, culture and language are completely different in character to Black immigrants to the British state. Immigrants from an oppressed nation, driven largely by economic necessity to live in the oppressor nation become socially oppressed within the oppressor nation. This cannot be said of these English middle class immigrants, who move largely for economic benefit and certainly do not become oppressed as a social layer or group because of it. In reality their presence exacerbates the oppression of the native Welsh, whose linguistic and national rights are further eroded. It is in this context that we demand that they respect the rights of the Welsh minority, a fundamental element of this being to learn and use Welsh in everyday life. We also defend the right of the existing population to restrict the number of immigrants, to impose the necessity to use Welsh upon them and to demand adequate cheap housing and real jobs.1 From this it should be seen that our criticism of Meibion Glyndwr comes from a very different direction to that of the Labour Party and Plaid Cymru. We criticise them and oppose their strategy not because they dare to act, or dare to attack private property (so sacred to the bourgeoisie) but because their strategy keeps the majority of Welsh-speaking Wales as passive, if sympathetic, onlookers. What is required is a strategy for active, mass defence of language and communities. From where might such a strategy come? Given its history certainly not the from the Labour Party. True to its pro-imperialist, Great British chauvinist past the Welsh Labour Party has condemned the Meibion campaign in the most reactionary terms. In the forefront of this attack, now extended to include S4C and the language movement, have been Kim Howells (MP for Pontypridd) and Dr Alun Thomas (MP for Caerfyrddin/Carmarthen). They have branded the Meibion racist, slandered both Plaid and Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg/The Welsh Language Society by suggesting possible links and consistently demanded greater police repression. This position effectively brands all demands in defence of the language as illegitimate, since a hidden link with the 'terrorist' Meibion is immediately implied. However, a campaign of slander is clearly no answer to the very real crisis and the Labour Party has been forced to respond with a policy statement on Rural Wales and a commitment to a regional Assembly for Wales. It is also noticeable that Dr Thomas (a Welsh speaker representing a Welsh speaking area2) may have placed himself out on a limb with the ferocity of his attacks. He has noticeably toned them down recently and attempted to gain credibility by making noises about the provision of children's programmes on S4C and opposing the building of a new housing estate in his area, listing language as a deciding factor. Clearly, such a mash of chauvinism and opportunist mouthing hardly amounts to a strategy: indeed Labour refuses to even acknowledge that there is a problem. No other response is compatible with Kinnockism, which cannot make concessions to the national question since it seeks to drive the party to the right and increasingly encourage a passive role to the party membership and working class as a whole. Nationalist consciousness threatens this, since it poses possible action (even on the elementary level of learning Welsh) and since it cuts across the Great British chauvinism which has been historically used by the bureaucracy in Wales to divide and demobilise the working class. The paternal attitude of the bureaucracy to the class exactly mirrors the attitude of the imperialist bourgeoisie to the 'lesser nations', including the perfidious, thieving, unenterprising Taffies. Hence Fabian gradualist socialism assumes an added malignancy where the bureaucracy serves to transmit dominant nation ideology into the oppressed nation's working class. A more fruitful standpoint might be expected from Plaid Cymru. It was founded on a programme committed to restoring Welsh as the language of Wales and gained all three MPs from Welsh-speaking Gwynedd at the last election. The present frontal attack on the language as a living medium might be expected to produce a radical response. The exact opposite is true. The scale of immigration has been a major factor in Plaid's rightward shift as the leadership, worried about electoral implications, has attempted to accommodate to its new base. This reflects not only the historical lack of confidence of Welsh nationalism (faced with what was the most powerful bourgeoisie in the world) but also the heterogeneous nature of Plaid's electoral support. Dafydd Elis Thomas has revealed himself to be a classic petty-bourgeois politician, who became rapidly disillusioned with waging a principled fight to win the South Wales working class and now yearns to prove his respectability and law-abiding nature to none other than the British imperialist state. He has publicly demanded extra funding for the North Wales police and branded R S Thomas, a nationalist poet who openly supports the Meibion, as a Welsh Le Pen. Plaid's document on immigration proposes no method or focus to develop a campaign. More tellingly perhaps, its weak and woolly proposals are actively contravened by Plaid officials and elected representatives at all levels. Such an abject failure of leadership means that Plaid had failed to benefit from the rise in nationalist consciousness seen most clearly in the Welsh speaking areas but also throughout Wales. The party lurches from crisis to crisis and desperately grabs at alliances with the Democrats and the Greens, while the members vote with their feet. It is also noticeable that the Plaid left has not yet recovered from or drawn any conclusions from, Dafydd Elis' betrayal in any large numbers. Having said all this caution is needed before drawing any catastrophic conclusions about the demise of Plaid: it is likely to remain a force and hold its three seats because to many it remains the only defender of their interests as Welsh speakers. Of the Welsh Liberal Democrats suffice is to say that their positions mirror that of Plaid (or vice versa?). Welsh liberalism has historically used nationalist rhetoric and this element was played up at their recent conference where proposals for a separate Welsh party were discussed. Tom Ellis MP has frequently repeated his wish to see votes cast for 'good Welshmen' [sic] from the Liberal Democrats, Plaid and even the Labour Party at the next election. On the crisis of the language however, they have very little to say. The British Conservative and Unionist Party has, not unsurprisingly, shown little sympathy for the Welsh language. Since being forced to concede a Welsh fourth channel in 1981 they have cleverly employed the tactic of establishing powerless, puppet bodies, with quasi-national camouflage, in response to pressure for action. In particular the Welsh Education Development Body and Welsh Language Board have been used by the Tories to divide and confuse the Opposition whilst in reality conceding nothing. What then of the response of Cymdeithas yr Iaith, Wales' foremost language pressure group of some 25 years standing? Born out of the coming together of student radicalism and nationalist upsurge in the 60s it has maintained a principled and radical struggle in defence of the language since then. Whilst we would not agree with many of its tactics, or the politics of many of its leaders, it has achieved many vital successes and set the agenda for the Welsh language debate. The Welsh language Act of 1967, the increase in use of Welsh by public bodies, bilingual signs, the incredible growth of Welsh medium education and above all the Welsh Fourth Channel are all results of Cymdeithas' work. Spin-offs from the resulting legitimisation of Welsh include an increased pride and combativity amongst Welsh speakers, the massive growth of the learners movement, the growth of Welsh publishing and a thriving Welsh pop scene. Cymdeithas reached a particularly low point in '84-'85. The combined effects of the devolution defeat, a loss of direction after the channel victory and the defeat of the miner's strike reduced membership to around 500. Growth has been steady since then and in the last two years has accelerated rapidly. This is clearly a result of the depth of the crisis as Cymdeithas finds itself at the head of the growing opposition to the influx. Cymdeithas' response has been twofold. It has maintained campaigns around its demands for: 1 A New Welsh Language Act to give Welsh speakers legal equality within Wales and ensure natural bilingualism. 2 A Welsh Education Development Body to increase spending on Welsh medium education at all levels and ensure that all in Wales have an opportunity to learn the language. 3 Extending and improving the Welsh radio and TV service, including bringing it under democratic control. The campaign for a New Language Act has been particularly active, organising a demo of over 1,000 people in Cardiff a year ago. The second part of their response was to relaunch its 'homes and jobs' campaign under the slogan Nid yw Cymru ar werth (Wales is not for sale). This has been the main response to the influx and has four main demands: 1 That Local Authorities purchase houses in their areas and offer them at fair rent to local people. 2 That Local Authorities also purchase small businesses and farms for the same purpose and press for an end to milk quotas. 3 That local planning committees make 'local need' the main factor in approving planning applications. 4 Opposition to any privatisation of Welsh industry or public services. The campaign has received widespread support and organised a conference of 13 of the 14 Welsh Rural District Councils, who agreed to organise a delegation to the Welsh Office to demand extra money to buy houses. It has also successfully opposed many local developments, organised pickets of estate agents, disruption of property auctions and holiday home occupations. Whilst this has been the only positive (and largely correct) response it has always faced a problem of how exactly to mobilise for mass action out of the very real opposition that exists. This has lead some in Cymdeithas to argue for a new direction, that of demanding a 'Property Act' to ensure 'community control of the property market'. This position was adopted at the last conference but will result in a damaging diversion to the campaign if acted upon as such a demand will fail still further to mobilise mass action. Two smaller groups with supporters in Cymdeithas are Cyfamod Y Cymry Rhydd (Covenant of the Free Welsh) and Cymru Goch (Red Wales). The Cyfamodwyr declare themselves nationalists committed to full independence and berate Plaid Cymru for their lack of confidence in the Welsh people. They are the only political current to openly support Meibion Glyndwr. However, when confronted with the argument that mass action not conspiracy tactics are needed they too reveal the very same lack of confidence, declaring such mass action impossible. Cymru Goch resemble a Welsh version of the SWP. These 'Welsh Marxists' provide no direction for the struggle and do little more than propagandise on the superiority of socialism whilst attacking the Welsh middle class and Kinnock's Labour Party. As a result they do little service to Marxism or the language movement.3 It is worth stressing that simple left-right divides are very difficult to draw inside national movements. Groups with very reactionary positions (e.g. Independent Monarchical Wales) are often driven by these positions to very radical actions, whilst groups purporting to be more 'Marxist' or 'Internationalist' often deny or give up the national struggle in practice (the Official IRA being a classic example). It is their actions, their 'attitude to their national destiny' that can in the end be decisive. Notably absent from the language movement, both historically and at present, is the 'Trotskyist' left in Wales. The Militant and SWP are thoroughly imbued with Great British Chauvinism on this question. They do not produce any bilingual material. They condemn petty-bourgeois nationalism, deny the existence of a National Question and dismiss the language struggle in arrogant phrases barely distinguishable from those of the Labour bureaucracy. With breathtaking confidence an SWP student with some two months residence in Wales informed me that: one, most Welsh speakers are middle class; two, Meibion Glyndwr are medievalist maniacs; and three, that all those radicalised around the language struggle should join the SWP and effectively give up any thought of speaking Welsh for the rest of their lives.Little wonder that such 'British' Trotskyism has a bad name in the language movement. The only positive positions that we can refer to are those developed by the IMG in Wales on the Assembly and Fourth Channel. They took the right side on both these issues and their documents, whilst weak in places, can serve as a serious and useful starting point for further work. Unfortunately these positions failed to enter the political culture of the organisation. Thus when I joined I was asked by one comrade whether I thought in Welsh. I replied that I did and was told that I should try to learn to think in English as soon as possible. All this points to the need to be constantly vigilant for expressions of Great British Chauvinism even within our own organisation. This can subtly manifest itself as ignorance ('You have a different version of Channel Four in Wales, don't you?', 'Are there any Welsh revolutionary leaders?'); arrogance ('The British revolution will not be made without London!') or liberal paternalism ('It's so lovely to hear the Welsh children babbling away'). Particularly rife is a disregard for the particularities of the Welsh political situation (i.e. for Wales read Greater England).
Conclusions and some proposals
Most commentators point to two counterposed trends affecting the Welsh language:
1 The threat to the Welsh speaking 'heartlands' caused by economic decline, holiday homes and immigration.
2 The remarkable growth in the learners' movement in the English speaking areas and a growing mood of confidence amongst learners that they can reach fluency.
These contradictory factors will be the motor force for a continued radicalisation and struggle around the language. The radicalisation is particularly broad amongst youth and students and extends to the Welsh speaking middle class and increasingly the working class across the whole of Wales. This involvement of middle class forces, even in large numbers, should not worry us. Here we see the National question forcing a section of that class towards radical positions in opposition to the British state. The language will increasingly be a factor in Welsh politics, extending into questions of housing, economy, education and broadcasting. The housing issue poses the possibility of unity between the Welsh and non-Welsh speaking working class, based on a common experience of bourgeoisification and exclusion. Homelessness is as much, if not more, a problem in the rural areas as in the cities. Thousands of holiday homes lie empty for 10 months of the year whilst local families remain homeless. Thus the housing issue expresses itself simultaneously as a class and national question and cannot be addressed without addressing both elements.
The language will also be a line of divide within the Labour movement. Kinnock and his puppet Howells have made their anti-language positions quite clear. Howells used his recently launched campaign for an English language TV service in Wales as a platform to attack the language movement in the most virulent way. These positions flow from the rightist, anti-working class and Great British chauvinist nature of Kinnock's project. We must hammer this fact home to those lefts who take ambivalent or wrong positions on the language. Any future Labour movement left seeking to challenge Kinnock and build on an all-Wales basis will have to adopt a correct attitude to the language. Thus our entry project in Wales has the added dimension of combating Great British chauvinism and winning the left to active defence of the language. This is a precondition, and the only principled basis, for any attempts to win the Plaid left to Labour or to challenge Plaid for positions that they hold (e.g. for leadership of UCMC-NUS Wales).
The character of the present radicalisation poses new challenges for the language movement. The effects of holiday homes and immigration call for a far more decisive response than at present. What is at stake is the continuation of the language as a living language in every part of Wales. On the other hand the growing learners movement and support for the language in what was 'lost territory' poses the need for new methods of organising and campaigning to tap this support and turn it into a politically active section of the movement.
The language movement has responded in a number of different ways. An organisation called Pont ('bridge') was formed recently under the patronage of Gwynfor Evans. Its aim is to integrate the newcomers into the Welsh communities by gently illustrating the wonderfulness of Welsh language and culture to them. Cefn ('support' or 'back'), the right wing split from Cymdeithas, continues to champion the rights of individual martyrs rather than build political campaigns.
Cymdeithas on the other hand is growing, is open and has responded largely correctly to the present crisis. It is still committed to an individualist NVDA strategy and this presents its own problems. Most of the new members have not been pulled into activism and this has forced a re-examination of the movements structure and operation, with proposals for a more mass orientation. This debate will not be resolved on a theoretical level but in practice, as one or other strategy produces results. Cymdeithas thus faces a cross-roads: to remain a pressure group or seize the opportunity to become some kind of mass movement. When it has done so in the past, notably around the roadsigns and Welsh channel campaigns, it has recieved mass support and mobilised thousands. Both these campaigns were largely successful.
We have to aid this process in a positive direction with proposals for action around the key issue facing the Welsh language today - holiday homes and the influx to Welsh speaking areas. We will have to oppose making a 'Property Act' the centre of such a campaign and counterpose instead a strategy of occupation of holiday homes by local homeless families. Such occupations would not only graphically illustrate the real effects of second homes but also allow for a mass defence campaigns to be built around them. Such a strategy would need to be thoroughly worked through beforehand and have the active support or a majority of Cymdeithas, as it involves placing groups of local people on the line.
The other important campaign at present is that for a New Welsh Language Act. The Tory appointed Welsh Language Board recently announced their weak and toothless proposals for such an Act. The response from the Welsh speaking communities has been one of near unanimous opposition. This reflects the pressure of immigration as people clearly see that only a strong and comprehensive Act can be of any use in defending the language and enforcing its status in their areas. Such an Act is also of vital importance to learners and the ex-pupils of Welsh medium schools in ensuring their right to see and use the language in their predominantly English-speaking areas. As such it must enshrine not only formal equality and natural bilingualism but also err on the side of favouring Welsh to compensate for the massive preponderence of English and the inequalities of the past. To all who claim that this amouints to compulsory Welsh we should reply: No to compulsory English! For positive action in defence of the Welsh language and communities!
Effective action around the two campaigns outlined will only be achieved by vigorously prioritising them. At present Cymdeithas runs Language Act, Property Act, Wales is not for sale, broadcasting and education campaigns along with a youth freedom movement and school students unions. This has the effect of dissipating its work and restricting consistent activity to some dozen hyperactivists in each field. Prioritisation would begin to overcome this along with centring the campaigns on the local groups or
celloedd (cells). Most local groups are in a very poor state at present, precisely because the campaigns are not structured around them.
A long term strategy for the language movement will need much further discussion. In brief it will have to be based on the reality that Welsh speakers are a minority within Wales (18 per cent) and an even smaller minority within the British state. In addition Welsh is mainly spoken in the West and North and not in the mass South Eastern concentrations of the Welsh working class. This section of the class is however increasingly sympathetic to the language as shown by the growth of Welsh medium education and the learners' movement. Hence it will be necessary to build alliances between the Welsh-speaking working class and the non-Welsh speaking working class and oppressed to begin with and from this with the wider British working class. These alliances should be based on the struggles and demands of Welsh speakers themselves.
Before addressing some proposals it is necessary to conclude by saying that it is a remarkable achievement of the working class and rural poor that Welsh exists as a living language today. That the language question still animates Welsh politics and is a focus for radicalisation and struggle is testimony to a will on the part of a section of these speakers to see it continue. It is a stark illustration of the inability of the bourgeoisie to solve national-democratic tasks even in the heartlands of imperialism. Revolutionary Marxists in Wales must play a part in the language struggle. We can learn from it, respond to its challenge and deepen our understanding of Welsh politics and history and in so doing can contribute to the debates in the language movement - in a patient, thoughtful and sympathetic way - with a Marxist analysis of the language question and a line of march for the movement. We can show in practice that revolutionary socialists are the best defenders of the oppressed, including linguistic minorities.
In this our links with the Fourth International are an invaluable asset, not only in providing the lessons of similar experiences elsewhere (e.g. the LKI in Euskadi) but also in showing that we are not just another British sect but part of a wider international movement.
Our work and positions on the language and national questions, combined with our orientation to the Labour Party, gives us an unique character in Wales. It allows us to address militants in the language and labour movements in a way no other Trotskyist group can. Our aim over the next few years must be to deepen our understanding of these questions and make them part of the political culture of the organisation in Wales and throughout the British state.
To develop this process I suggest that we:
1 Adopt the general line in the document for our work in the language movement. Schedule a further discussion in preparation for the Cymdeithas Easter School on 'A manifesto for 1992'.
2 That all public material produced in Wales must be bilingual and that we defend and advocate bilingualism in the campaigns, Labour party and trade unions.
3 That learning Welsh be seen as a political task and that all comrades are encouraged to do so.
4 That we establish a Welsh Commission to more fully develop our positions on the national question and politics in Wales. The aim being to develop a full position on the national question and a series of transitional and democratic demands related to this. These could be integrated into the discussions on the 'programme for Britain' passed at the last conference.
5 Produce a bilingual pamphlet of G Foley's introduction at our recent meeting on the national question in the Soviet Union, along with Trotsky's writings on the Ukraine, as a contribution to the discussion on this issue in the language/national movement and amongst the left. This would be nothing less than historic since none of Trotsky's writings have ever been published in Welsh.
6 Ensure regular articles on the Welsh political situation and language movement appear in the journal along with reviews of suitable books. To discuss the idea of a Welsh/bilingual column with the Editorial Board.
Notes
1 This was the position adopted by the Bolsheviks, and defended by the Left Opposition, on non-Russian languages:
... the strictest rules must be introduced on the use of the national language in the non-Russian Republics of our union, and these rules must be checked with special care. There is no doubt that our apparatus being what it is, there is bound to be, on the pretext of unity in the railway service, unity in the fiscal service and so on, a mass of truly Russian abuses. Special ingenuity is necessary for the struggle against these abuses, not to mention special sincerity on the part of those who undertake this struggle. A detailed code will be required and only the nationals living in the republic in question can draw it up at all successfully. ['The
Question of Nationalities or "Autonomisation"', Russell Block (ed.), Lenin's Fight Against Stalinism
(New York, 1975), 137]
Russian Communist Party members on Ukrainian territory must put into practice the right of the working people to study in the Ukrainian language and to speak their native language in all Soviet institutions; they must in every way counteract attempts at Russification that push the Ukrainian language into the background and must convert that language into an instrument for the Communist education of the working people. [V I Lenin, 'Draft Resolution Of The C.C., R.C.P.(B.) On Soviet Rule In The Ukraine',
Collected Works, 4th English Edition, Vol. 30 (Moscow, 1965), 164]
Bureaucratism, sustained by the spirit of great-power chauvinism ... has carried bureaucratic tutelage over the autonomous republics to the point of depriving the latter of the right to settle land disputes between the local and Russian population. To the present day this great power chauvinism, especially as it expresses itself through the state machinery, remains the chief enemy of integration and unity among workers of different nationalities.
We should draw the working masses into the economic and cultural work of construction, particularly by promoting the development of the local language and schools, and by the "nationalisation" of the Soviet machinery. [Leon Trotsky, 'Platform of the Left Opposition',
Challenge of the Left Opposition (1926-27) (New York, 1980), 344-5]
It will be interesting to see to what degree such positions are legitimised by similar demands being put forward by the Baltic Popular
Fronts:
As a result of excessive immigration, for the first time in history, the Latvian people are becoming a minority on their ethnic territory, and this threatens their future existence and self government. The Latvian Peoples' Front stands for an immediate halt to immigration but opposes the expulsion of inhabitants of any nationality ... [ From the 'Programme of the Latvian Peoples' Front', published in
International Viewpoint 169, September 18 1989]
2 'I also fear that comrade Dzerzhinsky, who went to the Caucasus to investigate the 'crime' of these 'national-socialists', distinguishes himself there by his truly Russian frame of mind (it is common knowledge that people of other nationalities who have become Russified overdo this Russian frame of mind).' [Lenin, 'The Question of Nationalities or "Autonomisation"', 134]
3 This assessment must be modified in the light of the recent Wales against the Poll Tax Conference. Cymru Goch have responded positively to the introduction of the tax, building community based, democratic non-payment groups. It remains to be seen how this may effect the rest of their practice, particularly in the language movement. It certainly allows us to approach them with proposals for joint work on the Poll Tax and discussions on wider issues.
|
| Return to index |
