Anarchist Welsh translation and language attitudes

When I moved to Cardiff, I went to all sorts of meetings by various different leftist groups. From Socialist Appeal to Socialist Party, from The Communist Party to the Socialist Workers Party; I tried to be open minded. Every group I came across felt as if it had no place for the Welsh language in it. The Communist Party was an exception; I guessed this was because prominent members are current or ex-Welsh language activists like Gareth Miles; therefore it is due to influential members in the upper hierarchy of the party that meant that they work bilingually.

I think that fundamentally, as the Socialist discourse lacks the libertarian aspect essential for democracy, and manifestations such as the use of Welsh are being used only if ‘leaders’ advocate it, is an inevitable symptom of this. Anarchism is partly about building new worlds in the shell of the old and not waiting for ‘after the revolution’ before taking matters into our own hands. We cannot wait for legislation or even a spontaneous revolution to undo the damage capitalism and globalization has done to the environment, people and minority languages and cultures, as well as everything else! In the case of Welsh, after campaigning for years with Cymdeithas yr Iatith Gymraeg, a group that was quite focused on linguistic legislation, I concluded that Welsh speakers need to create the linguistic landscape around them themselves, rather than wait for the government and multinational companies to do it for us.

Direct action against austerity cuts

Early on Sunday morning, on the 6th of March, Jamie Bevan and I were arrested for taking direct action against the Tories in because of their cultural vandalism against the Welsh language. We broke into MP Jonathan Evans’s office in Cardiff and sprayed the slogan ‘Achub S4C’ (Save S4C) on the wall. The sirens went off straight away when we broke the window to get into the office. The police arrived while we were on the phone notifying them of what we had done. The policeman shouted at us to come out of the building and threatened to break the door down and spray us with pepper spray. We opened the door and came out peacefully, the police told us to get on the floor and on our stomachs.

We were then put into the back of the van and were taken to the police station at Cardiff Bay. Jamie and I had been arrested about 3 months prior for spraying a slogan on a government building in protest against the weak Welsh Language law that let big companies get away with not providing services in Welsh. That time I was only in the cell for about 8 hours and I was allowed my phone call straight away. I thought I knew what to expect but it turned out that that this it would be a little different. I was not allowed my phone call until 17 hours after being arrested and would be in the cell much longer.

I was very glad to get my phone call, i was worried that my father had come all the way down from north Wales, it was lambing season so this would have been quite an inconvenience! I received a newspaper while in the cell that my friend Menna had bought me. I don’t know what I would have done without it, being alone for 33 hours would have been absolutely unbearable without something to read! There were a few articles about protesters in other countries, this really made me appreciate how lucky I was that I was not worse off. I was allowed plenty of tea and almost all the police (except maybe one or two) treated me with respect and were perfectly pleasant.

ConDems vs the Welsh language

The Welsh word for Tory (‘Tori’) also means ‘to cut’ in Welsh. Now there’s a coincidence. The cuts that the ConDems are imposing on us will have a profound impact on our society for generations to come. From the extra strain on our public services to our ‘jobless generation’ it will change the face of Wales. What people do not necessarily take into consideration is how the cuts are going to threatan our identity as distinct people. After 700 years of being ruled by our big next door neighbour, what we were left with as a symbol of our identity was our language. The ConDem’s plans to hack away at public services as well as their decision to put and end to S4C as we know it could be the final blow that could kill the Welsh language.

Statisticaly, the number of Welsh speakers is on the rise. Although this is heartening, a rise in the number of speakers does not necessarily mean that the language is in a healthy state. Latin, although being spoken by many, is a 'dead' languauge. In no part of the world is Latin the community language or the language of the home and the same must be kept in mind when we look at the situation with Welsh.