Tuesday 26 October 2021

Debating with Welsh Nationalists

 
Just after I published this article: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2021/10/welsh-independence-commission.html, I got into a debate with some Welsh "nationalists"; and amazingly it was not in any location connected to the social media spots for the article. Below are some screenshots:
                                                
*The Tylwyth Teg are Welsh fairies.
 
This conversation took place in a Facebook group about Welsh history. Its about-tab reads: "Welsh history is not taught in school, Welsh historic sites, buildings and figures forgotten or consigned to the footnotes of history books, and nothing is done to educate the nation... I say that we educate ourselves." Very admirable I'm sure and I wholeheartedly agree. However, the group is also very political. There are many deeply patriotic Welshmen and women who sincerely love their country. However, that instinct seems to have been used to mislead the Welsh people. As you can see, many of the group's members have fallen into the trap I describe in the above background article. They want separation for the United Kingdom along with absorption into the European Union and they cannot see the contradiction. They have somehow concluded that this is freedom. It seems to me that Welsh politics and culture, generally speaking, is disarmed by the same misconception as Irish and Scottish politics and culture. Because of our history, many Welsh people believe that it is physically impossible for the country to have any other foreign enemy than England. We've got to get out of this "We're suffering victims of the bloody English!" mentality. Which is not easy because it is a national obsession. That was really the theme of my novel Evan's Land, see: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2021/02/evans-land-audio-book.html. These people are rather like feminists and their attitude to white straight men. This could be why many people in Wales are reluctant to discard the Anglo-Saxon invasion hypothesis. The dominant explanation for the history of Anglo-Saxons is that they migrated to the east coast of Britain from the continent in the early Middle Ages. As a member of my family who is a Welsh nationalist put it: "The Celts were here first!"; but the truth it, the Celts today are not a racial demographic. They are none of us and all of us. It is understandable that past historians explained the Anglo-Saxons as an influx of a population. After all, suddenly people appeared in the east of the island who had a very different way of life. They spoke a different language related to the Germanic tongues of mainland Europe. However this theory came about before it was possible to test the DNA of bones in graves. There was almost no immigration during the period in question. The Anglo-Saxons were completely native Britons who shared a genetic ancestery with the rest of the British people. They had simply undergone a cultural revolution. These two documentaries are worth seeing for more detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qZo0_YaBhc and: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLpgVEfy4mQ. The myth of universal English victimhood is a dangerous delusion and I believe it is the reason why many of the people I spoke to in this group cannot comprehend the paradox of Wales leaving the UK and EU membership for Wales. However, there are some who can as well, which makes me pleased. Hopefully their ideas and mine will prevail.

2 comments:

Laurence said...

Could not agree more, Ben. British (including Irish) history was rewritten after the 'glorious revolution' to suit the objectives of the Crown. I think Wilson and Blackett cover this topic well, according to RDH.

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

They do very much. The depth of deception in these islands is enormous.