Skip to content or view screen version

Welh Language Society's 1st online petition launched

Hedd Gwynfor | 16.09.2006 01:22 | Social Struggles | World

Cymdeithas yr Iaith Gymraeg have launched their first ever online petition; the bilingual petition calls for a New Welsh Language Act: www.deddfiaith.org - www.welshlanguageact.org



The petition calls on the Welsh Assembly Government to ensure a New Welsh Language Act that will provide official status and a Commissioner for the language, along with basic rights that will give everyone in Wales fair and real opportunities to learn Welsh, receive a Welsh-medium education and be enabled to use the language in every aspect of life.

Cymdeithas has been collecting names on paper petitions for the last few months, and the society will continue to collect names both online and on paper until early November when a lobby will be held at the National Assembly in Cardiff Bay.

The campaign took a significant step forward during the National Eisteddfod when Adam Price MP from Plaid Cymru, Eleanor Burnham AM from the Liberal Democrats and Lisa Francis from the Conservatives spoke in favour of strengthening the existing legislation in a public meeting on the Eisteddfod field.

Hedd Gwynfor
- e-mail: hedd@cymdeithas.org
- Homepage: http://www.welshlanguageact.org/

Comments

Hide the following 8 comments

Whats the point?

16.09.2006 11:07

Hey,

Wales in not an oppressed country, like Palestine or Kurdistan. There is no need at all for Welsh independence ( Welsh independence inside the EU) as the whole nationalist movement is built on a fake. The language issue is the only issue that Welsh nationalists can fight about, ie a cultural issue, because the other problems of Wales are only the same that affect the whole of Western Europe and the UK in particularly.( poverty, unemployment etc) furthermore, Welsh Nationalism is retrograde, as what does an independent wales achieve ? More borders, more bureaucracy, more ethnic tensions ( 'you are not welsh, get out of here', 'if you want to stay in Wales you should learn Welsh', even tho more than half of wales do not speak welsh at all and most are not at all interested, furthermore, what about people from immigrant backgrounds, pakistani somali etc. Learning welsh is only a side issue at best). that is, the issue of welsh independence causes a lot more problems than it solves. if you want to learn Welsh learn it, but please do not force this on everyone else. And, by the way, let us not forget that Plaid Cymru is at heart a fascist party that sent people from south wales to fight for Franco back in the 30s .....the fact that people are supporting it in South wales is because of the collapse of the organised left and the betrayal of the labour party. but plaid itself is just another parlaimentary party after votes. this is a fake, and does not deserve support from the left.

no more nationalism


There's a very good point to Cymdeithas yr Iaith

16.09.2006 12:25

Cymdeithas isn't widely known about amongst English politicos and activists, so it is nice to see this organisation making good use of Indymedia. However, as with so many other minority groups (black feminists, gay campaigns and disabled actvisits) the tired London left is all too keen to attack the Welsh language movement. They misunderstand the very different notions of nationalism that have informed political movements in Wales, Scotland and Ireland. Whereas English nationalist movements have, with one or two Marxist-run exceptions, been racially exclsuive, the Celtic ones have traditionally allied themselves with progressive ideals. Hence Plaid Cymru has had a 35 year association with anti-nuclear and disarmament movements, (and in fairness so have many Welsh CLPs). The campaign to impeach Blair by its Carmarthen MP Adam Price was given scant mention in the UK left wing press, with the possible exception of the Morning Star. Price has since gone on to prove an able campaigner in defending pacifists withholding military parts of taxation (the Peace Tax Seven) and other conscientious objectors. This month, he addresses the first Welsh language conference of gay lobby organisation Stonewall. In Cornwall, Mebyon Kernow has been electoral alliance with the Greens for some years, and in Scotland the SSP did, until recently, hold together a progressive coalition of activists from a variety of backgrounds which presented the first left challenge to Scottish Labour since the Militant Tendancy in the 1980's.

And Cymdeithas itself has come far from its roots in a sit down at Trefechan Bridge in 1962. Although marginalised by the British left and anarchists, it inspired the mass civil disobediece that forced the formation of BBC Radio Cymru in 1978 and S4C in 1982 and, with the Welsh NUS, became the first group to force curtailment of a Royal Visit on British soil in 1996.

Caz


typical plaid speak

16.09.2006 13:36

1) why do you assume i am an English activist? furthermore, what does it matter? this is the way you guys work, if someone disagrees with you then they are 'english', so that discounts them from your argument. this is the kind of thing which makes people dislike your movement. your whole party is summarised with the statement " we hate the english, we do". fortunately, most people on the left and in wales do not think in such a retrograde way. this is welsh nationalism, to paint anyone who does not really support plaid as english imperialist, or not really welsh etc. this is not quite racism, but it certainly leads to it.
2) i am not denying that Plaid has done left wing work, or that they have left wing members and activists,( mainly ex labour) but they are not a left wing party, they are only masquerading as one to get votes in south wales. in north wales, they are less socialist and more nationalist. Red in the south and green in the north, isn't that right, bach? you are a bunch of fakes.......
3) the attempt to compare the situation in wales and that of real national liberation struggles is really quite pathetic. i have heard Plaid members comparing the situation in wales with that of palestine.... get a grip!!! There are no english soldiers on the streets of swansea or newport, nor do many people even care at all for independence. This is why you have to make such a big issue out of the language issue.

no more nationalism


The Welsh are a conquered Nation.

17.09.2006 21:32

Run by Gauleiters and stuffed with Quislings. With misled people joining the Army of occupation to go abroad to thieve the natural resources of any Nation where the Government can be overthrown by force if it cannot be bought.

These internationalist traitors sit there watching on TV as their armoured NATO knights smash ill armed patriots, killing hundred for the loss of every one of the armoured. And still the morale of the armoured hirelings crumbles so that any who survive will be pretty nasty psychopaths when they return to civilian life. Of course they may be broken people joining their predecessors in arms on the streets as homeless drunks. (about 25% of the homeless are ex-services).

Our coal was stolen, now their oil timber and minerals are being stolen. The International community is corrupt and rotten to the core, they all grow fat on theft and exploitation.

'No more Nationalism' is making the same claims against Plaid Cymru as the lies put out by the SWP and, those traitors to both Wales and Socialism, the Labour Party. Whether ignorance is the cause of NMN's stupidity, or whether NMN is in fact an agent of the USer hegenomists who have bought control of the UN and use it to impose their own corrutption of Democracy world wide is hard to determin.

What is clear is that NMN is ashamed to be identified. Clearly does not hold a welsh passport, is probably a citizen of the EU. - so in danger of being in sympathy with Plaid Cymru.

Ilyan


why welsh nationalism is reactionary -celt vs anglo saxon

18.09.2006 07:28

1) all left wing movements be it the anarchist, socialist, communist, labour whatever have always emphasised something along the lines of black and white unity, the real struggle is the one between the rich and poor, whether we use the term 'excluded' or working class or whatever. However, Plaid emphasises the struggle between ' the celt and the anglo saxon". back to middle ages it seems.
2) as if Welsh identity can be even compared with black or lesbian is questionable, as there is not that kind of discrimination against 'the welsh' (whatever exactly that means) as the harsh racism and discrimination that black and Gay and Lesbian people face. not in wales itself and not in england. ( tho on everyside there are the same godawful jokes about the English, Irish, Scots, Welsh etc, but this is hardly a big issue, and nationalism will hardly stop these kinds of jokes.)
3) the recognition for welsh identity is ok,learning welsh is ok, but it is a cultural issue that most of wales does not care about, and it has no great importance other than reading reading (mainly medieval) literature in welsh. it is mainly an academic issue at best.
4) if, as an above commentator remarked, it is a 'celtic' movement, what about the non celts who live in wales? cant you see this is a slippery slope that can lead to something far nastier???
5) what if this is just the case? welsh is dead. there is little need to learn this language as it simply is not important to life and in the world, unless you want to stay in a welsh village all your life. languages die all the time and new ones are born all the time as well. if it is your hobby to resurrect welsh, go ahead, but it is only your hobby at best.

no more nationalism


mistaken IDENTity

18.09.2006 13:21

welsh/CYMRAEG is no way dead. it is alive and KICKING.

HEDDWCH/peace

SOLIDARNOSC/solidarity

mae hi ddim yn bwrw GLAW

kate grosvenor
mail e-mail: copito@bushinternet.com


Lies not needed

18.09.2006 19:27

NMN attacks Plaid Cymru with lies.

I am very happy to give Plaid Cymru a good kicking at any time. but then I am a supporter of the Welsh Nation as a full Nation among Nations. I also support Freedom for Hawaii, the Basques, and other nations over-run by Imperialists, I expect that Plaid Cymru supports them too.

The Celtic hegenomy that ran from beyond Galicia to Anatolia and up to the ice did not build great cities. When a Greek city grew to over 40,000 they split and went off to form a colony. Their understanding was that Democracy is impossible with more than that number. Unfortunatly Rome failed to keep its paranoid megalomaniacs in check and grew to destroy the celtic system.

Today we see the Treaty of Rome empowering those paranoid megalomaniacs again, on the pretence that it will prevent another war in Europe. Mugs and suckers all swallow the lies of the Politicians and accept evil taxes that bleed the poorest to cut the tax burden on the richest. But when the time is ripe there will be another war in Europe, one of those most destructive of wars, a civil war, almost certainly on a religious basis. Anyone worked out how to get Kuru into Communion wafers to make it an up to date war and minimise property damage?

You do not have to look far to see that the Sais are building Global Fascism. They thieved all Wales except Kent, and then went on to thieve North America, much of Africa, all Australia and New Zealand, Now they send Gauleiters to empower Quislings to maintain the strangleholds their money systems gives them on all the nationa of the world. They thieve the World.

Nation knockers are agents of Capitalist imperialism determined that no nations shall develop the determination and strength to break the bonds and overthrow Capitalism, they are determinjed to divide the working ckass so that Capitalist Fascism shall win.

Makhno certainly did not fight to make the Ukraine a part of Russia.

Ilyan


No more Brit nationalism

30.09.2006 20:39

Interesting that No More nationalism plays the race card so blatantly and fiercely, perhaps in the hope that the majority of readers here (with little or no understanding of Wales and its various class, national and environmental struggles) will fall for this simplistic diatribe.
For the record, many Plaid Cymru activists are English who have chosen to identify with their adopted country. For the record, Plaid's roots are a mixture of dodgy right-wingers like Saunders Lewis and excellent left-wingers like DJ Williams, a socialist miner influenced by cooperative movements in Denmark and syndicalism.
For the record, one Welsh man went to fight with Franco as a mercenary, he was no nationalist or Plaid supporter. 300 Welshmen went to fight with the republic. NMN slurs their memory with his lies.
Nobody compares Wales with Palestine but there is a national struggle here and Cymdeithas has played its part in fighting for equality. There remains a linguistic inequality but not on the scale of that in the 1960s.

serencymru
mail e-mail: serencymru@phonecoop.coop
- Homepage: http://seren.blogspirit.com