A few remarks concerning Wales

["Mark Jones" <markjones011@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A small additonal point on Mike Pearn's excellent piece, and for the sake of
absolute clarity.

Mike says:

> Mark indulges himself in much national myth making and
> even seems to regret that the Arthurian tales became
> the common property of a European culture. But perhaps
> the most offensive, I?m sorry but no other term fits,
> is his claim that the Welsh are the descendants of the
> ancient Romano-Brythones. That they (we?) are the
> claimants to an older better culture by virtue of the
> fact that the privileged classes of medieval Welsh
> society - a society which preserved slavery when the
> English invaders had long abandoned it - were the
> bearers of a literate culture in contrast to the Saxon
> barbarians. And this claim is bolstered by the
> evidence of a tiny sampling of DNA! Taken literally
> this is racism of the most foolish, because naive,
> kind and I am sure that such is far from Marks
> meaning.

Yes, indeed foolish racism is not what I have in my mind. Of course it is
the case that every 'nation' is an ideo-cultural myth piggybacking on what
are mere accidents of time and place. I was talking with a comrade about
this yesterday, and he pointed out that the mathematics of genealogy mean
that each one of us (people of English descent) are related to everyone who
fought on both sides in the Battle of Hastings. The DNA evidence shows that
it isn't quite that simple, because very old and very settled communities
which had experienced only emigrations and little or no inward migration or
settlement, may be genetically distinct and that appears to applay to some
parts of the so-called Celtic Fringe. But it is of no importance except as
evidence of earlier ethnic cleansing by Angles, Saxons, Vikings etc during
the Dark Ages. It does not tell us that these are separate *races* today let
alone that one is superior and another inferior. So this is not racism.
There is no Welsh race and there never has been. If a Welsh nation exists at
all, it exists only because of class struggle, ie because of the struggle of
workers, landless peasants and other marginal social groups and layers, to
resist domination and exploitation, and because the historical form of that
struggle was that of struggle against invaders from outside, who spoke a
different language, from the beginning it aroused a national self-awareness
as well as a class self-awareness. But the Welsh working class like the
Welsh nation, largely became enthusiastic supportes of the 'British Empire'
and of the British national idea of tolerance, liberlaism, justice etc (no
matter how self-deluding such ideas were). There is a great deal of truth in
Ed George's contention that the Welsh were never subjected to colonialism in
the way the Irish were and for this reason: too many Welshmen and Welshwomen
collaborated with the English.

Mark


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