How Fascist Were Plaid Cymru?

[steeplejack]

For me, the important word in your post was 'myth'.

I canvassed mainly in Cardiff, Newport and in RCT in my time. plenty hostility there as you'd expect, but none of it to do with any notional 'Plaid were sympathetic to fascists' feeling, though I don't doubt what you say. Just I never experienced it.

I wouldn't bother starting a 'how fascist were labour' thread as such a thread would be an absurdity- as is this one.

 

[ernestolynch]

I reckon Dwyer wants to return to Cymru after living in the UDA for years only to find that he can't get a job as he doesn't speak Cymraeg.

 

[majorleague]

I canvassed mainly in Cardiff, Newport and in RCT in my time. plenty hostility there as you'd expect, but none of it to do with any notional 'Plaid were sympathetic to fascists' feeling, though I don't doubt what you say. Just I never experienced it.

I wouldn't bother starting a 'how fascist were labour' thread as such a thread would be an absurdity- as is this one.

Its not "an absurdity" at all. It raises an interesting question that should occupy the minds of Plaid Cymru people everywhere. If the popular perception/'myth' remains, it might be an idea to combat it, refute it, at least address it in a major way. Are there no nationalists interested in drawing together the primary sources for one final academic showdown against the Labour "smears" then? How about your good self?

Convassing for Plaid in Newport and Rhondda? No wonder you went off home with your tail between your legs!

 

[steeplejack]

Its not "an absurdity" at all. It raises an interesting question that should occupy the minds of Plaid Cymru people everywhere. If the popular perception/'myth' remains, it might be an idea to combat it, refute it, at least address it in a major way. Are there no nationalists interested in drawing together the primary sources for one final academic showdown against the Labour "smears" then? How about your good self?

Convassing for Plaid in Newport and Rhondda? No wonder you went off home with your tail between your legs!

Nah- arguing the toss on this thread is as close as it gets for me. The idea that a party led by a pacifist who modelled himself on Ghandi for 38 years was once 'fascist' IS am absurdity by any definition.

PC have been combatting it, refuting it, etc., for 50 odd years.

We held Rhondda for 5 years, y'know.

 

[majorleague]

I reckon Dwyer wants to return to Cymru after living in the USA for years only to find that he can't get a job as he doesn't speak Cymraeg.

They'll have labour internment camps by then, surely? Steepljack with his jackboots on, black kilt, the lot!

 

[steeplejack]

What's that loud bangling on ML's door? Oh- yeh- I did send the boys round for you...

 

[majorleague]

Nah- arguing the toss on this thread is as close as it gets for me.

PC have been combatting it, refuting it, etc., for 50 odd years.

We held Rhondda for 5 years, y'know.

Five does not a revolution make, clarty bach!

Fsair enough, Steeplejack lad, can you advise us neanderthals on the best source materials for this stuff? Where're the nationalist counter-arguments located eg?

 

[steeplejack]

Richard Wyn Jones' forthcoming history published by UWP and due out in september is likely to be definitive.

If you can't wait for then, try Richard Wyn jones' The Political Philosophy of plaid Cymru Welsh Academic press, cardiff, 2004, or Laura McAllister's Plaid Cymru-the emergence of a Political party, Seren, Bridgend, 2003

There's also a very illuminating book called on the early years of plaid covering much of the non-substance of the fascist accusation by Hywel Davies The Welsh nationalist party 1925-45, UWP, Cardiff, 1983. unless you get very lucky on e-bay that's a Cardiff University Library job though.

Right, I'm off to bed.

 

[lewislewis]

Five does not a revolution make, clarty bach!

Fsair enough, Steeplejack lad, can you advise us neanderthals on the best source materials for this stuff? Where're the nationalist counter-arguments located eg?

To win control of a council, even if you subsequently lose it, means that you still have to have major support there on the ground...Plaid don't rule the valleys, but for now they're the second biggest force there. If it was a 'popular' assumption that Plaid were previously sympathetic to fascism, and if this assumption held popular sway in the valleys (as you infer), then Plaid Cymru would not be able to have briefly been the biggest party in RCT, Caerphilly etc.

 

[majorleague]

To win control of a council, even if you subsequently lose it, means that you still have to have major support there on the ground...Plaid don't rule the valleys, but for now they're the second biggest force there. If it was a 'popular' assumption that Plaid were previously sympathetic to fascism, and if this assumption held popular sway in the valleys (as you infer), then Plaid Cymru would not be able to have briefly been the biggest party in RCT, Caerphilly etc.

Maybe those who voted Plaid are the ones unaware of the Black Kilt Brigades.

 

[phildwyer]

I had no idea PhilDwyer was so unspohisticated or downright New Labour.

I certainly have my faults, but no-one has ever accused me of being either unsophisticated or New Labour. To clarify, I'm not suggesting that any member of Plaid today is a Fascist. Some of them are racists, but again, very few. But to deny that pre-war Welsh nationalism was uninfluenced by Fascism is pure wishful thinking--as majorleague points out, it would have been virtually impossible for any nationalist party of that era not to have included Fascist elements.

I do think that PC's thinking on the language question is completely confused and, yes, bigoted. They privilege one language above all others in what is unequivocally and (I sincerely hope) permanently a multi-lingistic society. That is indeed bigoted. It is also the main reason why they do not enjoy much support in Cardiff or the Valleys, which really should be prime territory for them following the Labour Party's abdication.

As for Steeplejack, I find it hard to imagine how any man can have wrought himself to such a pitch of presumption as, being a known and self-confessed SCOT, to come to WALES and go around telling WELSH people what language they should speak. Is there not a hint of hubris, a glimmer of gall, a chink of chutzpah about his mad and silly position?

 

[steeplejack]

As for Steeplejack, I find it hard to imagine how any man can have wrought himself to such a pitch of presumption as, being a known and self-confessed SCOT, to come to WALES and go around telling WELSH people what language they should speak. Is there not a hint of hubris, a glimmer of gall, a chink of chutzpah about his mad and silly position?

Only, I never did tell anyone which language to speak, you weird twat.

Oddly for someone screaming 'fascist' and 'racist' at Plaid you seem oddly fixated with people's nationality.

The fact that your position on this thread is a pile of shite doesn't require my indulging in schoolboy alliteration to underline it, frankly.

 

[phildwyer]

I canvassed mainly in Cardiff, Newport and in RCT in my time. plenty hostility there as you'd expect

Yes, I bloody well would expect. I wish I'd been a fly on the doorstep when the residents of Ely and Grangetown were confronted by a SCOT trying to convince them to siarad Gymraeg, you twp bugger.

 

[steeplejack]

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer are we Phil?

Oddly enough one of the current Plaid councillors in Riverside isn't WELSH either, he's of MUSLIM background. Another Roverside candidate was TURKISH CYPRIOT. A lad standing in grangetown was BANGLADESHI. Funnily enough, over 35% of our 2003 Assembly candidates weren't WELSH either. Some were even ENGLISH!!!! Do you object to all that as well?

Wales has no hope as long as its stuffed to the gunnels with bigoted simpletons like you. Oh, you're in America. Every cloud has a silver lining, eh....

 

[phildwyer]

I reckon Dwyer wants to return to Cymru after living in the UDA for years only to find that he can't get a job as he doesn't speak Cymraeg.

What's Cymraeg for 'Manchester United'?

 

[redsquirrel]

To clarify, I'm not suggesting that any member of Plaid today is a Fascist. Some of them are racists, but again, very few.

I believe that many current members of PC are racial purists too.

Spot the difference?

 

[majorleague]

Spot the difference?

I blame me.

 

[lewislewis]

It is also the main reason why they do not enjoy much support in Cardiff or the Valleys, which really should be prime territory for them following the Labour Party's abdication.

Poor Phil
'They do not enjoy much support in the Valleys', more than anyone else but Labour.
You don't know the real picture inside Plaid Cymru. If we were 'racial purists' or anti-English the London papers would be all over us in a flash, they'd love it. I don't think many people believe what you say.

 

[chilango]

What's Cymraeg for 'Manchester United'?

Manceinion Unedig

 

[lewislewis]

I certainly have my faults, but no-one has ever accused me of being either unsophisticated or New Labour. To clarify, I'm not suggesting that any member of Plaid today is a Fascist. Some of them are racists, but again, very few. But to deny that pre-war Welsh nationalism was uninfluenced by Fascism is pure wishful thinking--as majorleague points out, it would have been virtually impossible for any nationalist party of that era not to have included Fascist elements.

I do think that PC's thinking on the language question is completely confused and, yes, bigoted. They privilege one language above all others in what is unequivocally and (I sincerely hope) permanently a multi-lingistic society. That is indeed bigoted. It is also the main reason why they do not enjoy much support in Cardiff or the Valleys, which really should be prime territory for them following the Labour Party's abdication.

As for Steeplejack, I find it hard to imagine how any man can have wrought himself to such a pitch of presumption as, being a known and self-confessed SCOT, to come to WALES and go around telling WELSH people what language they should speak. Is there not a hint of hubris, a glimmer of gall, a chink of chutzpah about his mad and silly position?

Has to be added, more children are learning Welsh right now in the Rhondda valleys and Pontypridd, than in Aberystwyth and Carmarthen. Will this supposed 'hostility' to Welsh still exist in Rhondda in 10 years time? I think not.

 

[chilango]

Has to be added, more children are learning Welsh right now in the Rhondda valleys and Pontypridd, than in Aberystwyth and Carmarthen. Will this supposed 'hostility' to Welsh still exist in Rhondda in 10 years time? I think not.

In the rhondda many parents consider the welsh medium schools to be better than the english medium ones.

 

[phildwyer]

Spot the difference?

Yes! A 'racial purist' would prefer to live in a racially homogeneous community. A 'racist' regards some races as inherently superior to others. As I said, many members of Plaid Cymru espouse the former position, but very few espouse the latter. Well, maybe I'm being unfair to say 'racial' purist, but that much of PC's membership are *linguistic* purists is self-evident. Many people on this very thread have stated that if non-Welsh speakers move to a Welsh-speaking area (or even to Wales) they should have to learn Welsh. As I have said before, an English person saying the equivalent would rapidly be branded a racist.

 

[phildwyer]

Will this supposed 'hostility' to Welsh still exist in Rhondda in 10 years time? I think not.

Its not a matter of 'hostility to Welsh,' its a matter of hostility to being *forced* to learn Welsh (and also to speak it in many professions.) Its a matter of opposing the *privileging* of Welsh over English, Urdu, Somali, Italian, Greek and the many other languages that Welsh--yes, WELSH--people speak.

 

[phildwyer]

In the rhondda many parents consider the welsh medium schools to be better than the english medium ones.

Yes, they do, and with good reason. And that is part of the problem. Wales, unlike any other country in the civilized world, has a linguistic hierarchy--even, one might say, an *official language.* This is not only unjust, it borders on racism.

 

[phildwyer]

Poor Phil
'They do not enjoy much support in the Valleys', more than anyone else but Labour.

Well, that's not exactly difficult,is it? Anyway, my point is that they should enjoy far *more* support there than the pathetic Labour Party, and they could too, if only they'd drop their obsession with the language.

 

[redsquirrel]

Yes! A 'racial purist' would prefer to live in a racially homogeneous community. A 'racist' regards some races as inherently superior to others. As I said, many members of Plaid Cymru espouse the former position, but very few espouse the latter. Well, maybe I'm being unfair to say 'racial' purist, but that much of PC's membership are *linguistic* purists is self-evident. Many people on this very thread have stated that if non-Welsh speakers move to a Welsh-speaking area (or even to Wales) they should have to learn Welsh. As I have said before, an English person saying the equivalent would rapidly be branded a racist.

I really can't believe that you're trying to pretend that there is a difference bewteen a racial purist and a racist. Look why don't you just admit that you were/are talking bollocks (yet again), people will respect you a lot more for that than this shit.

 

[chilango]

Yes, they do, and with good reason. And that is part of the problem. Wales, unlike any other country in the civilized world, has a linguistic hierarchy--even, one might say, an *official language.* This is not only unjust, it borders on racism.

IT HAS NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH RACE:

STOP CHEAPENING THE TERM RACISM.

They consider it better, like many educational researchers, because bilingual children tend to develop a higher academic ability.

Incidentally, do think these children are forced to learn English at school? and French? Is this "racist"? or do you, as it seems, only have a problem with Welsh at school?

 

[phildwyer]

I really can't believe that you're trying to pretend that there is a difference bewteen a racial purist and a racist. Look why don't you just admit that you were/are talking bollocks (yet again), people will respect you a lot more for that than this shit.

There *is* a difference, and a very important one too. You ought to learn about it, so I'll teach you (not that I expect any thanks). Many extreme right-wing parties now claim not to be 'racist' but to be 'racial purists.' They claim, in other words, to believe that all races are equal, but that they should be separate. They are, in other words opposed to miscegenation and believe that different races should not live together.

For example, do you recall that American Indian kid who carried out the latest high-school massacre? Many people (probably including you) were surprised to learn that he was a member of a neo-Nazi party. Well, they wouldn't have been if they'd known the difference between 'racist' and 'racial purist.' Got it now? So I say that many members of Plaid would prefer that everyone in Wales spoke Welsh (these are thus *linguistic* purists), and I say that some members of Plaid would prefer that only Welsh people lived in Wales (these are thus *racial* purists), and I say that a very few members of Plaid believe that Welsh people are superior to others (these are thus *racists.*) Is that clear enough for you, or should I simplify further?

 

[chilango]

are you really suggesting that the welsh are a seperate race?

 

[phildwyer]

IT HAS NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH RACE:

STOP CHEAPENING THE TERM RACISM.

I said it 'borders on' racism. I did not say it *is* racism. A subtle difference, perhaps, but a vital one. A linguistic hierarchy (which is what exists in Wales) borders on, abuts, is adjacent to, is analogous to, is comparable to, but IS NOT THE SAME AS, a racial hierarchy. OK?