Amongst the text, which is in fact balanced and considered, we find this remarkable cut to the chase:
"...Wales has the UK’s worst child poverty. In this context, Welsh nationalism is the old man in his shed busy with a hobby only he can appreciate whilst his family starves at the dinner table. Language advocates are not responsible for Welsh poverty, but they do not help as they persist with myths that the language has instrumental value to learners. It doesn’t.
Williams, in 1989, the period leading up to the Welsh Language Act,
wrote:
'Thus we are faced with a generation of
bilingual school-leavers who have been socialised into believing that their
bilingualism is prized by society, which on examination turns out to be a
rather narrowly constructed, middle-class public sector society, which rewards
its own purveyors of information and knowledge. There are clear class
implications in the development of an administrative bureaucracy, which is both
the principal agency for change and the principal net beneficiary of change.'"
If you are an objective witness to politics and simply everyday life in Wales, that quote really does get to the heart of what is going on, and has been for decades. A narrow, powerful and well-paid elite of public servants, with absolute security of employment through peer promotion and support, are continuing to dictate to others, who live a much more precarious life, how they should conduct and express themselves - in Welsh.
Or, as Radio 4 once put it "what is Welsh for? It is to support an elite." With rapidly-declining numbers of Welsh speakers, and my experience of Wales over an entire lifetime, and however much it may offend your sensibilities - this is the simple truth about Wales and the role of a language utterly without purpose in the modern, wider world.
Indeed, Welsh has made the Welsh Class elite so blind to any other agenda that now, in the face of panic about declining numbers of speakers, Councils are once again promoting Welsh Academies. I'm not quite sure who appointed LEA chiefs and councillors as dictators of which language the people of Wales express themselves in. But it's clear that it's a role they have taken enthusiastically upon themselves, and are hell-bent on spending your tax money in order to prop up their agenda.
And what of languages that really do confer economic and social advantages to our children? What place for Spanish, German, Russian, Mandarin? Tour any school within Wales and you will be hard pressed to find much mention of these.
The Welsh elite, generally simply Welsh-English bilingual, see no purpose or benefit to them in hardline promotion of 'modern' languages. As a result, the number of kids leaving school with a useful second language - as opposed to a useless one like Welsh - has halved in just a few years. Politicians and teachers say it's all about time and money pressures. The real source of the problem, of course, is themselves - the very ones who have been pushing through their 'Welsh Everwhere, Every Time' policy, to the exclusion of all else.
And, like the 'case continues' legal qualification at the end of Court proceedings reports, I am obliged to say - because this is what I believe - that I have nothing against the Welsh language, and certainly not the Welsh people - for I am one of them. No, what I am against - and what the Welsh Class elite don't want you to hear - is the creating and continuation of that Welsh Elite who, through their own privilege and power, want you to live the way they have created for you. That you may not want it - or that it will limit your child's future - is never a consideration - you will have it, come hell or high water. That, normally, is a prompt for mutiny.
What struck me in thinking of all this were two thoughts:
(1) That those who live and breathe Welsh, and within themselves are nothing other than believers in being the purest Virgin Welsh, are not motivated primarily by the language they think they are defending. No, they are primarily motivated by the elitism - i.e. status and money - that speaking pure Welsh brings them. In other words, the Welsh Class are a pretence: they would quickly turn to something else as a propper-up of their positions if it were threatened. They are so wedded to the Welsh ideology that I am certain few, if any, realise this; their firm reality is entirely built upon the flaky Welsh myth.
(2) If the Welsh Class take their project so far as many seem already to be doing, then they will destroy that which sustains them. If more and more Welsh Academies are swept in, and panic initiates more force-feeding of Welsh, then there will, inevitably, be more kids emerging from education with a very good ability in Welsh. This will create a bigger pool of qualified competitors for jobs and resources in a tank that can only ever be so big in Wales. In other words, the current Traditional Taffia families will find themselves under pressure from those outside those familial groups and, without further dictatorial controls to exclude them (always possible in Wales), will be farmed off pretty smartish. Of course, with a net cast wider like this, you could easily end up with a body of highly capable, fluent Welsh speakers who do not share the Taffia's ideology, and move to oust it. I'm not sure the Taffia appreciate this problem, but if they do, there will be an idea lurking in their minds that they old the levers of power, and will move the goalposts to maintain their position. It's probably worthwhile to look for evidence of feigned anger and robust measures to turn the language around, whilst in fact, there wasn't a lot of energy put into the success of the language project, so as to ensure the Traditional Taffia are never usurped. Has this happened along the lines of Pakistan and its 'we'll kick the Taliban, but only so much', so as to ensure the US keep handing out military aid that quickly finds its way into that nation's elite?
If you like some theory 'cod' with your social 'chips', then this text is a very worthwhile and insightful read. If you are part of the Welsh Class, of course, you will leave it very angry and offended. Such are the sensibilities of the Taffia.
