George is Welsh, and they have been talking about Welsh culture and language to remember how Plaid Cymru was formed on a day like today in 1925, with the aim of disseminating knowledge of the Welsh language that was at the time in danger of dying out.
The Grandma often visits George in his hometown, but due to COVID-19, she has not seen him for two years, and it has been a great surprise this visit and a great opportunity to talk about one of the oldest European nations, Wales, and one of the most amazing and incredible European languages, Welsh.
If Europe wants to grow in harmony and respect, it must protect and preserve its national minorities, these old countries that today are a part of big states, but they were, and they are, historical nations with their own cultures and languages. Wales is one of them.
George was born in Llanfairpwll-gwyngyllgogerychwyrndrob-wllllantysiliogogogoch, a large village and local government community on the island of Anglesey, Wales, on the Menai Strait next to the Britannia Bridge and across the strait from Bangor.
Plaid Cymru is a Welsh nationalist and social democratic political party in Wales, which advocates for Welsh independence from the United Kingdom.
Plaid was formed in 1925 and won its first seat in the UK Parliament in 1966. The party holds three of 40 Welsh seats in the UK Parliament, 13 of 60 seats in the Senedd, and 202 of 1,264 principal local authority councillors. It is a member of the European Free Alliance.
More information: Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru's goals as set out in its constitution are:
-To promote the constitutional advancement of Wales with a view to attaining independence within the European Union;
-To ensure economic prosperity, social justice and the health of the natural environment, based on decentralize socialism;
-To build a national community based on equal citizenship, respect for different traditions and cultures and the equal worth of all individuals, whatever their race, nationality, gender, colour, creed, sexuality, age, ability or social background;
-To create a bilingual society by promoting use of the Welsh language;
-To promote Wales' contribution to the global community and to attain membership of the United Nations.
More information: Plaid Cymru
In September 2008, a senior Plaid assembly member spelled out her party's continuing support for an independent Wales. The Welsh Minister for Rural Affairs, Elin Jones, began Plaid's annual conference by pledging to uphold the goal of making Wales a European Union member state. She told the delegates in Aberystwyth that the party would continue its commitment to independence under the coalition with Welsh Labour.
While both the Labour and Liberal parties of the early 20th century had accommodated demands for Welsh home rule, no political party existed for the purpose of establishing a Welsh government.
Plaid Genedlaethol Cymru was formed on 5 August 1925, by Moses Gruffydd, H. R. Jones and Lewis Valentine, members of Byddin Ymreolwyr Cymru; and Fred Jones, Saunders Lewis and David John Williams of Y Mudiad Cymreig.
In the 1929 general election the party contested its first parliamentary constituency, Caernarvonshire, polling 609 votes, or 1.6% of the vote for that seat. The party contested few such elections in its early years, partly due to its ambivalence towards Westminster politics. Indeed, the candidate Lewis Valentine, the party's first president, offered himself in Caernarvonshire on a platform of demonstrating Welsh people's rejection of English dominion.
By 1932, the aims of self-government and Welsh representation at the League of Nations had been added to that of preserving Welsh language and culture. However, this move, and the party's early attempts to develop an economic critique, did not broaden its appeal beyond that of an intellectual and socially conservative Welsh language pressure group. The alleged sympathy of the party's leading members, including President Saunders Lewis, towards Europe's totalitarian regimes compromised its early appeal further.
Saunders Lewis, David John Williams and Lewis Valentine set fire to the newly constructed RAF Penyberth air base on the Llŷn Peninsula in Gwynedd in 1936, in protest at its siting in the Welsh-speaking heartland. The leaders' treatment, including the trial judge's dismissal of the use of Welsh and their subsequent imprisonment in Wormwood Scrubs, led to The Three becoming a cause célèbre. This heightened the profile of the party dramatically, and its membership had doubled to nearly 2,000 by 1939.
More information: Twitter-Plaid Cymru
Before the 2019 general election, it was announced that it would set up a commission to look at the practicality of Welsh independence, and how a Plaid Government would hold an independence referendum. It recommends five key aims for Plaid Cymru:
-Says an independent Wales should seek membership of the European Union, with a possible intermediate step being membership of the European Free Trade Area.
-Recommends that Wales explores a confederal relationship with England and Scotland.
-Proposes improvements to the operation of the Welsh Government and civil service.
-Points the way to drawing up a Welsh Constitution and sets out a framework for a Self-Determination Bill to take the independence process forward.
-A statutory National Commission should provide the people of Wales with a clear understanding of the option for their political future -including through Citizens' Assemblies and an initial referendum to test a range of constitutional options.
It also recommends that there should be one multiple choice referendum to gauge views and to persuade a UK Westminster government to agree to a referendum on the preferred option.
More information: BBC
But the more that I travelled,
I realized that people aren't always interested in where you're from,
but who you are.
I'm determined not to lose my name. It's who I am.
It has neither aided my progress nor hampered it.
It's just who I am.
No comments:
Post a Comment