What is Cymuned ?
In this brief introduction
Dr Jerry Hunter provides an overview of the Welsh-language civil rights
movement Cymuned. Jerry is a lecturer in Welsh at the University of
Wales, and was educated at Harvard. He is married to actress Judith
Humphreys and has two small children. He lives in Pen-y-groes, a Welsh-speaking
community in the Nantlle Valley in Gwynedd.
Like many Cymuned members, Jerry is not Welsh. A native of Cincinatti
in the USA, Jerry moved to Wales to learn the Welsh language. Since
then he has made a significant contribution to cultural life in Wales.
He has been a leading light in the Welsh funk group Arfer Anfad, an
editor of Taliesin, Walesí foremost literary magazine, and has
published on medieval Welsh history for the University of Wales Press.
Cymuned is a pressure group
that campaigns for one of the most essential of human rights: the right
of minorities to exist and to continue to exist. This is the basis of
our campaigns for the Welsh-speaking minority of Wales.
Despite centuries of discrimination
and disenfranchisement, the Welsh language is in some ways doing well
at the start of the 21st century. The last decades of the 20th century
witnessed a combination of political campaigns, non-violent protest
movements and cultural developments that have righted some of the wrongs
in Wales that stem from historical inequalities between Wales and England.
As a result, the minority
of Welsh people who speak the language (just under 20% of the population
of Wales; a little over 500,00 people) have a confidence in their language,
identity and culture that many minority groups lack. Similarly, support
for the language throughout Wales has grown, with a great many Welsh
people who do not speak the language embracing Welsh as a cultural resource.
However, it is a sad and ironic
fact that the later part of the 20th century has also witnessed a combination
of developments which have come together to threaten Welsh in the very
communities where is has thrived for centuries. Rural Welsh communities
are beset by economic hardship and this has led to migration from rural
to urban areas.
In addition to this exodus,
large numbers of non-Welsh speakers have been moving into traditionally
Welsh-speaking communities, thus changing the cultural dynamic of rural
Wales in a very short period of time. Traditional Welsh-speaking communities
face a real problem at the start of the 21st century. It is not that
the language is dying of its own accord, and it is not that people do
not wish to speak it, but rather that a very vibrant and rich minority
culture is being threatened by a combination of socio-economic factors.
In campaigning on behalf of
Welsh to continue to exist in the communities where it has always existed,
Cymuned is part of the international struggle for minority rights. It
is part of the worldwide struggle for the survival of indigenous minority
communities.
Cymuned's work should be seen
in terms of linguistic ecology. Most people agree that protecting and
preserving natural habitats and endangered species is a sensible thing
to do. The protection of native languages and cultures should also be
considered a priority in terms of preserving our diverse world heritage.
This preservation is a moral imperative in terms of the fundamental
rights of those for whom endangered languages and cultures constitute
a way, or ways, of life.
Cymuned was formed in the summer of 2001. This was a particularly stormy
year for the Welsh language. One of the things which amazed me (and
I speak as somebody who is neither Welsh nor English )is the way in
which people working on behalf of the Welsh language were viciously
attacked. Whether bigots with an inherited hatred of minority cultures,
or cynics attempting to score cheap political points, a number of individuals
campaigned against the conditions that would secure the survival of
Welsh-speaking communities.
Welsh is a threatened minority
language within a multicultural society which needs to be protected;
the fact that bigots and cynics have attempted to turn this simple truth
on its head is astounding. And it is not Welsh-speakers alone that are
under threat. Speaking as somebody who is neither Welsh nor English,
I hope that I would react in a similar manner regarding the struggle
for the rights of any minority group anywhere else in the world.
Cymuned recognizes that, in order to ensure the continued existence
of traditional Welsh-speaking communities, local people must have the
right to buy houses in their own communities. This right is currently
being denied by a housing market that is not aimed at the needs of local
people, but driven instead by market forces in other parts of Britain.
Cymuned also believes that the huge influx of individuals who refuse
to learn the Welsh language into Welsh-speaking communities must in
some way be addressed. We welcome the in-migration of individuals from
non-Welsh backgrounds into Wales who learn the Welsh language and contribute
to cultural and social life: we believe that they add to the diversity
of experiences that exist in Wales. But we do not believe that an influx
into our communities of individuals who refuse to respect the existence
of a minority culture is conducive to social justice, multiculturalism
or linguistic diversity.
Individuals who hold such views undermine the fundamental right of a
minority community to exist. Only 5% of school children of primary school
age speak Welsh at home, or 0.25% of children throughout the United
Kingdom. Such a small minority cannot hope to exist and survive without
the help of the State and at least some regulation of the free market
economy that prices Welsh speakers out of their own communities.
It helps to view this issue in an international context: Denmark, Finland
and other countries regulate the housing market in what might be termed
culturally fragile areas. Regions in England such as the Lake District
and Exmoor have taken steps or voiced concerned over similar issues.
Yet campaigners seeking to protect Welsh-speaking communities are denied
support that is deemed reasonable, normal and necessary in other parts
of the world.
The problems facing Welsh-speaking communities are difficult problems
requiring complex answers. Working towards these answers would be much
easier if those people not interested in helping Welsh-language communities
would step aside, stop throwing misleading labels around, stop trying
to turn the struggle for a minority culture's survival into a way of
scoring cheap political points, and let people tackle the problems.
Cymuned also campaigns for the right of non-Welsh speakers to learn
the Welsh language, and to be supported by the State as they do so.
We campaign for those who wish to learn Welsh to receive language tuition
free of charge and to receive compensation for any economic loss incurred
as a result of time away from the workplace learning the language. Cymuned
is also committed to the equality of all Welsh-speakers, and for Welsh
learners to be integrated successfully into Welsh-speaking society.
Cymuned seeks to ensure the survival of Welsh as a community language
in those areas where it has always existed as a community language.
In so doing, it is concerned with what might be termed a kind of cultural
ecology. The issue, however, involves more than ecology; it involves
the basic and fundamental right of a culture to exist and to continue
to exist.
As a minority rights group, Cymuned actively encourages support from
other minority groups. We also invite the support of English speakers
who wish to support us, whether they are Welsh, English or of another
nationality, and whether they live in Wales, England or indeed in any
part of the world.
You may e-mail us at-
Cymuned@cymuned.org
and become
part of the fight for civil rights and social justice in Wales.
