I had a rather interesting and hypocritical conversation with my grandparents and my father earlier today: about the Welsh language and the Welsh nationalist parties i.e. Plaid Cymru.

There was something which provoked this debate on television, anyway we got onto who would we vote for. Grandfather and grandmother would not vote for Labour again: and, as far as I am aware they haven’t ever voted for anyone else. The Conservatives I know are a no go area, so I suggested Plaid.

Its logical I consider myself a political observer, and an educated voter, I always get all the manifestoes and read through them, so it was perfectly natural for me to suggest another political party.

Oh I wish I hadn’t!

It seemed logical, devout socialists straying from Labour, would go to the other socialist party in Wales, but if they were that simple I wouldn’t bother writing this.

I must state here – because I don’t want to be accused of liable that these are opinions which I do not agree with.

The most exacerbating part of this conversation was when my dad compared Plaid to Sein Fein, Meibion Glyndŵr being its IRA I thought that I would have been too young to remember any correlation but searching the internet has subsequently returned no such connections.

Then my dad went on to claim that its was Plaids ambition that to make all non-Welsh speaking people second class citizens in Wales, again I can find no reference to any such sentiment.

But here comes the hypocritical part my just after saying that she hated learning Welsh school and used language like, “forced to” and “the made us” criticised immigrants for the decline of the Welsh language, the exact phrase she used was, “their children’s children wont be bothered with Welsh” sounds like an ignorant statement. However, her grandparents we Scottish (x2) and English (x2) so her statement was actually correct, since she is not bothered with the language.

Then my grandfather chipped in that when he was a child if some one spoke Welsh they considered him ignorant for not speaking English. For me you’re more ignorant if you refuse to learn a language out of principle, but hey. Are we so ashamed of our own culture, to reject a considerable part of our heritage, to ostracise anyone who displays affiliation with them, apparently we are.

Why do people consider Welsh nationalism so offending to the best of my knowledge no one has ever been killed by the actions of Welsh nationalist organisations, my family even consider the action against the flooding of Treweryn unacceptable, yet they have no moral problems with the flooding of a Welsh valley to provide water for an English city (which has recently been revealed to be unnecessary).

Why are we so ashamed to assert ourselves, our culture, our language, why are we so cowardly not to want to stand up for ourselves!

This is the difficult question to answer, I can think of a few contributory factors but a comprehensive answer, perhaps not.

Factor 1 – The education system, we don’t learn about major event in Welsh history, the conquest by England, the Rebellion of Owain Glyndwr (for Americans Owain Glyndwr is the Welsh version of William Wallace) Treweryn. Etc… the syllabus consists of British history or the English monarchy rather than anything of any cultural meaning in Wales.

Factor 2 – The lack of pluralism in Welsh nationalist politics, Plaid Cymru is the only option and if, like me, you’re a nationalist or a separatist but by no means a socialist then there is not one political party that embodies your views.

Factor 3 – Lack of Separate infrastructure, it is roughly 150 years since the Welsh judiciary was amalgamated with that of England we are so close to England in every way that if is difficult to separate ourselves.

Factor 4 – push / pull, the lack of strong English nationalism, its getting stronger, but there is no force pushing the Welsh out of their comfort zone.

But why has Plaid become so entwined with the dark underside of Welsh nationalism: the dissolved radical elements of Welsh nationalism, were they involved?