Sunday 29 September 2013

Dramatisation Of The Trial Of The Chartists At Shire Hall Monmouth



Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr says that we still have Harfords and Hodges amongst us who betray the struggle for justice and liberty today - has they did for the Chartists .

 
 
 
When we recognise this unpleasant feature of Welsh National life we should seek to eliminate it or at least reduce its influence has it impedes the progress of our movement for National and Social Liberation.

For those who knew how to deal with snitches and traitors read about Scotch Cattle here:
http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/after-1831-scotch-cattle-by-alan-jones.html


12pm - Saturday 5th October - John Frost Square - Newport - High Noon Insurrection - to Save Newport Chartist Mural - be there to defend the Chartist Mural - enjoy the videos



Saturday 28 September 2013

Chartist Uprising Over Council’s Use Of Welsh Government Funding To Bulldoze 1,500sqft Newport Mural



Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr makes available latest Press Release of the "Save our Mural" Campaign and calls for maximum support for protest on 5th October at 12.00pm at John Frost Square, Newport .

Chartist Uprising Over Council’s Use Of Welsh Government Funding To Bulldoze 1,500sqft Newport Mural For London Developer’s £100m $hopping $cheme

Following the recent decision by Welsh Preservation group, Cadw, not to list Newport's Chartist Mural for preservation, the local council has now announced that it plans to knock down the artwork to make way for a £100m commercial shopping scheme using £1.5m of funding not from the scheme’s London developers, Queensberry Real Estate, but from the Welsh Government as part of a wider package of support approved by Economy Minister, Edwina Hart AM.

According to Councillor Bob Bright, leader of Newport City Council: “The first phase will involve the demolition of shops in the John Frost Square area [where the mural is located] … We are grateful to the minister and the Welsh Government for providing this funding…”
However, in its listing refusal, Cadw acknowledges that the 1,500 sqft mosaic, commissioned in 1979 to commemorate the Newport Rising, is: "a striking piece of art commemorating events of historical significance to Newport." In this refusal decision, Cadw also recognises, "the significance of the mural as a major piece of public art providing an important connection to the city's heritage," and goes on to confirm that the council's own consultants, Mann Williams and Cliveden Conservation, "established that relocation may be technically feasible".

Local pressure group, 'Save Our Mural', are therefore planning a re-enactment of the Chartists’ 1839 march on Newport, only this time not armed with pikes and muskets but instead a 3,500-signature petition addressed to the council’s new Chief Executive, Will Godfrey.

Describing the demonstration as an "insurrection day", Save Our Mural's campaign chairman, Peter Rawcliffe, states: "Newport Council's announcement of their plans to destroy our much-loved mural is in direct contradiction with the personal pledge made ten weeks ago by their new CEO, Will Godfrey, to myself and my fellow campaigners that he would do everything he could to relocate the mural if it was technically feasible to do so."

“There are lots of questions Newport Council need to answer," Rawcliffe continues. "Why are they now saying it will cost £600,000 to relocate our mural when previous estimates were placed at £200,000? And how can they go to a single tender for what is potentially a £600k contract when EU Law and the government’s Best Value Unit prohibit this? Why hasn’t the council invited a competitive tender from Oliver Budd [son of the mural's now deceased creator], who took only one week with his partners to safely remove and store Birmingham's huge JFK mural. We just feel so disenfranchised by a council that, at best, suffers from a complete lack of imagination and, at worst, has a complete disregard for the public over this issue."

The Save Our Mural campaign’s frustrations are borne out by Plaid Cymru shadow Heritage Minister, Bethan Jenkins AM, who was prompted on 19th September to write to the council requesting that it, “listen to local people and campaigners who are against the demolition of the Chartist Mural in Newport.” In her letter, Jenkins goes on to observe: “Surely there can be a way to save this important mural and push ahead with the new retail plans? After all, the Chartists play a vital and important role in our heritage as Welsh people, and I believe that by demolishing this mural, it will send a very negative message about their legacy and importance to Newport and to Wales.”

Local mosaic artist and campaigner, Stephanie Roberts, adds: "The Council's recent PR statement says that, as part of the £100m commercial development plans, 'The demolition [of a car park] cannot take place without putting the integrity of the chartist mural at risk,' and so rather than at least try, their solution is to destroy the mural altogether - it's complete madness. And why was the preservation of our mural never made a proviso in the first place when granting planning permission to the developers, Queenberry?"

Roberts concludes: "All we are asking is for the mural to be incorporated into the design of the shopping centre or its environs. This would signal a clear message to the public that the council and the London developers are socially aware and respectful of the heritage of not just this Welsh city but indeed the whole of Wales," an opinion that seems to be supported by presenter Hugh Edwards who tweets: “The mural marks an event of truly national importance."

Commenting on the council’s announcement of its plans to destroy the mural, Mohammad Asghar AM (Regional Welsh Assembly Member for South Wales East), said: “We need to find a swift solution to save this mural for the enjoyment of future generations without delaying the long overdue redevelopment of Newport city centre,” a position backed by the Welsh Assembly Tory group that states the party’s Suzy Davies AM was disappointed with the decisions by the council and Cadw which “demonstrate a lack of appreciation for Welsh heritage.”

Prof Brian Goodey BA, MA, Dip CD, Dip LA, GMLI, FRGS, FRSA (Emeritus Professor, Urban Landscape Design at Oxford Brookes University), writes of the Newport Chartist Mural: "If suggestions as to its destruction are correct, then in less than a generation a town, now a city, seems willing to dispose of a public work of art which marks a key event in British history. Regardless of attitudes towards its aesthetic qualities (and public art always receives a rough time after the initial decision) possible destruction seems to reflect an official willingness to discard this important public reminder of the human qualities and conflict that made Newport what it is.”

In his own public statement, Oliver Budd observes: “Whilst I fully understand Newport's need for modernisation and re-development to stimulate the commercial centre of the city, it is sad that it necessitates the loss of this landmark work. The great tragedy is that like other past artworks, buildings and monuments that have been removed from our towns and cities, you look back in years to come and wonder why more wasn't done to retain these unique cultural aspects of our built environment, when all that is left are photographs and memories.”

Yet Bethan Jenkins AM concludes her letter to the council’s CEO, Will Godfrey, with a less fatalistic demand: “I urge you to reconsider your decision.”

Note for Editors: The Chartist movement prompted one of the most important political reforms in the UK that acknowledged levels of equality previously denied to many. Created by Kenneth Budd, using more than 200,000 pieces of broken tile and Venetian smalti, the Chartist Mural celebrates the lives of those lost on that fateful day in Newport on 4th November 1839. The mural offers a unique insight to the proud history of Newport, celebrating the democracy won by its ancestors for the whole of Great Britain. The demolition of this piece of highly accessible art in the name of development is a denial to the historical facts that it so clearly portrays, and flies in the face of public opinion.
Contacts:

Peter Rawcliffe, Campaign Chairman, 'Save our Mural'.
Mobile: 07827337191; Email: pjrawcliffe@hotmail.com, petition: https://bit.ly/SaveOurMural

Stephanie Roberts, Campaign Coordinator, 'Save our Mural'.
Mobile: 07773276778; Email: info@stephanierobertsart.com

Zennis, Communications Officer, 'Save our Mural'.

Mobile: 07972268221, Email: zen@thepatchworkproject.com

Wednesday 25 September 2013

Brian Leeson of Eirigi on the 1913 lockout and the birth of the Irish Citizen Army - the Legacy for Today



Cathaoirleach éirígí, Brian Leeson, discusses the legacy of the 1913 Lockout and the Irish Citizen Army.

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr says Comrade Leeson's exposition of Republican Socialism in Ireland is something we in Wales should study and learn from.

Our task at Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr is to develop a coherent Welsh  Republican Socialsm and our Magazine Liberation is already beginning to lay the basis for that coherence which has been absent in Wales and is a precondition for the National and Social Liberation of Wales.

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr says we do not need a broad "beyond left and right" Republican movement in Wales we need a coherent fighting Socialist Republicanism.
.

Saturday 21 September 2013

Scottish Independence Rally - One Year to Go



Western Europe saw in the early 20th century Norway and Ireland win their bourgeois Independence.

Will Scottish and Catalonian bourgeois lead the way in the early 21st century ? Or will the revolutionary movements in Scotland and Catalonia seize the time ?

Our objective at Aflonyddwch  Mawr is a Welsh Socialist Republic and we march in the tradition of the great revolutionaries  James Connolly and John Maclean and we are not interested in raising the bourgeoisie, petty or big to power in a so called "independent" capitalist Wales.

Therefore the Aflonyddwch Mawr will critique all unionist  and bourgeois nationalist currents in Welsh National Life in the fight for revolutionary socialism in Wales.

Long Live the spirit of the Brest Charter and the struggle for Independent Socialist Republics in Western Europe.

For more about struggle in Scotland visit :
http://www.scottishrepublicansocialistmovement.org/Pages/default.aspx


International support for Scotland over the weekend from Brittany and Sicily

 
 
 
 

Thursday 19 September 2013

Wales has the highest proportion of low income households in Britain

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr has been continuously pointing out the increasing poverty in Wales since our foundation in March 2012.

We published an Emergency 10 Point Plan on May 1st 2013 for discussion has the British and Unionist Parties including Plaid Cymru have no policy except managed decline of a green washed Neo Liberal Wales within the British State.

Many words are spoken about poverty it is time for action in Wales

  
Statement of Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr - The Great Unrest Group
 
19th September 2013
 

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation  says Wales has the highest proportion of low income households in Britain

There is more poverty in working households in Wales than in non-working ones, a study has claimed.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation found both a "rising tide" of in-work poverty and the highest proportion of households on a low income in Britain.

The social policy research charity blamed "a low pay, no pay jobs market".

On average between 2009/10 and 20011/12, 23% of people in Wales (690,000) were living in poverty - compared with 22% in England and 18% in Scotland.

Households are classed as being in relative poverty if they live on less than 60% of the median - or middle - income.

Of the people living in poverty, the report found there are more adults who have a job (285,000 on average in the three years to 2010/11) than not (275,000).
'Trapping families'

Poverty amongst people working is most prevalent in rural communities, whereas urban areas have a higher number of people living in out-of-work poverty.

 
As a proportion of their working-age populations, the west (Carmarthenshire, Pembrokeshire, Ceredigion) and north Wales had a high share of in-work poverty, measuring 17% and 28% respectively.

The south Wales valleys (33%) and councils south of the M4, such as Bridgend and the Vale of Glamorgan (22%), have a higher share of out-of-work poverty.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation report written by the New Policy Institute describes "a low pay, no pay jobs market that is trapping families in poverty - the working poor are the modern face of hardship in Wales".

Adam Tinson, Research Analyst at the New Policy Institute and the report's co-author, said: "Wages haven't been growing fast enough to meet rising costs and more people are in working families that work fewer hours."

This report does not just spell out the extent of in-work poverty in Wales, it also shows the varying patterns between our urban and more rural communities.

It highlights the high proportion of low-paid jobs in those areas
.
Examine the details of the InfoBaseCymru website and you can see evidence of the vast disparity of incomes within Wales, let alone the UK.

The ward of Mold South has the highest average income at more than £60,000 a year while Tredegar Park 2 on the west of Newport is the Welsh council ward with the lowest average income of just under £19,000.


Almost a quarter of people in Wales (23%) are currently living in poverty, according to the latest data - a figure that has hardly changed since devolution.

After accounting for the cost of housing, about a third of children in Wales are from homes classed as living in poverty.

Statistics released in June 2013 show the figure rose from 31% to 33%

Wednesday 18 September 2013

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr Statement on Newport Chartist Mural




Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr -The Great Unrest Group says Newport Council does not have the will to save the mural and relocate it to their new Shopping centre .

It looks as if the mural will be destroyed, there needs to be a protest campaign to halt such destruction and to save the Mural for the Nation, maybe in grounds of National History Museum (St Fagan) or Cardiff National Arts Museum (Ex Nat Museum of Wales) if no site in Newport available?


Statement of  Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr - The Great Unrest Group

18th September 2013


Stop destruction of Newport's Chartist Mural - Sign Petition

 
The Chartist movement prompted one of the most important political reforms in the UK that acknowledged levels of equality previously denied to many.

This mural celebrates the lives of those lost on that fateful day in November 1839. The loss of this piece of accessible art seems to fly in the face of public opinion. The mural offers a unique insight to the history of the city as well as celebrating the democracy won by the people of Wales for the whole of Great Britain. Its demolition in the name of development is a denial to the historical facts that it so clearly portrays.

It is indicative and representative of the poor town planning and decision making that has been one of the major factors in Newport's decline over the last 10 years or more.

We say no more we will not let you deprive our city, our families,
our children and future generations of their heritage.

We are asking for the mural to be incorporated into the design of the shopping centre this would signal a clear message to the public that the council and the developers were socially aware and respectful of the history of this Welsh city.
 
SIGN HERE:

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/newport-city-council-stop-destruction-of-the-chartist-mural?share_id=lKNxLDAwCA&utm_campaign=autopublish&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition

Tuesday 17 September 2013

Occitany - 8 Centuries Later - A Revolutionary perspective for National and Social Liberation


                                                                  Map of Occitania

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr is pleased to publish this contribution from an Occitane Comrade of Servir le Peuple not only you inform you about the struggle of the Occitane People over the  last 800 years but also for you to study and debate the theoretical conclusions.

Our Welsh struggle against the British State and the Occitane struggle against the French State has well has current national struggles against the Spanish State can inform one another, there is rich potential of learning from each other experiences has there are universal has well as specifics lessons in struggles against the British State, French State and Spanish State.

In February 1972 revolutionaries from nations trapped inside the British, French and Spanish States issued the Brest Charter in Brittany for Independent Socialist Republics in Western Europe, we need to revive that spirit of the Brest Charter in the 21st Century and we believe publication of this study will assist that process.


This document is not the exact translation of the French one, but it follows the main ideas of these. All apologizes to comrades, but translating a text like this ever means remove its force]
 
8 CENTURIES LATER…
 
Exactly 800 years ago, on September 12th of 1213, the battle of Muret (near Toulouse) was the begining of the end for our just-born Occitan nation. Began then the political liquidation of our Nation and People, under the rule of royal intendants and later napoleonians and ‘republicans’ prefects until, under the sinister Third ‘Republic’ of monopolies born in the blood of the Communes repression (1871) and ended in the shame of Pétain’s full powers (1940), the attempt to negate us even as a People.
 
Since 1180, Capetian King of FRANKS Philip II August launched himself to conquer the western part of present French ‘Hexagon’, which was under the rule of Plantagenets (also kings of England), from Normandy to the Pyrenees including so the western part of our Occitany, the duchy of Aquitaine and Gascony : so he became king OF FRANCE. But in the central and eastern part of our Nation (Languedoc and Provence), which was under the rule of Earls of Toulouse and/or Kings of Aragon-Catalonia, the conquest took the form of a bloody CRUSADE, on the pretext to extirpate the Cathare heresy (a kind of christian communist-mystic current) that our aristocracy protected, as it was also tolerant to Jews, Muslims from Spain and so on. Just like today, imperialism launch its plundering wars on the pretext to ‘eradicate terrorists’ and other twaddles. This Crusade was led by a small baron of the Paris region, Simon of Montfort (who also owned lands near Leicester, his son is known in Britain for his role in the Magna Carta of 1215). Those hordes of ‘crusaders’ attacked so our country and people, perpetrating horrendous massacres like in Beziers (1209) : ‘Kill them all, God will recognize his ones



Hymne à la Liberté en Occitan
 
Resisted first, to the invasion, the People, the cities and the small nobility. The Earl of Toulouse (Raymond) was hesitant and even, first, joined the crusaders (!), before changing side facing their horrors. The King Pedro II of Aragon did so, as he needed Pope’s support to his conquering plans in Spain, against Andalus muslim states (battle of Navas de Tolosa, 1212). So was 1213 a turning point, with Pedro of Aragon pacting with Raymond of Toulouse and deciding to stop the invasion. Unfortunately, they were like ‘punished’ for their initial indecision, and their Occitan-catalan-aragonian armies were crushed on the battle field.

Some years later, Philip August’s successors (Louis VIII, ‘Saint’ Louis IX) intervened directly and achieved the conquest beating the last resistances. Languedoc, a kind of ‘confederation’ of fiefs and cities republics, ‘aristocratic republic’ as would later write Engels, was submitted and annexed to the Crown in 1270. Aquitaine and Gascony would be disputed some centuries more between France and England (Hundred-Years War) and definitely submitted after Wars of Religion (16th century), when Henry IV (of Albret and Navarre) became King of France ; Provence  was given to a brother of ‘Saint’ Louis IX (the Duke of Anjou), as ‘autonomic’ fief of the Crown, but definitely annexed in 1480.
 
So, as often in a mode of production in crisis (at this time, feudality), the ruling class of a Nation had submitted the ruling class of another to appropriate its working and productive forces : that’s what we use, then, to call IMPERIALISM. Capetian Kingdom of France, State of the French aristocracy and upper bourgeoisie, to-be monopolies ‘one and indivisible Republic’, was born.
 
This ruling class was made of, on one part, declining aristocracy surrounding the Capetian monarchy and eating in its hand (some of those making themselves gentlemen farmers, agrarian capitalists), and on the other, of the BOURGEOISIE of Paris region, seeing there a way to supplant and subordinate the others bourgeoisies of others regions and nations.

Some people can say this tragedy took place 800 years ago, ‘an eternity’ ; just as some people (the same) slander ‘repentance’ for African’s slavery, indigenous genocide of Americas or Australia, colonial conquests and massacres : "that was sooooo many years agooooo" ! Just as if present could be something else that the fruit of the past.

But anyway, this bloody Conquista remind us the present fierce exploitation of whole continents (Asia, Africa, and Americas), the criminal occupations of Palestine or Iraq, Afghanistan or Kurdistan, and the people’s resistances to it, with its most advanced form of People’s War in India, Philippines, Turkish State or Peru… It remind us, and dialectical materialism doesn’t know coincidence.

There’s two kinds of ‘barbaric’ mode of production and political system : a nascent one, accumulating with greed its first big fortunes ; and an agonizing one which, to preserve the privileges it accumulated, doesn’t step back in front of any crime. The Modern State, like the French one, between the 13th and 18th century, blended both. And now, monopoly capitalism is in terminal crisis but, also, ‘replaying’ again and again the throes of primitive accumulation, in some backwarded part of the World (like central or south/southeast Asia or deep Africa or Amazonia).

And imperialist States are the direct products of these ancient Modern States. The Conquista of our People gave birth to the French State, the Kingdom of France, political, military and ideological apparatus of a declining Frank aristocracy and an emerging and greedy Paris-and-around upper bourgeoisie ; and the present French monopolist state, built by 1789 bourgeois revolutionaries, Napoleon and others (until the ‘republicans’ of Jules Ferry and Clemenceau and De Gaulle) is the direct product of it. The string form past to present is absolutely continuous.
 
French State, as any Modern State, is born from a CENTER, headquarter of the allied monarchy and upper bourgeoisie ; conquering by steel and then gunpowder lands and peoples (Brittany, Corsica, Artois and Flanders, Lorraine an so on) becoming PERIPHERIES, exploited lands and peoples. It extent then these peripheries in concentric circles, even overseas, becoming an Empire. Just as the Castellan/Spanish State, born from conquering Andalus and then subordinate Aragon, Catalonia, Navarra and Basque Country ; or the British State, born from conquering Wales and Scotland and Ireland ; or later (by and for the lone bourgeoisie, allied with a ‘liberal’ monarchy), the Italian State conquering the Kingdom of Naples, the Mezzogiorno
In a reference work about our ‘Southern France’, Engels correctly says the conquest achieved in the late 15th century (we could even say early 17th, with Henry IV), and then our country resisted… 300 years, so until 1789. And, can we even say, Engels (who was also… a capitalist and ever had a positive vision of bourgeois and industrial ‘revolutions’) stops history when it’s convenient for him, because the ‘democrat-socialist’ massive vote of 1848-49, the resistance to the bonapartist coup of December 1851 (bonapartism was known for its ultra centralism, with almighty prefects appointing mayors), the Communes of 1871 or the Great Wine Revolt of 1907, were still Occitan resistance, even if there wasn’t separatist intention (but there neither was during Wars of Religion nor any revolt under Absolute Monarchy, nor in 1831 Welsh Merthyr Rising against the British Crown !).
 
That’s only after World War 2, in the forests of cranes and buildings of the ‘Glorious Thirties’ (1945-75), that our Occitany could seem disappeared forever. But only seemed. Because at this same time, the great anti-imperialist struggles shaking the World, from Vietnam to Angola, pushed a part of our People to hold the head high again, after centuries of political suppression and even, since the late 19th century, three generations of national and cultural suppression as a People (ethnocide). However, this movement remained prisoner of strong theoretical limits. It never really seized the sword of Revolutionary Marxism (which yet led the Third World struggles inspiring it) as a TOOL to understand the Occitan Problem under its light. It saw all these events we have exposed and claimed proudly about this ‘tragedy of Occitan people’, but never understood their materialist and logical string, and never understood the tremendous revolutionary ferment contained in their own claims. Cause if the Conquista of Occitany was the birth act of French capitalist-imperialist State, our People’s Liberation can only mean its death !

 
So this movement failed, all the more since there’s in Occitany no autonomist nor independentist bourgeoisie as in Catalonia or Basque Country or Quebec. For historical reasons, Occitan bourgeoisie is politically and ideologically ‘French’, the system it’s part of implies it in subordinate position – French State is not polycentric like Spain or Canada or Germany. Upper bourgeoisie resisted a little under monarchy but since the bourgeois revolution has done well of the French State, and the middle and petty bourgeoisie too, even if it sometimes protest against Paris centralism and ‘bureaucracy’, like in the 1950’s Poujade movement. For 8 centuries, all Occitan bourgeoisie and other ‘elites’ have sold themselves or disappeared ! The ‘heart’ and ‘key’ of Occitan Question is clearly, totally and only in the working and people classes, there’s no other way from south of Pyrenees to follow.
 
Thinking about and understanding all of this finally led some of us, ‘occitanist’, to seize Marxist theory and its wonderful power, and some others, ‘Marxists’, to look at and understand the Occitan Question and how it was at the heart of existence and, so, continuity of this French capitalist State we fight.
 
This led us to two main conclusions :
 
1°/ The capitalist World we know is built from CENTRES (concentrating through the centuries political, economical and ideological/cultural power), dominating PERIPHERIES concentrating poverty and exploitation. These Peripheries are spread in concentric circles around the Centres (and ‘relay-centres’), from the suburban ghettos of big cities to the most starved ‘Third World’. That’s the way capitalism, for the moment it equipped itself with (modern and then bourgeois) State, negate former social and political organizations. So, it’s absolutely logical that Revolutionary Proletarian Struggle, negation of capitalism by communism, DEPLOYS ITSELF from Peripheries to the Centres.

Peripheries are the ‘countrysides’ of each country and the World, this is the real universality of Mao’s Protracted People’s War. Inside each capitalist State, revolutionaries have to identify where are the ‘countrysides’/Peripheries and where are the ‘cities’/Centres, to deploy their struggle from the ones to the others.
 
This, without any doubt about sincerity and class struggler’s generosity (letting besides some openly and violently Jacobins groups), has often been misunderstood by many revolutionary persons and groups in our State. Sometimes because of their geographic ‘central’ position (Paris or ‘relay-centres’ like Lyon, Nice, Nantes), and because of misunderstanding and (so) not calling into question the linked privileges of it ; sometimes because of their SOCIAL ‘central’ position, seen (rightly or wrongly) as LINKED to the State’s existence (public officers or workers, working aristocracy, workers of companies with State orders) ; and sometimes, because of pure alienation (under the two others influence). They want to TRANSFORM this old French State in a ‘socialist republic’ (possibly with a recognizing of ‘cultural-and-democratic-rights-of-minorities)… but not DESTROY it, as it’s to be done, to built something completely new, something that, to be clear, can be only the work of masses in revolution, not of ‘political engineers’ in a bureau.





 
2°/ All the misery of ‘occitanism’ since WW2 comes from remaining, for 90% of its already skinny troops, in a REFORMIST perspective : autonomist, regionalist, ‘decentralist’ – but even independentist like in Catalonia, not breaking with capitalism, for us communists it remains reformism. Or, sometimes, in an utopian socialist perspective, which lead exactly to the same : as said Lenin, "No revolutionary theory, no revolutionary movement". They didn’t consider Occitan Question in the only frame allowing its solution : World Proletarian Revolution whose new wave is grewing up all over the World ; and they never considered Occitany, in the French State, as obviously the first ‘countryside’ of revolutionary struggle : the biggest and most peopled one, and above all, the older and FOUNDING one – as it’s precisely from its conquest that French State’s born. To not place their struggle in this perspective, to not giving it this dimension, ‘occitanists’ were doomed to fail.
 
For not being Marxists (or so few), most of them misunderstood dialectical and historical materialism : History as a negation of negation process. That means that any economical & political system in history is negated by another ‘superior’ (in the sense of ‘historically necessary’), and then this one is negated by another ‘superior’ (which negate the negation) and so on. With Modern State negating the old duchies, counties, baronies, abbeys, countryside peasants communities and cities bourgeois ‘republics’, ‘aristocratic republics’ as was, according to Engels, a big part of medieval Occitany, capitalism negate feudality. And capitalism was an often dolorous, but necessary historical stage for humanity : nobody can deny the huge scientific and technical progress it brought to humanity. Above all, capitalism allowed emergence of HUMANISM, by making human being the only owner of his labour strength (under feudality that wasn't clear : feudal lord still was eminent owner of the lands and people living in, this contradiction was the principal one of this production mode). That was the historical task of capitalism and its political expression, the Modern State.
 
But, doing so, capitalism also DESTROYED, CRUSHED with never-seen violence the ancient traditional communities and ways of live, to put every 'free' worker in the slavery chains of selling every day his labour strength to capitalist employer (overseas, capitalism also practiced genuine slavery !). Actually, capitalism is obliged to produce humanism, but, to develop itself, it must every time trample this humanism it just produced.
 
Now, all these people are proletarians or semi proletarians, parked in their peripheries ; capitalism has reached to its terminal crisis, and people wants COMMUNISM. And the basic cell of the future socialist society we’re fighting for, the People’s Commune, is actually nothing but the medieval urban, countryside or mountain ‘republic’, on an higher level ; as could say José Carlos Mariátegui for Peru’s pre-colonial peasant community (ayllu)[1] or John MacLean for Scottish clan community[2], or even… Marx, on his later years of life, about Russian mir[3]. French Modern State, for the historical necessities of capitalism, negate medieval Occitany and its social system ; but now, it’s to be negate in its turn by this Occitany on an higher stage, Free an Socialist Occitany, revolutionary Occitany which would be a little stone of the Communist Universal City.
 
So, we reached to the conclusion that in the French State, the Occitan Question (asked in a reformist way for half a century by the ‘occitanists’) has no answer out of the general frame of Proletarian Revolution ; of People’s War deploying itself from the Peripheries of bourgeois political-military and social-economic construction to the Centre ; our Occitany not only being one of the most oppressed peripheries (in terms of poverty, unemployment, lack of services etc.) but also the FOUNDING one, on which French State is born as a WORLDWIDE exploitation and oppression capitalist project. And it has no other possible solution out of the tool for our revolutionary Liberation : the Communist Party of Occitany.
 
Consequently, this 8th centennial of Muret’s bloody battle, sealing our people’s conquest and, giving birth to French State, the fate of so many other peoples on Earth, is the moment to announce the formation of a Building Committee for Occitany’s Revolutionary Communist Party ; tool of revolutionary struggle in our Occitan periphery/’countryside’, tied to all genuine revolutionary forces in the French State to overthrow it, and overthrow capitalism whose it’s the political, military and ideological instrument.
 
ÒSCA LO COMITAT DE CONSTRUCCION PEL PARTIT COMUNISTA REVOLUCIONARI DE LAS TÈRRAS D’ÒC !
 
PÒPLE D’ÒC ENDAVANT CAP A LA REVOLUCION PROLETARIANA!
 
SOCIALISME E LIBERTAT !



[3] http://bataillesocialiste.wordpress.com/documents-historiques/1881-03-projet-de-reponse-a-vera-zassoulitch-marx/  Lenin didn't agree with it, saying that at this time (around 1900) the ancient mir had disappeared for more than two centuries, and the land was owned by the landlords, the monks and so on. But that was absolutely the same in Mariategui's Peru and MacLean's Scotland ! And this absolutely doesn't mean that the remembrance of this traditional collectivist community doesn't live in people's hearts and guide them to their emancipation.

f Servir

Monday 16 September 2013

Plethyn - Breuddwyd Glyndŵr



Plethyn - Breuddwyd Glyndŵr  


Geiriau:

Safodd Glyndŵr ar fynyddoedd Meirionnydd
A chysgod y plygain yn drwm ar ei wedd
Clywodd riddfanau yn esgyn o'r cymoedd
Plygodd i wrando, a'i bwys ar ei gledd.

Safodd yn hir ar fynyddoedd Meirionnydd
A'i galon yn gwaedu dros gyflwr ei wlad.
Breuddwydiodd am uno ei genedl ranedig,
Chwifiodd ei gleddyf ym mhoethder y gad.

Plygodd i farw dan gysgod y creigiau,
Canodd wrth huno a gwenodd drwy'i hun.
Gwelodd y wawrddydd yn gwynu'r mynyddoedd
A'i genedl yng ngolau'r dyfodol yn un.


See Also:
http://greatunrest2012.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/a-gwerin-owain-manifesto-from-embassy.html


Glyndwr by Heather Jones



 
 


 
Geiriau:

Bore niwlog ar waun,
mae cynnwrf yn y goedwig -
swn cleddyfau yn taro yn y wawr.

Daw yr haul i sychu'r gwaed
ar gyrff y brwydwyr ffyddlon,
ambell un yn gelain ar y llawr.

Glyndwr, Glyndwr,
ac mae lleisiau'r milwyr dewr yn codi stwr.
Glyndwr, Glyndwr,
ac mae lleisiau'r milwyr dewr yn codi stwr.

Trwy y wlad mae'r fyddin gref yn ymladd a chynhyrfu,
clywch yr atsain ym mhob dref a chwm.
Does dim cwsg i'r rhai sydd nawr yn brwydro dros iawnderau.
Ceisio dial tynged pobloedd llwm.

Glyndwr, Glyndwr,
ac mae lleisiau'r milwyr dewr yn codi stwr.
Glyndwr, Glyndwr,
ac mae lleisiau'r milwyr dewr yn codi stwr.

Owain yn dy garchar, wyt ti'n aros am yfory
pan fydd cyrff dy filwyr eto'n rhydd?
Pan ddaw'r bore arwain fi drwy'r wlad a thrwy'r dinasoedd,
arwain fi i'r frwydr gyda thi.

Glyndwr, Glyndwr,
ac mae lleisiau'r milwyr dewr yn codi stwr.
Glyndwr, Glyndwr,
ac mae lleisiau'r milwyr dewr yn codi stwr.

English Translation:
A misty morning on the moor,
there's commotion in the forest -
the sound of swords striking in the dawn.

The sun will come to dry the blood
on the loyal fighters' bodies,
some lying dead on the ground.

Glyndwr, Glyndwr,
and the brave soldiers' voices create uproar.
Glyndwr, Glyndwr,
and the brave soldiers' voices create uproar.

Through the land the strong army fights and agitates,
hear the echoes in each town and valley.
There is no sleep for those who are now fighting for rights.
Trying to avenge the fates of poor folk.

Glyndwr, Glyndwr,
and the brave soldiers' voices create uproar.
Glyndwr, Glyndwr,
and the brave soldiers' voices create uproar.

Owain in your prison, are you waiting for tomorrow
when the bodies of your soldiers will once again be free?
When the morning comes lead me through the land and through the cities,
lead me to battle by your side.

Glyndwr, Glyndwr,
and the brave soldiers' voices create uproar.
Glyndwr, Glyndwr,
and the brave soldiers' voices create uproar.
 

A GWERIN OWAIN MANIFESTO FROM EMBASSY GLYNDWR


 

Happy Dydd Glyndŵr Day to Everyone! Don't forget to get your Glyndwr flag out this morning to fly throughout the day out of your windows







The Gwerin Owain Manifesto:
 

Many people, not just patriots, will be aware that Embassy Glyndŵr has been to the fore in promoting Hanes Glyndŵr and with our Gwaith Glyndŵr, have carried out many initiatives to ensure that our greatest of national heroes is  recognised in a number of practical ways such as advancing 16 Medi as 'Dydd Glyndŵr', the wearing of the Glyndŵr Ribbon and the flying of Baneri Glyndŵr on this and other days as and when people so wish throughout the land. I do not want to take up space now in repeating a long list of our achievements when such are recorded on our blog: Owain Glyndŵr Communicates and in our films on youtube. Now we set forth in a new positive political directions which was made public at Pontardawe on Sunday 16 Medi 2012: 
 


My purpose in this statement - Declaration of Intent of Determination is to announce a major change of direction, not such which is entirely new as we have always set out to not simply be 'just'  a 'Commemorative Society' but also have led the way forward in a combative consciousness campaigning struggle in many areas. Not least, in recent years, via our Tarian Glyndŵr Initiative to defend our Heritage in the Landscape, and in particular, against the ravaging of our country by the 'New Conquistadores' aka 'Windmill Masters'' otherwise as far as we are concerned 'Renewables Robber Barons. This direction has now taken a central position in our whole being and in our priority concerns, this will continue to become more central as we have determined, hence, a political road for Embassy Glyndŵr, to more participate in the establishment, building and advance of a National Liberation Movement and Struuggle for Welsh Independance.


We are mindful of the realities that brought the Cymry of 1400 to rise with Owain Glyndŵr - and of how, amazingly quickly, the war of independence spread right across the land. This was brought about by a Cymru that had become an English Colony with the occupation of 1282. 

Bourgeois Nationalism likes to make of this, a mainly 'cultural conquest' of Y Cymry but not so. 

It was one of Social Consequence and of Economic Colonialism, the English occupation and Colonisation was such which would, by means of the Statute of Rhuddlun 1294 with Penal Legislation, militate economically and socially against the Cymry in a number of ways. One example of this Economic Colonisation, which has a modern echo, was the Windmilling of Cymru. 

In post occupation Cymru, this meant that the Cymry could farm wheat if they had the arable land to do so but they could not mill it or bake it or sell it in the English controlled markets and Borough Towns, Only the 'occupiers' could do that. This is why, as a well thought out 'Economic War Strategy' by Glyndŵr, his largelly Peasant Army would destroy Wind and Water mills and smash the grinding stones.

The consequence being over one hundred years of economic poverty with no way upward and very little social mobility, thus this began to produce a large underclass of the poverty stricken, many of whom became thieves and outlaws - such as 'Adar y Griem' or mercenaries. Whilst runaway serfs, bond people and tenants ran away from their masters to begin to populate the upland and remoter margins of Cymru. This was a 15th century 'underclass' and an army in waiting.

The 'Welsh Revolt', as it was first thought to be - was, initially, of no serious concern but, the 'Conquistadors' and 'Colonists' had misread much. Not least the resent and growing ill temper of the Cymry and their  eagerness to fight back, a desire that the Bards and 'Y Clerwyr' give voice to in the years leading up to 1400. 

All that was needed was a spark, the fuse to be lit and this occurred in September 1400 and 'Freedom's Flame' quickly spread throughout the land and the Revolt of 1400 became, in 1401, a War of National Liberation that by 1403 had destroyed English Castle Rule in Cymru and by 1404 had witnessed Glyndŵr holding Court at Cefn Caer, Pennal and calling for a Parliament in Machynlleth at which he was crowned 'Tywysog Cymru' on 21 June - a day we remember as Dydd y Senedd' or Dydd Sofraniaeth

In the Cymru of today, once more under English rule we witness Social decline brought about by English and native colonial collaborationist misrule that has caused vast unemployment and depopulation alongside, of which we have seen in recent times, a new post devolution economic colonialism - not least, by the Windmill Masters who follow in the footsteps of Copper, Iron, Slate and Coal Masters to pillage our land in another 'Rape of the Fair Country'. 

Seeking again to Land Grab as regards the Vyrnwy Estate and many of our mountains upon which to set Windmill Plantations, all this, yet again, an expropriation of our natural resources and exploitation of our communities and people.

We are also, at this time , witnessing the establishment of a CORPORATE COLONY CYMRU and unbelievably to the fore in collaboration of this, is Plaid 'Green' Cymru, failed and rejected reformist Welsh Nationalist Party, a Party so politically bankrupt that it has fallen for a 'Rainbow Republicanism' that makes of Cymru a 'Green Banana Republic' which only masks the reality of a Plaid' green' Cymru as a willing tool of International Capitalism and Green Imperialism

Our Country is at the 11th Hour, even possibly one minute to midnight of a 'Tan 8 Terrorism' that wages a Windmill War upon Cymru. Under these circumstances, all Patriots and Patriotic Groups, and that includes Embassy Glyndŵr working mainly via Tarian Glyndwr must of great neccessity, put to their fore, the political question of how we may all now advance a National Liberation Struggle, a struggle that first and foremost sets out to defend our country from all forms of exploitation and expropriation but, which at the same time, continues to seek National Freedom in an Independence Struggle which seeks to restore Senedd Glyndŵr in a re-established Cenedl Glyndŵr - Cenedl Cymru Rydd. 

This now is the Political Platform Embassy Glyndŵr will seek to put to the fore and represent, whilst working with radical groups such as PAW - Patriots Against Windmills, Partisan Cymru and the Great Unrest Group as well as Balchder Cymru, The Peoples Council and Celtic League possibly formed as a United National Resistance Council ?


In Conclusion. 

Most Nationalists, I know, are of a 'Socialist' mind though of varying degrees of commitment. I myself, and my partner Gethin Gruffydd support Partisan Cymru and the Great Unrest Group along with their Struggle for Land and Liberty and a Wales Land Act:



However, there is a 'Cymric Socialism' that is still of an 'Internationalist Ilk' that, in reality, goes as far as the White Cliffs of Dover and is almost totally ignorant of the History of Cymru and whom in their 'usual suspect' views, blindly follow in the footsteps of an English, European or even the American New Left, There is no greater area of their duplicity or, should that be stupidity?, that in the 'Green Wash' area in supporting Capitalist Corporate Economic Colonisers to Pillage our land and resources.

In areas of history- and especially in that of Hanes Glyndŵr, they fear to come to terms with the fact that this medieval land owner was as Zapata, also a Land Owner. As for being of 'royal blood', the 'Socialist Spartacus' was also of Royal Blood. 

The fact of the matter is, Glyndŵr led, largely, a peasant army content to support him as his revolt was also in their favour and liberating they to from serfdom and bondage. Because of the War of Independence such servitude would disappear and also make it possible for the 'Underclass' to during, and after the war, occupy the uplands and other margins of Cymric Territory - and even, in some parts, re-occupy land that had been taken from the native over the Anglo - Norman Centuries of Conquest and Colonisation. 

This Peasant Army in time would become the 'People of the Pitchfork' of later centuries who would rise and fight against enclosures of their land with the call to action of 'Trech Gwlad Nag Arglwydd. 

 
Thus, if of Socialist mind, be reminded that what was good enougth for 19th century Socialists and workers, who had lodges named after Glyndŵr and drank in a Merthyr Pub named the Owain Glyndŵr, then it should be good enough for you.

 Thus, join us in a Peoples Struggle as was, in many ways, the Owain Glyndwr War of Independance. Do not be on the wrong side!
 


Siân Ifan.
 
C.E.O. Embassy Glyndŵr