Merthyr Rising 1831 Renew the spirit of Hirwaun Common support the Welsh Socialist Republican Congress

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr/ Great Unrest Group celebrates the Merthyr Uprising in 1831 a defining point in Welsh History when the Welsh Working Class in open rebellion announced itself on the world stage. 

The raising of the Red Flag on Hirwaun Common was a symbolic act of national and class defiance from the new Welsh Working Class.

The Red Flag was the gift of the Welsh Working Class to the workers of the World just has workers in the USA and in particular Chicago gave the world's workers day May Day.

Gifts of working class struggle are the most precious and the new generation needs to learn to honour them.

We at the Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr/ Great Unrest Group seek the renewal of the spirit of resistance at Hirwaun Common in Wales in 2015 and call for a Welsh Socialist  Republican Congress in 2015 to re-energise and reinvigorate the movement for social and national liberation in Wales.

Let the message of resistance from Merthyr in 1831 ring our across Wales and the World, We have a Wales to win - we have a World to win.

Hold the Red Flag high beyond the reach of our enemies and false friends, the battle for the 21st Century is just opening and by rectifying our past mistakes we will speed capitalism's demise - socialism is the future, its day is dawning as the 21st century progresses.

Support the call for the Welsh Socialist Republican Congress ensure the fighting sprit of Hirwaun Common Lives on !


Statement from the Aflonyddwch Mawr /Great Unrest Group

SEE ALSO:

http://www.merthyrrising.uk/

The Tripartite Indenture of 1405 - The Past as Present

 

Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr has noticed all the talk about Northern England joining Scotland as they have interests that are different from the South of England, so we thought it time to revive Glyndwr's idea of the Tripartite Indenture  of 1405 and visit the past as present.

 

The maps reflect the British Isles as it might have been with an Owain Glyndwr victory two England's and a larger Wales

The Tripartite Indenture was an agreement made in February 1405 between Owain Glyndŵr, Edmund Mortimer, and Henry Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, agreeing to divide England up between them at the expense of Henry IV.

Glyndŵr was to be given Wales, and a substantial part of the west of England, including the English portions of the Welsh Marches.

Northumberland was to have received the north, as well as Northamptonshire, Norfolk, Warwickshire, and Leicestershire.

The Mortimers were to have received the rest of southern England.^[1]

Rhys ap Thomas Godfather of the Crachach and the killing of Welsh History by Nickglais

                                                The Coat of Arms of Rhys ap Thomas


I recently had the opportunity to hear a lecture by Susan Fern on The Man who Killed Richard 111 in Carmarthen as well as to read her book of the same name.

The point of view of Susan Fern is that Rhys ap Thomas was an honourable man and a man of culture and should be up there with Glyndwr in Welsh History - after all he whispered into the ear of the King Henry V11 and was respected by Henry V111 and in all probability delivered the fatal blow at Battle of Bosworth that killed Richard 111.

Rhys ap Thomas certainly played a very important role in Welsh and English history and should be remembered - for being crucial to the victory of  Henry Richmond at the Battle of Bosworth and elevating the Richmond's and the Beauforts to the English Crown.

But was this done to help Wales, Carmarthen or restore his family fortunes ?

The more I thought about this question I saw Rhys ap Thomas like his grandfather Nicholas an acknowledged rogue but a more polished one by his enforced presence at the court in Burgundy.

Rhys ap Thomas was a  man of a brutal age and duplicity was in his blood and you only have to read his letter of loyalty to Richard 111 in Susan Ferns book to know what cultured depths of duplicity he was capable of.

His grandson  Rhys ap Gruffydd also inherited the family roguish characteristics and lost all his grandfathers estates and was executed for treason after conflict with Baron Ferrers and for insulting Anne Boleyn..

In the late 1520s, Baron Ferrers came into increasing conflict with Rhys ap Gruffydd following King Henry's grants of major power to him in Wales.

This reached a head when Rhys, with a gang of armed supporters, threatened Baron Ferrers with a knife in 1529. The two men were allowed to air their grievances, but Rhys's family continued to stir up trouble. Eventually Rhys was charged with treason, convicted and executed.

From that point on Rhys ap Thomas family was written out of history - what some century later became known as Tudor history.

Perceptive historians like Gwyn Alf Williams always saw the Richmond/Tudors as playing at being Welsh when it suited their interests.

Gwynfor Evans correctly distinguished between the Welsh form and English content of the Tudors in his book Land of My Fathers.

If the Richmond/Tudors had merely erased Rhys ap Thomas who was the morning herald of the uchelwyr - the Tudor gentry from history that would not be a major problem today.

However  the Richmond/Tudors bought and paid bards and sycophantic historians like David Powel to falsify Welsh History.

David Powel published in 1584, The Historie of Cambria, now called Wales, was the first printed History of Wales

It also popularised the legend that Prince Madoc had discovered America in about 1170, a tale used to justify English encroachments on the territory of Spanish America (for example in Hakluyt's Discourse on Western Planting).

David Powel was A Tudor Taff for Colonialism and Empire.

This Welsh Quisling also kept the Privy Council informed about illegal books circulating amongst Roman Catholics in Wales.

The Richmond/Tudors were also keen to erase any Welsh Royal bloodline and hunted down descendants of the Welsh Royal House as well as re writing history.

The crime of the Richmond/Tudor's was the killing of Welsh History and replacing it with a Cambrio- Brit History not the killing of Rhys ap Gruffydd  just another land owning rogue in the Rhys ap Thomas family tradition.

What was the position of the ordinary Welsh people the peasantry during this Richmond/Tudor time not the privileged Rhys ap Thomas bloodline ?

Historian Brian Howells in Tudor Wales gives us an insight here :

"When Henry Tudor became King, Wales like England, had not yet recovered from the effect of the great population slump which had occurred in the middle ages.

Villeinage had virtually disappeared , labourers and small farmers were enjoying a relatively high standard of living, and so slack was the demand for land that rents were low and some holdings unoccupied for want of tenants.

Within a couple of generations the situation had dramatically changed. There was a dramatic increase in population which resulted in severe inflation, the prices of some foodstuffs increasing six fold during the course of the sixteenth century, land hunger, a substantial increase in the proportion of landless people in society, a labour glut and relatively low wages.

Many peasants also found that, because land was becoming a more valuable commodity, they were subjected to a determination to oust them from their farmlands or to increase in their rents.

For them it was as George Owen remarked "A new world"..

It was a good time for the collaborating Welsh Gentry  the uchelwyr  the supporters of the Richmond Tudor Monarchy.

These collaborators would later morph into our present day crachach but it was a very hard "new world" for the ordinary people in this new Richmond/Tudor Wales.

The uchelwyr came from blood relations from the old Welsh tribal bonheddwyr or breyr - so we have a line of oppressors from past to present crachach who have been taken as representing Wales on our behalf.

Is it not time for the authentic Wales of the Gwerin to step forward in history ?

The Rhys ap Thomas lecture in Carmarthen reminded me that the past is very much the present  - where a small section of Welsh collaborators did well under the Richmond Tudors but the vast majority Welsh People suffered impoverishment and growing landlessness.

The Crachach have found a new hero and the Gwerin a new villain in Rhys ap Thomas who brought the oppressive Richmond Tudors to power and we have two different versions of history that of the people and that of the elites.

The Political Psychology of the General Election in Wales by Nickglais

Wales Election Results 2015

Labour            552,473
Conservative  407,813
UKIP              204,360
Plaid Cymru   181,000

The Welsh Election Results tell us much about the political psychology and a little about the  principles or theories held by people who live in Wales if we examine the numbers closely.

We urgently require a more profound revolutionary understanding of the political psychology of Welsh voters and why people vote against their own objective class and national interests in Wales.

What makes Welsh people open to manipulation by both mass media and all political parties and British institutions ?

We must begin to answer these questions if we are to have prospect of developing a mass line for Wales.

If the aspirations of a new Welsh Socialist Republican Movement  avant garde are to be in tune with the aspirations of the overwhelming majority of Welsh people.

The 552,473 Labour voters in Wales on the positive side voted for what they perceived as a class interest in the manner of Old Labour in the 2015 Election in Wales and for austerity lite.

However this old capitalist social democratic trap for those with socialist aspirations is still alive a well in Wales and has a repetitive mesmerising effect on the Welsh working class which must be broken.

Wales lacks a Radical Independence Movement as well as nation wide politicised collective of cultural activists which underlay Scottish National Party success against Scottish Labour and until such a new movement is mobilised in Wales Labour hegemony will be unbroken..

The 407,813 conservative voters in Wales is a very major problem for us socialist radicals as they project themselves as a Unionist Party and even reject the Liberal Imperialist "Home Rule all Round" politics.

The Conservative Party is a party of the rich but are successful not only among the middle classes but also with some sections of the working class and have been so since Disraeli when a section of the working class identified itself totally with British Imperialism.

Look at the question of forthcoming General Picton militaristic celebrations in West Wales - who will confront these celebration of militarism and conservatism and British Imperialism in Wales ?

We have to tackle the roots of pro British Imperialist ideology in Wales to uproot conservatism.

We must bring forth a People's History of Wales that illustrates the anti democratic  character of British Nationalism and British Imperialism and try to neutralise or win over these Conservative voters for  an authentic Welsh national cause rejecting British Nationalism - bring an end to Cambrio Brit History promoted in Wales from the Tudors onwards.

The 204,360 people in Wales who voted for the United Kingdom Independence Party were a mixture of little Englanders in Wales to outright  racists as the foreigners and aids psychological sub text from Nigel Farage was akin to the Hitler and Syphilis sub text of 1930's.

UKIP appeals to the Labour voter as much as the Welsh anti European Tory and in Merthyr they attracted "social imperialist pseudo left wingers" with its British Imperialist ideology - UKIP came second in the popular vote in Merthyr.

The 181,000 People who voted for Plaid Cymru were it base linguistic area and its message of Home Rule did not inspire or even promote an Independent Wales as in Scotland from the Referendum onwards independence remains the issue despite tactical denials by SNP..

The fact that Plaid Cymru  was essentially politically static is due to the fact they have succumbed to safe electoralism  and  do not want to risk anything for the  idealism of Independence and Socialism which we recently pointed out here.

From the Plaid Cymru spin you would think they had a great victory securing their base linguistic areas and becoming the fourth place political party in Wales and they appear politically insensible to the rising challenge the Tories and UKIP bring to our class and national survival..

The 97,000 votes for the Liberal Party in Wales comes from sections of the Welsh middle class the rump of the Liberal Imperialists left over from Tom Ellis and Lloyd George - their message in Wales as to some degree been appropriated by sections of Plaid Cymru who seem more comfortable with Home Rule than Independence.


Time to Light up the Sky - Forward to the Welsh Socialist Republican Congress and opening the road to Independence and Socialism in Wales.

Dark Clouds in Wales but the Welsh Socialist Republican Congress will Light Up The Sky

The Conservatives make more gains in Wales - another three seats - The Ultra British Nationalist UKIP polls more votes than Plaid Cymru in Wales but thank God has not won any seats. Time for strategic thinking and the blending of the class and national struggle - we have a Wales to Win for National and Social Liberation we have to lift the dark clouds on the horizon and be bold and courageous and speak from the heart as Michael Sheen counselled us but be guided by our head. Yr Aflonyddwwch Mawr was never part of the election circus as the struggle for Welsh Independence goes on before and after and in spite of Elections but small as we are we have big ideas and our Welsh Socialist Republican Congress will light up the sky in 2015 and clear the path for Independence and Socialism in Wales.

Our Independence is not negotiable ! Restore the Senedd Glyndwr - vote Owain Glyndwr on 7th of May 2015

No return to the British political trick of Liberal Imperialism of "Home Rule all Round"

No to the Crachach - Welsh Independence and Socialism in 2015.

Vote for Independence by your actions not just words on ballot papers,

The seven hundred year struggle for National and Social Liberation of the Welsh People continues before and after and in spite of the electoral circus.

Join us in the ground up struggle to defend our Land and Liberty.

Make the struggle for Wales part of your everyday life .

We have a Wales to Win for National and Social Liberation.

Join the Yr Aflonyddwch Mawr Today.

The Great British Lie - The United Kingdom Independence Party are Anti Establishment Outsiders by Nickglais

The UK Election and its ritualistic election politics are underway controlled and contrived by the British Media.

Democracy and Class Struggle  thinks it necessary to turn our attention to what is "new" in this Election to learn what deception and self deception bourgeois politics has in store for us today.

Leaving aside the Scottish National Party who we will address in another article the "new force" in English politics is the British Nationalist United Kingdom Independence Party which could get 4 million votes in this election.

UKIP is led by a spiv and wide boy called Nigel Farage a former commodity trader who has deep roots in the City of London  working not only at the London Metal Exchange but also at Drexel Burnham Lambert, Credit Lyonnais, REFCO and Natexis Metals - a true City of London insider.

UKIP  has attracted the financial support of Schroders Fund Manager Andy Brough and Hedge Fund manager Crispin Odey and of course the largest ever Tory donor Stuart Wheeler of City based IG Index has become an enthusiastic UKIP financial supporter.

From a firm city financial base UKIP has attracted some industry men like Paul Sykes of the Paul Sykes Group in the North of England to pay for some of his advertising past and present and a million pounds from former Tory donor Arron Banks of Brightside Insurance and "ex" pornographer and Daily Express owner Richard Desmond has chipped in another million - truly millions stand behind Nigel Farage.

The BBC has invited Nigel Farage on dozens of occasions on its flagship programme Any Questions where he poses as an outsider  - the BBC is very good at "grooming".

Nigel Farage has been well and truly "groomed" for "British" political leadership.

When the City of London Piper calls the tune Nigel Farage does not disappoint his financial capitalist masters.

Since the 2008  Financial crash Nigel Farage has been busy blaming immigrants as contributors to this crisis deflecting blame from his City of London chums who should all be doing prison sentences for fraudulent trading.

Just to churn out more money from his chums Nigel introduced the Aids and Foreigners NHS scare to keep the millions rolling in.

So much for these rank UKIP outsiders with their firm City of London Financial base of support groomed by the BBC.

Truly the Great British Lie that the United Kingdom Independence Party are anti Establishment outsiders.

Wrth Feddwl am fy Nghymru - Dafydd Iwan (geiriau / lyrics)

 Geiriau:

Rwy'n cofio Llywelyn, byddinoedd Glyndwr
Yn ymladd dros ryddid ein gwlad
Ond caethiom ni eto, dan bawen y Sais
Mor daeog, mor llwm ein hystad

Ac wrth feddwl am fy Nghymru
Daw gwayw i 'nghalon i
Dyw'r werin ddim digon o ddynion - bois
I fynnu ei rhyddid hi

Wrth edrych o'th gwmpas fe weli
Fod yr heniaith yn cilio o'r tir
Ni chlywir yr un acen a ni chlywir yr un gair
O iaith ein cyn dadau cyn hir

Ac wrth feddwl am fy Nghymru
Daw gwayw i 'nghalon i
Dyw'r werin ddim digon o ddynion - bois
I fynnu ei rhyddid hi

Mae argae ar draws Cwm Tryweryn
Yn gofgolofn i'n llwfrdra ni
Nac anghofiwn ddewrder yr hogiau prin
Aeth i garchar y Sais drosom ni

Ac wrth feddwl am fy Nghymru
Daw gwayw i 'nghalon i
Dyw'r werin ddim digon o ddynion - bois
I fynnu ei rhyddid hi

Disgynnodd yr iau ar ein gwarae
Ni allwn ni ddianc rhag hon
Y mae arial y Celt yn byrlymu'n ein gwaed
A fflam Glyndwr dan ein bron

Ac wrth feddwl am fy Nghymru
Daw llawenydd i'n nghalon i
Os nad yw'r werin yn ddigon
Rhaid i ni ddod yn ddynion
I fynnu ei rhyddid hi...


Lyrics / English Translation:

I remember Llywelyn, the armies of Glyndwr
Fighting for the freedom of our country
But confined were we once more under the paw of the Englishman
So wicked, and so bleak our estate

And as I think of my Wales
An ache comes to my heart
The people aren't man enough
To demand her freedom

If you look around you'll see
That the ancient language is fading from the land
Soon no accent or word will be heard
Of the language of our fathers

And as I think of my Wales
An ache comes to my heart
The people aren't man enough
To demand her freedom

The damn across Cwm Tryweryn
Is testament to our weakness
And we will not forget the bravery of the boys
Who went to the Englishman's prison for us

And as I think of my Wales
An ache comes to my heart
The people aren't man enough
To demand her freedom

The young fell in battle
"We cannot escape from her"
The passion of the Celt boils in our blood
And the flame of Glyndwr in our hearts

And as I think of my Wales
A happiness comes to my heart
If the people aren't man enough
We must become men
To demand her freedom...