What kind of Leader should Plaid Cymru have?

Now that there is the possibility of a leadership challenge within the party, the obvious question to ask is what kind of leader should Plaid Cymru have?

The most obvious quality that comes to mind of course is the ability to win elections for the party.  And when I say win, I mean have a serious chance at making Plaid a truly national party in Wales and one that may actually be able to lead a government in Cardiff Bay. 

Labour have been in power for two decades straight and, let's just say that it's been disappointing - and it's simply not right that even in such circumstances, the opposition has seemingly no realistic chance at taking power. 

In order to have a reasonable chance at leading a Welsh Assembly Government, Plaid Cymru needs to have a leader who is willing to work with other opposition parties and not one who refuses to work with any one but Labour - even if you did want to go into coalition with Labour, you must never enter a negotiation telling the other side that they're your only option!

This is just one example of where there needs to be a fundamental change in the programme of the leadership.  A move away from the hard left and towards the center of Welsh Politics is necessary for several key reasons:

• The whole aim of any political party is to win as many votes as possible in order to try to win power - by making the party ultra-left wing, it has only turned itself into a niche within a niche catering mainly to people who are both nationalist and ultra-socialist.  Instead, the party should appeal to Welsh patriots from across the political spectrum.
• And of course, as discussed, Plaid Cymru needs to drop it's hard-left attitude of refusing to work with right of centre parties if it ever plans to lead a government in any circumstances that resemble the present.

Plaid Cymru does of course have core values which it must never compromise - protecting and saving the Welsh culture and language and achieving greater prosperity, happiness and self rule for Wales.  But that aside, the party should be a lot more flexible. 

As I have argued, Plaid Cymru should be less hostile towards the Monarchy - that was a motion forwarded at a party youth conference by two members from Caernarfon back in 2015, and one that I immediately supported as I saw it being forwarded in front of my eyes. 

I'm sure that there are many patriotic Welshmen who happen to support the Monarchy so why should Plaid have to put them off, when it could instead be like the SNP and win over both Republicans and Monarchists?

What Plaid Cymru needs therefore, is a leader who is strongly committed to the party's core values but is a lot more pragmatic and willing to give ear on other issues.

I do have great respect for Leanne Wood as she is clearly a politician of great principle.  But that, if anything, is a key problem - she has too many hard line principles and not enough flexibility where flexibility is exactly what the party needs. 

Therefore I believe that the right combination of principle and pragmatism is what any new leader of Plaid Cymru should have.

Can US Federalism Learn from China?

China, like the US, is a very diverse.  Sure, both countries have a majority group but if you started counting the number of other groups, you would be there for a long time.

In China, there are some 56 different ethnic groups, and therefore 55 different minority groups, not counting foreigners like myself.  In the United States, there are over 500 different federally recognized Native American tribes alone, the most numerous being the Cherokee and the Navajo.  

But how the two countries organize their different minority groups is something that is radically different in the two countries.

Imagine if, in the US, the Cherokee and Navajo nations each had their own State, or if there was a German American State or an Italian American State, and you have the situation that exists in China.

China is mostly divided into provinces, but the areas of the country that belong to a particular ethnic group are called Autonomous Regions.  For example, there's the Tibet Autonomous Region for Tibetans in Tibet and there's the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region for Ethnic Mongolians in Inner Mongolia.  

There are five ARs overall, meaning that five of the 55 different minority groups have their own areas of the country, equivalent to States in the US, where, for example, their own languages are co-official with Mandarin Chinese.  

A map of China's main Ethnolinguistic Groups

A Map of China's Autonomous Regions

Now, let's be clear what this is not - we are not talking about forcing minorities to live in certain areas - far from it; in China for example, only one in every 5 Hui people actually live Ningxia, their own autonomous region - the rest live across China, including opposite my apartment block here in Nanjing.

Rather instead this is about having a particular province or state dedicated to a particular minority group, and it is  where almost always that particular group is from in the first place.

Would the Chinese Model Work in the U.S?

I've long believed that at least one Native American Reservation in the US should be given Statehood - it makes no sense that the Native Americans, America's first inhabitants, don't have states of their own, whereas Californians and North Carolinians do.

It too makes no sense that not a single Native American nation is represented in the Senate in the way that California or New Jersey are.  It also makes no sense that many Native American Reservations, like the Navajo Nation, even have State boundaries running across them!  

The Navajo Nation's Reservation is divided between three
different states.  Time to end this nonesense.

It's high time to make the Navajo Nation a state in it's own right - and make it America's first 'Indian State.'  It would send a message to the world that America's Indigenous people are not a conquered people to be left on the margins but full on members of the American Union just as Californians or Alaskans are.

A State for German Americans, for example?

German Americans by US State
and Canadian Province

German Americans, like most immigrant groups, are fairly widely dispersed throughout the US, and there is no state where they are an actual majority.  Furthermore, only 5% still speak German.  

But that doesn't matter.  In China, of the five A.Rs, in only one, Tibet, is the Titular Ethnic Group still more than 50% of the population.

In the Inner Mongolian A.R, only 17% of the population is ethnically Mongol, with more than 70% being Han Chinese.  But that doesn't stop Mongolian from being co-official with Chinese or do anything to revoke Inner Mongolia's A.R status - and nor should it.  

And then of course there's the example of Ningxia, which is home to only a fifth of China's Hui people, and where only a third of the population is ethnically Hui.

So why, when 46% of the population of North Dakota is German American, can't we do likewise, and make it America's German State?  This would mean, for example:

• That the state would be regarded as the 'home' or 'capital' of German America, and German American cultural festivals would probably happen there,  for example.
• German would be a co-official language at State Level there, so that parents in North Dakota could chose between German and English Medium Public Schools for their children.
• In German Medium Schools, the kids would mostly speak English at home but would acquire German through total immersion and have all their lessons through German, (with the exception of English class of course), and thus subsequent generations would grow up bilingual again and rediscover their heritage.
• Germans from Germany could go and teach German there, and have great fun!
• The State's name would be something like 'The German American State of North Dakota', just as the Ningxia is the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.  The position of non-German Americans in North Dakota would in no way change, just as the Han Chinese inhabitants of Ningxia are in no way disadvantaged either.

I think it would be a great idea - a fine tribute to the many different ethnic groups that made America great and allow countless Americans to rediscover their own heritage.  

Rags to Riches: The Beggar who Became an Emperor

I remember a family Christmas dinner that we once had, about four years ago, where one family member argued that no successful rebellion or revolution could take place unless the revolutionaries themselves were near the top - in other words, forget the romantic image of the 'people' overthrowing the 'elite.'

Me at the Emperor Hongwu's Mausoleum
Tuesday a week ago.

Yet one week ago, I took a visit to somewhere I was always meaning to see - the mausoleum of a man born Zhu Yuanzhang but now known by the named he earned through his successful revolution - Emperor Hongwu.  

Emperor Hongwu - the man who, throw his rise to power, expelled the Mongol invaders, and established his new dynasty - the Ming dynasty, was no doubt one of China's greatest emperors.  And for me personally, him making Nanjing the capital of his new China adds a further feather to his cap.

But what was particularly jaw-dropping about him was his background.  He was no aristrocrat and that is an understatement.  On the contrary he was from a peasant family that was so impoverished that everyone, save for him and one brother, starved to death during a drought, leaving the 16 year old Zhu Yuanzhang completely destitute.

So how did this orphaned teenage peasant, starving and uneducated, rise from the rags of near starvation to the riches of being Emperor?

Accepting his brother's advice, he trained as a monk in a local Buddhist Monastery where he learned to read and write but even this couldn't last long, as in the impoverished circumstances of the day even  the monastery was forced to close.  He thus was a wandering beggar for three years before the Monastery was able to open again.

Then, four years later, disaster struck again when the monastery was destroyed by an army that was there supressing a rebellion.  Thus, in 1352, Zhu joined one of the many rebel groups that was rising against the Mongol Yuan Dynasty.

It was then that Zhu showed his capabilities as he rose up the ranks and became a commander, and eventually a key rebel leader, and was seen as a leading defender of Han Chinese Confucian values against the Mongol overlords.

In 1356, he and the forces of his rebellion conquered Nanjing, making this ancient city his new base of operations.  The Mongols however, still held the north and their capital at Beijing but they made little effort to retake the Yangtze - under these circumstances Nanjing became famous for Zhu's good governance, and in a decade the city's population grew 10 fold.

At first, Zhu's forces's mainly fought other rebel groups rather than the Yuan up north, however these victories led to Zhu proclaming himself Emperor in 1368 and it was in that year that he finally gained control of Beijing and the North - the last province to be conquered by him wasn't taken until 1381.

There is no doubt that the hardships of his youth affected his world-view and his policies - as you can imagine, he never forgot what it was like to be poor.

He introduced government records of land and property to ensure that peasants would not loose their lands to abusive officials, he expanded irrigation systems and dikes specifically to help peasant farmers, and abolished all tax on the cultivation of  previously fallow land - something which in percentage terms increased the amount of land under the plow more than under any other dynasty.

He was also, one could argue, environmentally very forward thinking too - he had some 50 million trees planted in and around Nanjing - perhaps foreshadowing the current project, that of the green wall of China.

But talking of foreshadowing, it was his rise to power that foreshadowed the end of his Ming Dynasty, when in 1644, another peasant rebel, Li Zicheng (known by his nickname as Dashing King) rose up and seized Beijing, although unlike Emperor Hongwu, Li Zicheng's dynasty Shun dynasty lasted only a year when the Manchus invaded and established China's last Imperial Dynasty, the Qing.  But I digress.

Either way, if you ever want to find an example of a true rags to riches story, and of a succesful revolutionary from a real peasant background, you would do well to look to Zhu Yuanzhang - Emperor Hongwu, the founder of the Ming dynasty.

No, Welsh is Not Dead. Here are some Stats to Prove it.

How many times have you heard people saying that Welsh was a dead language? Probably quite a lot.  I certainly have.

The reality though is that Welsh is absolutely not dead.  Here are some statistics from some Welsh-speaking communities in North West Wales (the Fro Gymraeg) to prove it:

• In the town of Caernarfon, the percentage of primary school children who spoke Welsh at home went up from 75.6% in 2013 to 78.7% in 2017. 
• In the town of Blaenau Ffestiniog, the figures increased from 73.3 to 77.0% during those same years, and in both towns – this had nothing to do with English-speakers moving out – rather the number of Welsh-speaking households increased.
• Also, in Gwynedd, there were a number of smaller villages which saw similar stories – in Waunfawr, on the edge of Snowdonia, the number of pupils speaking Welsh at home increased from 66 out of 98 in 2010 to 78 out of 100 in 2017.
• On Anglesey - the county town, Llangefni, saw its number of primary school pupils from Welsh-Speaking homes jump from 309 in 2013 to 337 in 2017,  an increase from 72.0%  to 72.2%.
• Also, on Anglesey, 15 of the 25 Welsh-at-home majority PSs saw an increase in the percentage of pupils speaking Welsh at home during those four years.
• In 2011, in 9/14 of Gwynedd’s secondary schools, Welsh was more widely used than English in the playground.
• Even some weaker areas had some good news – in the town of Dolgellau, the percentage of primary school children speaking Welsh at home went up from 27% in 2010 to 30% in 2013 to 32% in 2017.

Not bad for a language that is supposed to be dying.  

So why is Welsh doing so badly in other areas?

Why is the news of Welsh dying out in other areas, often just up the road, equally true?

• Why in the seaside resort of Criccieth, did the percentage of children from Welsh-Speaking homes fall from 64% to 42% from 2004 to 2017?
• Why in the ‘honey pot village’ of Beddgelert, just west of Snowdon, did it fall from 50% in 2005 to 10% a decade later?
• Why in the lakeside town of Bala, did it fall from 60% to 49% between 2013 and 2017?
• Why, in Llanberis, the base for Snowdon, did it fall from 69% to 51% during those four years?
• Why, in Dolbenmaen, did it fall from 77.5% to 52.3%, again, during those four years?
• Why, in the same time period, did Bethesda’s infant school see the same figure drop from 70.6% to 55.7% during that same time period?
• Why, in Tregarth, did it fall from 50% to 26.8% in just 10 years?

Why is Welsh dying out so rapidly in Bala, Llanberis and Dolbenmaen when it’s been holding out so well in places like Caernarfon, Llanelli and Blaenau Ffestiniog?

It’s clearly not the Internet, Facebook, or TV programmes, since Welsh-Speaking teenagers in Caernarfon have Facebook just as much as non-Welsh-speaking kids from Bangor do.  Same with smartphones and TV programmes.

And it’s certainly not a natural death that’s been going on in places like Bala and Llanberis – how on earth could such rapid falls just happen like that?

The role of in-migration – can we talk about it?

When, on New Year’s Eve 2016, I happened to be discussing this issue (and practicing my Welsh) with a local whilst admiring Cwm Idwal, he made it clear to me what he thought was killing the Welsh language.

When I asked him if it was Television, the Internet and smartphones, he said that no, the biggest killer was English-Speakers moving in and not learning Welsh.

And I, as an Englishman then studying at Aberystwyth, was not the least bit offended by that idea.

And for the simple reason that it’s not racist to talk about the effect that tourism or move-to-scenic-countryside migration is having on local communities - just as it is not racist to talk about the effect that over-tourism had on, say, Amsterdam, Barcelona, or Venice. 

Just as it is also not racist to talk about the possibility that an expanding Brussels commuter belt could kill of Flemish in the surrounding countryside, given that Brussels is a French-Speaking city.

And so I believe that the people of Wales absolutely have a right to ask why on earth, in places such as Bala and Beddgelert, Welsh is dying such a sudden and unnatural death, when up the road, Caernarfon and Blaenau Ffestiniog prove that this need not be the case.

In-migration and Language Collapse – Some Stats

The link between in-migration and the decline of Welsh is particularly striking in Gwynedd, where there appears to be a striking correlation between the percentage of people born outside Wales, and the percentage of school children from non-Welsh-speaking homes.

Here is an example of three communities in Meirionydd (Southern Snowdonia for any non-Welsh readers) that show this correlation so strikingly:

Town / Village name	% of people born outside Wales in 2011	% of Primary School Children from non-Welsh speaking homes in 2013
Llanuwchllyn	21.4	20.0
Dolgellau	33.3	69.5
Barmouth	51.3	95.8

And you only need to say the words ‘Bangor’, ‘Abersoch’, ‘Beddgelert’ and ‘Betws Y Coed’ – chose your pick, to further prove the point.

But Let’s not be Ageist about it.

When we so often talk about retiree in-migration being the death of the Welsh Language, is that fair?  No, I think it’s both ageist, and well, plain wrong. 

Think about it, if retiree in-migration were the leading cause of falling percentages of Welsh-Speakers, you'd expect the non-Welsh-speakers to be the retirees, ie the over-65s, and not the young, wouldn't you?

Is that what has happened? 

There are indeed a handful of communities, where the non-Welsh-speakers really are the old and not the young:

Take the village of Tudweiliog, on the Llyn Peninsular, where some 94.3% of children in the primary school were from Welsh-Speaking homes in 2013, even though at the 2011 Census some 26.1% of village residents were unable to speak Welsh, and 31.3% of residents were born outside of Wales. 

In that coastal village, it really was the retirees who were the non-Welsh-speakers since  the children and their parents nearly all spoke Welsh at home.  

But is Tudweiliog the norm?

No, unfortunately – and the handful of other communities that fit that same pattern, of the young being nearly all Welsh-mother-tongue but the old not so much, are all rural communities that are not typical.

On the contrary, when in-migration leads to a drop in Welsh, it is much more likely to be school children, and not the old, who stop speaking it first.  Retiree migration is, if anything, the least damaging form of in-migration when it comes to the language.

So yes, let’s talk about the effect of in-migration – it doesn't make you racist, but at the same time, we shouldn't resort to ageist stereotypes either.  And that, if anything, is what you should take away from this blog article.

Tudweiliog on the end of the Llyn Peninsular, one of the few communities which follows the pattern of Welsh being near universal amongst the young, but less widespread among the old, and due to retiree in-migration.