It was only at the end of January last year that the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales published its report. It already seems that it might as well not have happened.
The Commission found that a country conquered by its neighbour over 700 years ago could nonetheless have a viable future as an independent state. And that this could, at the risk of some short-term disruption, improve the prospects of Cymru and its people, moving them beyond the conflicts and limitations of the devolution model. Earth-shattering stuff for England’s oldest colony – an implied recognition of alternatives denied, of wealth and freedom stolen but still within reach.
I’m not qualified to speak for Cymru. I’m an English-born man lucky enough to have been educated at a Welsh university, and to live in the west of this perfectly sized country. In my 20s I discovered I had a Welsh granny, but am a Welshman by choice. Dw i’n Cymro o ddewis. I know and love it enough to wish it only the best.
Voices in a vacuum
There’s a burgeoning belief in Cymru that this country should be independent. It’s a majority position among younger people. Rumours of the death of Wales and of Welshness have been consistently exaggerated to suit the Unionist agenda.
The key question is how this surge in support might be converted into political reality – into steps towards the creation of a modern democratic nation. The indy conversation needs to widen and deepen. Until it becomes natural for most to wonder at the absurdity of rule from Westminster, a hobbled devolution settlement, and responsibility without real power.
The conversation doesn’t need to be an attempt to convince everyone that pro-independence arguments are all correct or represent a fully-formed blueprint. Those who’ve examined the social, economic, fiscal, cultural, and environmental arguments, who consider themselves to be democrats, know the arguments are strong. But good ideas die in silence, and arguments presented in a vacuum wither.
Opponents present no convincing case in favour of the Union. They don’t need to win arguments, but just to let the conversation slowly trail off. To allow, over time, the mere idea of indy Cymru to seem once again outlandish, or plain silly.
So every conversation about independence is really a pro-independence conversation. And discourse about the meaning and direction of the community of communities that composes Cymru breathes life back into civil society. It makes citizens out of people otherwise reduced to being consumers and subjects.
Politicians have good reason to be wary of a citizenry empowered by informed discourse, and armed with the conviction that power rises from ‘below’.
Cymru conversations
This is where civic renewal and the national question come together. It’s dead easy to look around and see the decline of traditional industries. To mourn the absence of strong communities that once upheld a shared understanding of what Wales meant. And bemoan the challenges facing the Welsh language in its strongholds.
But we have to do better. We must look together for what Cymru means today, and for the finest examples of community-building. They provide clues as to how we might come together in a shared conversation, from which would inevitably arise a powerful conviction. That for our country, our children, and their children, we must be independent.
I recently visited an amazing community project in Mountain Ash, the Feel Good Factory. It was a glimpse of a more evolved country. Its people bring community, food, creativity, dignity, and commitment to the Welsh language together in a way that had me on Cloud Nine.
There are many more examples. Every example of community ownership, whether of a pub, a shop, or a wind turbine, every community garden project, every community-supported agriculture scheme, every pioneering project in Bro Ffestiniog, is a clue to how we might find our new country. And each provides a setting for the most radical conversations taking place in Cymru today.
At an panel concluding an exhibition in Denbigh, artists talked about north-south transport, and how difficult it is to develop a national art scene hampered by scarcity of good links. They were imagining a new Cymru as they spoke: one with a shared cultural landscape unrestrained by an extractive colonial transport system.
People’s Assemblies in places like Hay-on-Wye – partly looking after their library, but so much more ambitious – offer other clues. To a better future, in which communities might beautifully manage their own vital assets.
A confident Cymru
We could, of course, do much more. We could begin to understand our rivers, watersheds, soils, shores, and wildlife. We could map Cymru, but properly – its history and culture truly understood and brought to life.
This is the key to independence. How do we see Cymru, and can we come to share a conversation about its diverse social, cultural, linguistic, and ecological realities?
An Irish friend asked how people in Cymru felt about Michael Sheen’s drama The Way. I don’t know the general consensus, but said I think Sheen is sure to be the first President of indy Cymru, if he wants it. Even without directly espousing independence, he consistently spurs a national conversation about what Cymru means.
Deeper politicisation – by which I mean a concern for politics beyond the froth of party and personality, and the development of discourse from first principles – and a culture that keeps politicians honest would inevitably drive change and prepare Cymru for independence. This begins with conversations, glimpses of the future, and the civic renewal they encourage.
Not one of us will get exactly the new country we want, whether we demand a return to the past – some mythic Cymru – or a utopian future. But if we’re talking to one another, in English, in Welsh, in both, and paying attention to the very best community-building efforts everywhere, we’ll get a modern democratic nation. A confident and bilingual Cymru we can all be proud of.
