The Oppressor in the Mirror

The Oppressor in the Mirror

On 26 September 2015 at around 9:54pm, there was an almighty roar and the whole pub stood as one, England had been defeated by Wales at Twickenham in the Rugby World Cup. Choruses of Mae hen and Calon Lan were sung with gusto. On 17 October, South Africa defeated Wales. The pub was quiet, until one voice said, ‘I will live on the victory over the English for decades’

Mae hyn yn fy stori. Dw i’n symud ym Mae Treaddur o Birmingham yn mis Chwefror 2014.

This is essentially my story. I moved to Bae Trearddur on the edge of Anglesey from Bartley Green in Birmingham. Nothing could have prepared me in many ways for the culture shock that I was about and continue to experience.

I am an Anglican priest. I have been through a number of highly creative programmes that have made me aware of race, gender and sexuality. I pride myself on being tolerant and open in the way that any one trained through the Queen’s Foundation in Birmingham should. All of this was brought into sharp focus by the relocation to Wales

It has been a journey of unlearning, of discovering that what I had presumed had been a shared history of between the nations of the British Isles is far from that. Like many educated in England, my history was a British history littered with the names of crowned individuals and tales of daring do of English men and occasionally of English women. I knew hardly anything about Welsh history and culture, and began a discovery that concluded that the much heralded characteristic of English fair play does not appear to have been in evidence with how the English or British establishment had dealt with the people of Wales. The fact that overt bias is seemingly a thing of the past does not mean that it does not linger in the collective memory. The following example is poignant.

When you are new to a context, you meet lots of people, and also go out of your way to introduce yourself. On one such occasion, I sat with the Head of the local secondary school for the first time. About 20 minutes in, I was struck deeply and profoundly by his words.

‘My Dad was caned at school for speaking Welsh and made to wear the knot. Whenever I meet someone who is from England, I remember that and our history’

I had no idea of that the Westminster government had tried to make English the first language of Wales. I knew nothing about pupils being punished for simply speaking their mother tongue. I knew nothing of what the head teacher termed ‘our history’

I knew nothing of the so-called Blue Book or Brad y Llyfrau Gleision which the 1847 Government report into State of Education in Wales has become known.

Two quotes illustrate its conclusions

‘Teach English and bigotry will be banished’

‘The Welsh language is a vast drawback to the Welsh and a manifold barrier to the moral progress and commercial prosperity of the people. It is not easy to overestimate its evil effect`

Some of the attempts to make English normative were dressed as enabling different choices to be made. In order to improve pupils’ knowledge of the English language, the Welsh education system of the late 19^th century employed the ‘Welsh Not’ or ‘Welsh stick’ as a method of discouraging children from speaking Welsh. This small piece of wood was given in turn to individuals overheard talking Welsh, and whoever was wearing it by the end of the week was often severely punished.

Whilst such practices officially fell away in the early 20^th Century, in parts of Anglesey they continued. Several of my congregation from their late 40s to late 70s recall wistfully Welsh being side-lined in order to enable them to get on.

Coupled with the official and unofficial repression of the language, there has been a continual suspicion and perhaps mockery from across the border.

If an Englishman enters a shop in Welsh-speaking parts of Wales, the locals are likely to switch promptly to speaking Welsh. Thus the Englishman cannot be sure whether they are talking about him

That this comment was made in 1994 by the then Secretary of State for Wales, John Redwood is reflective of continuing misunderstanding of Wales, its culture and language by those tasked with governing the four nations of the British Isles. Since this comment was made, Wales has been given a measure of devolved power, and its political parties are agreed that there should be further devolution, yet unlike its Celtic cousin, Scotland, Wales does not seem to have a genuine appetite for formal independence.

The discovery of this shared history led me to the realisation that the reflection looking back at me from the mirror was a representative of the Oppressor was galling and an impetus for further reflection.

To have to engage cross-culturally is something many Practical Theologians pride themselves on, both within our own discipline and across the multifarious fields of theology, the social sciences, humanities et al. in my case having been formed within the guild of biblical scholarship, I am all too aware of the need to take context seriously and the nuances within different languages, times and nations.

Reflection in practical ministry becomes honed by its praxis. I have sought to engage cross-culturally by honouring the language, by learning it, as well as by immersing myself in the various cultures of Wales. This has not been without its problems. Speaking Welsh for many is problematic for many reasons, but in my own context particularly for an older generation who were denied the opportunity to do so when they were younger; ‘English being the language needed to get on’. That an English vicar is re-introducing their mother tongue into the liturgy is for them both a source of pride and a challenge. Pride because it is not any English vicar, but their one and a challenge as it takes them out of their own comfort zone.

I could not have begun to this without attentively listening, seeing the image in the mirror and being willing to embrace and be embraced by a different context. That is incarnational theology and ministry, which I suspect is the topic for a different paper.