Hating the Celts

[Marhak]

We've all read anti-Celtic comments by our resident trolls, we've seen dreadful anti-Cornish and anti-Celtic things in the Press (e.g. Giles Coren, Petronella Wyatt), and on TV (Anne Robinson's disgraceful tirade against the Welsh), but this isn't new. It's a deep-rooted problem that doesn't disappear overnight. I came upon the following quotes highlighted by Prof. Bryan Sykes in his book: Blood of the British, and both date from the 19th century. Note the supremacist tone of each:

Robert Knox: "The Races of Men" (1850) - "The Celtic race must be forced from this soil. England's safety requires it".

The Times (1867): "The Welsh language is the curse of Wales. Its prevalence, and the ignorance of English have excluded, and even now exclude, the Welsh people from the civilisation of their English neighbours. An Eisteddfod is one of the most mischievous and selfish pieces of sentimentalism which could possibly be perpetrated. It is simply a foolish interference with the natural progress of civilisation and prosperity. If it is desirable that the Welsh should talk English, it is monstrous folly to encourage them in a loving fondness for their old language. Not only the energy and power, but the intelligence and music of Europe have come mainly from Teutonic sources, and this glorification of everything Celtic, if it were not pedantry would be sheer ignorance. The sooner all Welsh specialists disappear from the face of the earth, the better."

What really stands out is the undertone of an equally deep insecurity.

[Captain Black]

Cornwall and indeed British isles are not their country their hands are stained with the blood of the innocent who they killed, guilt breeds insecurity and hatred.

[carrek]

Typical English superiority complex.

They don't understand, and have never understood, why anyone would not want to be more like them. To the English, they are the height of civilisation and decency, and anyone else is beneath them. To the English, the only way for anywhere or anyone to become more prosperous and advanced, is to be more like them.

Of course I am generalising, but this is a trait seen far too often in England's dealings with pretty much any other people or nation in the world, it cannot be denied. It is seen in history and it is seen today with the English fear of Johnny Foreigner and "why can't they just be like us".

And to those English nationalists that think I'm saying this just because I supposedly hate the English (I don't): Prove me wrong.

[Trevorpen]

Goodness me, history hangs heavy with you Marhak. In the articles you quote from there is not one mention of Cornwall.
You also seem to try to give the impression that Cornwall is the only Celtic land in England. This is of course nonsense. The Celts were at one time the dominant race across the whole country, particularly the south. Indeed the highest clusters of Celts remains in Wiltshire today. Stop trying to give the impression there are only Celts in Cornwall and the western fringes of the UK. This is utter nonsense. Your continuous anti-English dribble is wearing very thin!

[Marhak]

Of course it does - I'm an historian! There doesn't have to be any mention of Cornwall, or anywhere else - the title of this thread is "Hating the Celts". I'm anti-English establishment, not anti-English (I have some very good English friends, as well as Celtic ones) and even then, I've never written anything remotely as venomous as Knox, The Times, Coren, and Wyatt. And don't you mean: Britain? There is a considerable difference between Britain and England, which is only one constituent part of it. By the way, I don't know where you get this Wiltshire business from, but there is a significant Celtic presence in Somerset, particularly in its place-names. One assumes that Knox wanted them "forced from this soil", too.

[Nige999]

the civilisation of their English neighbours

Couldn't say that now could they ?

[Nige999]

From Trevorpen

Your continuous anti-English dribble is wearing very thin!

And what about your tedious pro ingurrrrrland propaganda you sad muppet ?

If being a serial bore was in the olympics you would be bringing home the gold for your precious ingurrrrrrrrrland every time !

[Marhak]

He does have a talent for twisting examples of English anti-Celtic hatred into us hating the English, Nige, and I don't think my original post even hints at that! In fact, having reread it, I haven't even specifically accused the English of making those statements, just a few named individuals (inc. The Times). There's no cure for his kind of prejudice, or the idiots who make disgraceful, ill-informed comments to press articles about the Cornish (or Celts in general). A hopeless case, Nige. A hopeless case.

[Nige999]

I wouldn't describe it as a talent, more as an irritating habit.

[Marhak]

True. Notice, too, how he avoids the issue of statements like those being made and published by his Saxon heroes from the 19th century right up to now.

[Marhak]

Here's another. I've posted this before but it doesn't hurt to remind people of the inate hatred that's out there and being published unchallenged. This makes no bones about hatred. It states and repeats it!

"I hate the Cornish. I hate their poxy language which they make such a fuss about. I hate their fancy foreign food - like clotted cream - which makes the place stink, and I hate their fatuous demands to be treated as a nation" (Giles Coren: The Times (again), Aug 13, 1999).

But, no, according to the Gospel as twisted by Trevorpen, there's no anti-Cornish hatred. Just anti-English.

[Trevorpen]

Marhak, firstly I know you an historian and I respect much of your discussion comments and sometimes light humourous banter. However, plucking a few quotes does not make everyone from a certain country anti-Cornish! I know Cornish people who can't stand pasties and/or clotted cream, that surely doesn't make them anti Cornish?

[Marhak]

Did you notice that Coren wrote: "I hate . . ." FOUR times! That was my point. I could post a whole sheaf of such quotes but decided that a few examples would suffice. No, it doesn't make every Englishman anti-Cornish or anti-Celtic. I've never said that. I know a lot who are pro-Cornish and pro-Celtic, but there is a sizeable faction who openly take the opposite stance, such as those I've quoted. Explain to me why the Government persists in denying the Cornish a place on the Framework Convention for National and Ethnic Minorities - we're the only excluded group from all those resident in these islands - if not for reasons of wanting to see us purged from all recognition? Hell, even "Travellers" are included, and just what is their definition that justifies it?

[Marhak]

I can make myself even clearer. A great many English people have contributed hugely to all facets of Cornish studies and enriched those studies as a result. The legal expert (John Kirkhope) who has recently and most clearly set out the legal and constitutional position of Cornwall within Great Britain - the results of which very much support what we've been saying for years - is English.

Many English people who have moved to Cornwall have been utterly respectful of the Cornish in every way. Some, though, have not - instead, treating their hosts with utter disrespect and with hostile contempt. These include officials of such bodies as "English" Heritage and Nautral "England". Some of them, like John Morse and Peter Mahoney, write serial letters to the local papers expressing their dislike of everything Cornish, often insultingly. Add to these the morons from English cities who write contemptuous, offensive and ignorant comments to Press articles on-line - the modern heirs of Robert Knox and his ilk.

These are the English people that I dislike in their turn, and they do their own nation and ethnicity no favours at all.

[rhywun-arall]

I think Marhak's references to Welsh are perfectly apt in relation to the situation in Cornwall. Newspaper cuttings and other records with reference to Welsh which survive from the 19th and early 20th Centuries hint at the missing materials and testamonials which would no doubt have referred to Cornish in the previous century and before.

People don't abandon a language which their people have spoken since their people's history began without pressures being brought down upon them from beyond their own culture.

Mike Parker's "Neighbours from Hell? - English Attitudes to the Welsh" is chock full of quite harrowingly prejudicial quotes from the 19th Century right up to the smug sniping of the Anne Robinsons and AA Gills of the present day.

Another apt point of reference might be this scene from the S4C film; "Hedd Wyn" in which an English army sargent during WWI is finding himself in charge of a troop of Welsh cannon fodder which doesn't entirely understand the Anglo-Norman orders he's barking at them:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEpCvdNphMs

It might seem almost cartoon-like, but sadly this kind of bullying of Welsh monoglot troops during WWI is very well attested. (And the fact is, that bullying went on in industry or compulsory education (after the Elementary Education Acts of 1870 & 1880) or anywhere where the encroaching English language was the accepted/authoratative mode of communication or instruction. Far worse than that of course, was Henry VIII's 'extirpation' of the use of Welsh (or Welsh speakers) from the local legal system - where Welsh monoglots couldn't even defend themselves against charges brought against them in a court of law (they wouldn't even have understood the charges - let alone be equipped to testify to defend themselves or others as witnesses), in an age of capital punishment).

If you bear in mind the last true Welsh monoglots only died out in the 1980s and take stock of the volumes of evidence as to English (and Anglo-Welsh) prejudice against the Welsh language up to that point, this suggests something of the picture Cornish speakers would no doubt have been up against before the 1770s and Dolly Pentreath's day. It certainly helps me understand why despite well over half of my ancestry is native Welsh - the language was abandoned (parents learned English and raised their children in English only) and died out in my family by the 1940s.

These samples of evidence are extremely important to understanding the phonomenon of language death, or perhaps more critically ("language death" sounds almost too accidental to describe the true colonial forces at work here), the processes of "Cultural Liquidation", "Glottophagy" (Linguistic Cannibalism), "Linguicide" or indeed "Ethnocide" (Cultural Genocide). Terribly sad stuff to think of any life-force of Humanity; its ancient cultures perishing.