Following a successful conference in Euskal Herria (Basque Country) over the weekend (24/11/05 – 26/11/05), a new international network of campaign groups for minoritised languages has been formed, and the anti-colonisation movement Cymuned has warned multinational companies that do damage to the Welsh language that they face international protests.

‘The new network looks to have extremely strong foundations,’ says Aran Jones, Cymuned’s Chief Executive, ‘and one of the first subjects to be discussed was the arranging of international protests against companies that do damage to the language of any of the group’s members. For example, IKEA has an unacceptably poor Basque language policy, and now faces the very real possibility of protests against the company in Euskal Herria, Galicia, Catalonia, Breizh (Brittany) and Cymru. In the same way, companies such as Asda, who want to open a new branch in Pwllheli, will have to work much harder than present to make sure they have a positive effect on local culture and language, or they will be targeted by protests across Europe.’

The new network will take part on the next European Social Forum, in Athens in April 2006, when the group’s constitution will be launched.

‘There is no representation at the European level of groups which campaign in favour of minorities languages,’ says Dr Seimon Brooks, Cymuned’s representative on the network’s constitutional development panel. ‘Instead, we have institutionalised, governmental groups praising their own work and claiming to represent entire language communities. This new network will put a stop to that.’

For more details, contact Cymuned’s office on 01758-612712.

The anti-colonisation movement Cymuned has accepted a rôle as part of a new partnership which the Commission for Racial Equality in Cymru has developed in order to promote diversity and integration in communities throughout the country. The three year initiative ‘Croeso’, the Commission’s largest initiative in Cymru so far, will be launched by Rhodri Morgan in the Assembly today (Tuesday, 29/11/05) after an opening meeting of the partnership in the Millennium Centre.

‘We are very pleased to be working in partnership with the Commission for Racial Equality in Cymru, and a number of other organisations, as part of this initiative,’ says Aran Jones, Cymuned’s Chief Executive. ‘We welcome the fact that the Commission has recognised our deep commitment to working against all forms of racism while ensuring better levels of integration to our Welsh-speaking communities.’

Cymuned will be represented in the opening meeting by Dr Dylan Foster Evans, who has played a leading rôle in the development of the relationship between Cymuned and the Commission for Racial Equality.

‘This shows very clearly that ensuring a successful and Welsh-speaking future for our Welsh-speaking communities goes hand in hand with the Commission’s work against racism,’ added Aran Jones. ‘We have already stated clearly that our work against cultural colonisation is of essence work against racism, and we are looking forwards to contributing to the success of the ‘Croeso’ initiative.’

For more details, contact Cymuned’s office on 01758-612712.

I was down in Aberystwyth on Tuesday night for another seminar in the ‘Gwleidydd-Iaith’ series by Aberystwyth University’s Politics Department – an interesting discussion about Language Awareness lead by Steve Eaves. I also had the chance, on the way down, to spend some time with Seimon Brooks working on material for our trip to Euskal Herria (Basque Country) next week, where Cymuned will be taking part in an international conference for groups that work in favour of minoritised languages, and suggesting the formation of an umbarella group to represent such groups at a European level.

I’ve been asked to pop in for a chat with the Heddlu on Monday, to discuss the complaint I filed on behalf of Cymuned against Tony ‘Fucking Welsh’ Blair – the complaint hasn’t been immediately dismissed by the CPS, and it appears that there has been some high level discussion about it. It will be interesting to see what the possible next steps are.

YnyFro.com and NotEnglish.com are continuing to go well – it appears by now that the stickers are doing a good job of creating a steady flow of visitors, with about 40 a day per website, and a steady flow of new subscribers to the weekly email (not subscribed?! www.ynyfro.com/list).

I’m working on a presentation package for groups/local branches that are considering forming Community Land Trusts at the moment, after several requests for something of this nature. It’s quite a challenge getting the reams of information that we have into a sensible format that doesn’t simply come across as too complicated to follow up on. I hope that, once the work has been done, this will be a package out of which we can get a lot of mileage.

Cymuned’s next booklet is close to being ready. Written by Gareth Popkins, it shows why Ceredigion Council should follow Gwynedd’s lead in terms of its Language Plan – in other words, that it should move to using Cymraeg as the language of internal administration. With Assembly branches coming to Llandudno and Aberystwyth, and the same argument being directly relevant to them as well, it could prove to be an extremely important discussion. It also offers a possible way forward for us in terms of campaigning – the majority of the last three months has been spent on work to increase membership and audience, which is going well, and which is definitely going to increase our ability to make a difference. But it’s very important that we also keep campaigning on important, relevant issues in the short term, while doing the work to increase our long term campaigning ability.

I think that we could have a very interesting campaign ahead of us, with Gareth’s work as a sound base to the public discussion. To see this happening at a time when we are also getting more new people offering to take part in the work of the movement than at any time in the last three years is a real morale boost.

As you’ve read in the weekly email (haven’t subscribed yet? www.ynyfro.com/list), last Saturday in Caerdydd was a success beyond our expectations. There’ll be a full post up here before the end of the week, but in the meantime, here are a few pictures:

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