Sunday 26 August 2018

Plaid should not falter in its support for minorities

These two pictures appeared on the Social Media Pages yesterday  of Leanne Wood and AdamPrice?   two of the candidates  for the Plaid Leadership contest,




As you can see among the many photos is one of them both with Plaid Pride. The other candidate Rhun ap Iowerth  was not there but posted his support.

But why wasn't there a Photo of Leanne and Adam together?

Surely yesterday was one for unity. Indeed it would have been nice  to see all the many politicians  from different parties being in a picture together.

It is particularly important to Plaid as there seems to a move  in some quarters for Plaid to move away from standing up for minorities.

Take this from Simon Brooks on Nation Cymru.

Adam Price is the best-placed candidate to lead Plaid Cymru.His appeal is multifaceted, and answers many of these theoretical problems associated with Leanne and Rhun.Firstly, he is firmly on the Left, but he understands more fully than Leanne the risks of assimilation.Plaid’s vote collapsed in the 2017 General Election as a direct result of the party’s unofficial pact with Corbynism.Plaid voters decided that to get Corbyn they might as well vote Corbyn. Adam would not repeat this mistake.Secondly, I believe that he understands minorities. Adam is a gay man from a working-class background. He has campaigned for Cymdeithas yr Iaith. He has campaigned for gay rights.This is crucial because the promotion of justice for minority and minoritised groups is the key contribution Leanne has made to Welsh political practice.The only ethical justification for Plaid Cymru is that the Welsh nation is a historical, ‘material’ reality which has been ‘minoritised’, and should be emancipated.But this is the fate of others too – language groups, women, ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, the disabled, non-metropolitan communities, the working-class.Emancipation of the nation thus means the emancipation of all these groups. But at times, Leanne and others have sought to interpret intersectionality in a way which has not really addressed the problem of difference within a Welsh context.For example, do men on low incomes in working-class Welsh-speaking communities far from the metropolis really enjoy ‘privilege’?We know from academic work that the poverty they face is structural and directly connected to their membership of a minoritised language group.Supporters of Leanne have not thought sufficiently about how theories developed in Seattle or Bristol (where no such group exists) might work in the context of Blaenau Ffestiniog.
I disagree with Simon what is wrong with standing with people who may not join in your belief in an Independent Wales against  discrimination and Hate,

Indeed it is vital to ensure minorities in Wales that they have nothing to fear from an Independent Wales.

Or we end up with this.

  Retweeted
For anyone still unsure where went wrong . . . Suggesting that someone with a penis is a man is "completely abhorrent to the core values of Plaid Cymru" and "brings the party into disrepute".

The worst part of this is the comments from some of Jac's supporters  .

I am not LGBT  (lesbiangaybisexualtransgender), BAME Black, Asian, and minority ethnic (used to refer to members of non-white communities in the UK) or a Welsh Speaker and yet support all these causes .

Leanne Wood has  Crossed the Bridge when it comes to learning Cymraeg ,since she became leader, but can any one claim that she had not overwhelmingly support equality for Cymraeg before she took up the reins.

Supporting minority causes will not win Independence or see an increase in votes for Plaid, but it is the right thing to do.

Indeed is that not what all of us should be doing  whether we are in Seattle, Bristol or  Blaenau Ffestiniog?
 

1 comment:

Leigh Richards said...

Supporting discriminated against minorities is absolutely the right thing to do Glyn - and should go hand in hand with our support for an Indy wales.