Comment to the Western Mail on Adam Price's Essay

Peoples all over the world strive for independence, it's been proved time upon time; the question is do we the Welsh consider ourselves a people. There's a British people proud of their independence, so proud they tried to make the world British, now there's the inevitable reaction to this action but it hasn't yet hit on the Welsh that we are a colony. We have a quandary the Scots don't have; we've been British since the pre-Roman era, the Welsh university was at Oxford, the 16th century bourgeoisie gained their wealth in London, as did the 20th century Labour politicians. For a few days a year we are red shirted patriots, but government is best left for others, children play, adults legislate. That we are a people there is no question, the abundance of Owains, Llewelyns, Gruffydds, Dafydds, Hywels, Rhodris etc. stood for a nation but so integrated into the system we have become we can't think as a people anymore, and only as a people we have a future, but time will tell. Plaid Cymru is the only party whose raison d'etre is the country as a whole. We have been raped, robbed & pillaged but better the devil we know. The ordinary man and woman in the street has never gained anything from the British parties except to learn English, a language we now claim as our own even though it's only been spoken popularly in the valleys for fewer than a hundred years and some places never, to the detriment of Cymraeg that has kept us together for over fifteen hundred. Divide & rule; Unity is strength; Nid cadarn ond brodyrdde. Britishness has now taken on the nuance of Englishness, and English we are not whether English or Welsh speaking. To be Welsh is to feel Welsh, how Welsh you are depends on how Welsh you feel.