Blue Beetle #26 is out this week. I haven’t read it yet, but I’m looking forward to it, even if it’s a fill-in issue. Because it’s written in Spanish, with an English translation in the back. I don’t have the first clue about the language, I just think it’s a neat experiment. I find differences in language and culture absolutely fascinating, to be right at the heart of human experience.
Of course, I’ve already seen some annoyance about this on-line (annoyance? On the internet? Incredible, I know), that maybe people won’t like the hassle of flipping to the translation. I don’t get this. I just don’t get why people don’t find something like this fun, or at least interesting.
But that’s what humans are like, I suppose. We’re not mad keen on something that’s different. And languages, boy, as a bilingual Welsh speaker I can tell you some stories about the animosity that languages, that translations of languages cause. We’re a funny old people sometimes, the Welsh.
I’m not keen on generalisations (he says immediately before launching into an analysis based on generalisation). I think it’s foolish to characterise an individual’s behaviours, quirks and tendencies based solely on what we consider to be the stereotypical attributes of their nationality. That said, of course there are certain factors that effect certain groupings of the human populations that don’t effect others, even down to simple geography, and I wonder if this doesn’t produce a variety of behaviours that can be identified in a proportion of that population.
I’ve heard the Welsh people characterised as tribal, overly-sensitive, contradictory, hot-headed, fiercely patriotic, warm-hearted, and insecure. Oh, and really enjoying singing. And it’s easy, if you’re Welsh, to play up to the stereotypes. The good ones, obviously (who doesn’t want to be proud of their nation? Who thinks musical skill of any kind is a bad thing?), although there’s still a motivation to play down to the bad ones too, if only as a way of raising the metaphorical flag and emphasising your identity.
The “tribal” thing is interesting. Warren Ellis in Crecy brings up belligerent tribalism as being particularly Welsh. The thing is, whether it’s political parties, football teams or Marvel and DC, human beings tend towards belligerent tribalism, presumably a evolutionary advantageous trait back in the day (though I’d suggest that our reasoning nature should tells us that overcoming this tribalism is a better trait in modern society). So why does it follow the Welsh around?
Two reasons, I think. Firstly, the notion of the “tribe” suggests a primitive, backwards people, an insulting undertone the “sophisticated” can aim at the lower classes or country folk, two groups that make up a sizable chunk of the Welsh population. Secondly, it’s not necessarily an insult: the concept of a tribe or clan ties in to a Welsh tradition of close families and tight-knit communities (and no sniggering at the back, I know what you’re thinking), to notions of national pride and connection to a Celtic past as part of the Welsh identity. So the “tribal” description, while far from uniquely Welsh, is perpetuated not only by people wishing to insult us.
A short way of putting it is that we do it to ourselves. The cultural (and political) damage that the Welsh have done (and continue to do) to their own nation ultimately outweighs damage done by external factors. We are the ones who don’t vote for independence, who choose devolution only reluctantly, who tie our fortunes to how well our team does in the national sport. And that ties into one of the above characteristics, one I find particularly pronounced in our culture: contradiction.
I’ve had more than one conversation with various friends about our own conflicting views on national identity. There are days when I love my country as blindly as any patriot, and days where I am sick to death of every last Welsh person on the planet. We irritate quickly if identified as belonging to another British country, if we aren’t given our Celtic due, and at exactly the same time the majority of us are terrified at the idea of seperating from Britain. So many contradictions.
But again, these things are not really different to the issues of every single other human being, regardless of race, nation or identity. The reason I flag it is because I believe that certain social factors occur within Wales that exacerbate this, well-worn channels dilligently carved out over the centuries that ensure our insecurities flow in the same stereotypical ways.
Sensitive, insecure, hot-headed, tribal; why do we expect to be any different? We’re a nation with its own cultural identity, its own flag, its own anthem, its own language, yet we aren’t politically a country on our own. We routinely refer to ourselves as being “Welsh”, even though it’s a derivation of an old German word for “foreigner”. How many other people refer to themselves as foreigners in their own country? (Well, Wallachians for a start. Same root meaning.) We’re heavily industrialised, and at the same time mostly rural. Our heavy industry has gone away to be replaced by nothing, while we seem unable to capitalise on our agricultural history as our farming tradition is slowly being lost, even in the face of a global food crisis. There are no efficient transport links between the North of the country and the South, and there is still, if not outright animosity, then mutual ambivalence between the two. We are very much a divided people, just not necessarily in the obvious usual ways.
Which brings me back to the language. Holy shit, does that polarise people. I know it’s cowardly and achieves nothing, but I’m so fed up with the fucking endless round-the-houses on the issue that I don’t engage in any conversation that goes near the subject any more. There is so much defensiveness, misunderstanding and anger that I don’t believe I’ll ever be able to have a sensible conversation without someone fucking losing it. You know what really gets up people’s noses? Road signs. Fucking road signs. People come into the country and whinge because the signs are bilingual, people in the country whinge that they can’t understand the signs, that they’re being discriminated against because there’s Welsh on the signs, that adding Welsh place-names on signs is prohibitively expensive and for fuck’s sake people, they’re road signs, this issue shouldn’t paralyse sensible debate about the future of the pissing nation.
You see what happened there? I got defensive and angry. Even I’m able to spot the craziness of that. So believe me, I understand very well issues that surround culture and language, about how they complicate issues of identity. I just wish that these differences didn’t cause the animosity they do.
And while I’m wishing, I’d like a fucking pretty fairy pony too.
