Reading this almost
50 years after it publication this novel writing of, then,
contemporary events is so soaked in its time that it now for us, in
effect, historical fiction. And reading it, there is a sorrow knowing
how long the road to peace would be, and perhaps even now how fragile
that peace remains.
While there are
strong political themes within the novel, which I will explore, its
success comes from the quality of the story telling – characters
with authenticity engage you in the drama.
Written at the
beginning of the so called “Troubles” it explores the ways that
individual identities are shaped and informed by the community of
identity around them. In Northern Ireland a sharp division placing
you on one side or the other.
But there are also
gender identities at play – Sarah on learning of a potentially
terminal illness has come to Northern Ireland to revisit her friends
but more importantly a lover – even if she survives her breast
cancer she feels the treatment will take away something of her
womanhood and so she needs to connect and be affirmed sexually.
And the young men
being sucked into the conflict – it is as much a defence of their
manhood as it is any social or political cause they are fighting for.
To bring Sarah from
Wales into this provides the useful device of an outsider to whom
things need to be explained – but there is also a significance to
her coming from Wales, a nation marginalised in the British project
of identity building. The struggle for cultural and political
identity might have common features from place to place, but it is
also fundamentally distinct.
And what is Sarah’s
relationship with Welsh Nationalism? in a word reluctant.
At one point she
reflects that:
“We don’t have
the makings of tyrants here; our enemies are so piddling, a waste of
reformist energy which ought to be better applied; Welsh nationalism,
for example, seems to me to be about letting English cities use our
water supplies and about having telephone instructions in Welsh. ‘The
tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of
patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.’ Patriots and
tyrants, Caroline, not motorcar-licence application forms in Welsh
and adolescents wanting to run the universities. No, we don’t have
the makings here in Britain, thank God.”
And at another point
“She cringed to think of a possible repetition of similar horrors
in Wales, sprouting from an unholy alliance between the implacable
and the inept.”
It put me in mind of
Ned Thomas’ The Welsh Extremist. (Which I read while at University,
having stumbled across it in the basement of the University library
and being the first person to take it out the library is the best
part of 2 decades. I have ordered a copy online to re-read it). Ned
Thomas is also thankful that violence has never really been part of
the modern Welsh story but it raises a question about why the Welsh,
generally, are not politically impassioned by their identity.
This is an ongoing
question, see in the relative standing of the SNP and Plaid Cymru –
but that also point to a large part of the answer – the Welsh
Language as a point of division between Welsh people, so Plaid seen
as the Party of the Language is not trusted by many English speakers
within Wales.
Sarah meets a Welsh
Nationalist who is on the run after planting a bomb, which it turns
out never went off. I am not sure how deliberate a metaphor for the
wider Welsh Nationalist project this bomb that fails to go off is
meant to be – but intentional or not, it can be seen as one.
Sarah chides this
boy Nationalist - “...I do so believe that nationalism is
fundamentally selfish. It’s greedy. It cares about us, the
in-group. Why are you in the wrong fight, boy? Just imagine being
black or Vietnamese for a change, unless the burden is too great for
you. Don’t you think Welsh Nationalism is a luxury when there are
bigger battles to be fought”
Which perhaps brings
us to Michael Sheen’s Raymond Williams Memorial Lecture
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbVdA7zS8dE
it is a powerful exploration of, among other things, the deep seated
lack of self-belief within Wales, with the internalising of the
Encyclopedia Britannica’s entry for Wales - “for Wales see
England” - there is a lack of fight because so many believe they
have nothing distinctive to fight for.
There are places
where suffering and inequality are stripping people of life itself
and not just identity, and compared to those it is easy to
characterise Welsh Nationalism as a luxury – but it doesn’t need
to be a zone sum game – there may be bigger battles to be fought,
but that does not prevent the smaller battles being fought as well.
Creating a society
that respects peoples self-identity, a state that allows people to
communicate with it on their own terms rather than only its terms –
these are not principles that should not be narrowly applied but ones
that create openness.
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