Tag Archives: Roger Lewis

The Independent Newspaper – Defending The Indefensible

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Two weeks ago I was amongst the first online bloggers and commentators to highlight a book review by the British journalist Roger Lewis in the right wing Daily Mail newspaper where he described the Welsh language as a ‘monkey language’ and claimed that Welsh speakers were turning Wales into a ‘foreign country’.

The controversy that blew up caused a huge reaction in Wales itself but was largely dismissed by the British political and media establishments. Indeed it became something of an excuse for further bigoted remarks towards the people of Wales across a spectrum of British news media and online forums.

However in a move supported by many in Wales the Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards contacted the British Home Secretary Theresa May and the British Press Complaints Commission, pointing out that though the views expressed in the article were entirely the concern of the writer some of the phrasing used by him carried racist overtones. As stated in Wales Online:

‘In his letter to Home Secretary Theresa May, Mr Edwards writes: “The article is a disgraceful slur on the people of Wales. It is deeply inflammatory as the representations I have received indicate. The article equates Welsh nationality with mental illness. It indicates that the only way to achieve social and economic progress is to move to England. That Wales has been turned into a ‘foreign country’ as a result of Welsh language equality legislation.

It describes our national tongue as a ‘moribund monkey language’. This is an abhorrent comment considering that Welsh is one of the oldest living European languages, and comes only a week after the National Eisteddfod was held in Wrexham, one of Europe’s largest cultural festivals. The article throughout resembles the sort of language often associated with fascists in a different context.

It is often said that hatred of the Welsh is the only remaining form of acceptable racism. Articles like this further that perception…”’

Now, incredibly, the supposedly liberal centre-left British newspaper, the Independent, has stepped forward in a defence of the indefensible that stretches credulity and facts to beyond breaking point. According to the journalist Matthew Bell (with his highly original opening line):

‘Have you heard the one about the Englishman, the Welshman and the Plaid Cymru MP? It doesn’t end well for the MP. A chorus of Welsh personalities has rounded on Jonathan Edwards, the member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, after he reported a book reviewer to the police, and wrote to the Home Secretary to complain the review was “sick” and “racist”. They say that he is giving the Welsh a bad name by overreacting.

But Mr Edwards’s response has drawn nothing but criticism from his colleagues. “I can’t believe Jonathan Edwards has risen to the bait,” says Chris Bryant, Labour MP for Rhondda in South Wales. “Roger Lewis’s piece is fatuous nonsense, but the last thing people want is a moaning version of Welsh nationalism. Wales is at its best when it is triumphantly insouciant about the criticism of others, and if we can’t take a bit of scabrous attack without running to the police, it’s a sad day for Wales.”

But others have gone further, criticising Mr Edwards for his assault on the freedom of the press. “With a free press, not everything that is written is going to be pleasant,” says Lembit Opik, the former MP for Montgomeryshire. “But people have the right to hold objectionable views.

“The best way to promote the Welsh language is to promote the positive, not to prosecute the negative. It can look a little bit oversensitive. He needs a reality check. If I had tried to prosecute people every time I didn’t like what they said, I would have become a barrister.”

Last night, Mr Lewis said he had been inundated with messages of support from Welsh and English people, including Stephen Fry and Gyles Brandreth. “I was quoting jokes made by Kingsley Amis in The Old Devils. He won the Booker Prize for that, and I get reported to the police.”

When Mr Edwards’s allegations against Mr Lewis were reported in the Western Mail, it provoked one of the biggest response from readers its website had ever experienced.

“Why write to the Home Secretary?” wrote one. “It’s a free press, and not North Korea. It’s hardly ‘inciting hatred’; it’s expressing dislike, which last time I looked, we were – just about – still free to do. Anything else he wants to alert the Cabinet to? Sun not yellow enough for him? Too much rain? He should grow up and do whatever MPs are supposed to do, which even in their la-la land of self-importance can’t encompass this petty and trivial meddling.”

Carol Vorderman, the former Countdown presenter who grew up in Prestatyn, North Wales, said yesterday that a sense of humour is usually a Welsh trait. “Roger Lewis is just doing what modern-day critics are paid to do, which is give everything a vicious pounding while attempting humour,” she said.’

Wow. That is some ‘chorus of Welsh personalities’. Lets see now. Two men who are members of political parties that are bitter rivals of Plaid Cymru in Wales? One a current Labour MP who laps up media attention with his rent-a-quote style when not embroiled in other controversies. One a former Liberal Democrat MP who is not Welsh and only moved to Wales after standing in seats across Britain in a series of increasingly desperate attempts to get elected to the British parliament before becoming a C-List celebrity through dating a, eh, pop star. Oh, and Carol Vorderman, a minor TV celebrity who is widely perceived to be sympathetic to the centre-right Conservative Party (which also contests against Plaid Cymru in Wales).

As for the other swathe of Welsh celebrities mentioned in the article there is… um… Well, there’s some nameless person who posted a Comment under an online article on a local newspaper site in Wales, and, er…

Oh, well there is Stephen Fry and Gyles Brandreth. They’re named as part of the evidence of the ‘chorus’ that expressed disapproval for Jonathan Edwards actions. Except of course they’re sort of not Welsh. Nor do they live in Wales. Or in fact do they have any association with Wales in any way shape or form.

So, in actual fact, this vast list of personalities in Wales condemning Jonathan Edwards is made up of one Labour MP, one former Lib Dem MP turned media buffoon, one former TV presenter who is close to the Tory party, some bloke who posted some comment on some local news site, one English B-List television celeb and former Tory MP, and one English TV and movie actor, writer and Twitterephile.

Amazing.

Perhaps we should leave the last words to Jasper Rees, author of the book Bred of Heaven, the review of which reignited the protests of British media bias and discrimination towards the Welsh people:

‘“People like Roger Lewis and people in the media who make these statements are, in my view, utterly risible and should not be given a platform.

One knows for certain that if you substitute any other language or culture or ethnicity for Wales, Welshness or the Welsh, it would not get in the paper.

I hope that Jonathan Edwards has every success and I hope that he gets a reply. I hope that it is taken seriously by the Home Secretary and that something is somehow done about it, because these attacks on Welsh culture, as embodied by the Welsh language, cannot be allowed to go on.”’

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Forget David Starkey – Lets Talk About The Daily Mail And ‘Monkey Language’

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As Britain England deals with the outcry over professor David Starkey’s controversial comments on the days of civil unrest that recently blighted several English cities, with some condemning and some supporting the well-known historian, an equally controversial, and arguably more unambiguously racist, article has appeared in the Daily Mail newspaper. In reviewing a newly published book by the journalist Jasper Rees, columnist Roger Lewis sinks to new lows in the anti-Welsh bigotry that has become the hallmark of the British media establishment:

‘Not many people in full possession of their faculties would find it appealing or necessary to try to turn themselves into a ‘real Welshman’. Nevertheless, this has been the ambition of Old Harrovian Jasper Rees in his new book Bred Of Heaven.

Perhaps a future project will see Rees don the burka and infiltrate Helmand to search for his inner  opium cultivator.’

Lovely. Two insults for the price of one there: querying why on earth anyone would want to trace their Welsh heritage and equating doing so with a region the author obviously regards as being blighted by poverty, backwardness (burka-wearing) and drugs. Why discriminate against just one group of people when you could include, others?

‘Nevertheless, in his quest to call himself a Celt, our author does the maddest thing of all — he actually learns Welsh, by attending evening classes (in London/Llundain) and going on courses.

I abhor the appalling and moribund monkey language myself, which hasn’t had a new noun since the Middle Ages — hence pwdin is pudding, snwcer is snooker, tacsi is taxi and bocsio is boxing.

As Kingsley Amis, who lived in Swansea for many years, once said, can it be true that there are Welshmen who are genuinely puzzled by the letter x? Incidentally, pys is not what you’d think. It’s peas.’

Monkey language? Did he just use that term? Yes, I’m afraid he did. I wonder what the reaction would be if David Starkey had described the gang language of London as ‘monkey language’? Or used it to describe the Jamaican-derived patois of some English urban communities?

As to the rest of Lewis’ inaccurate inanities, Adam Jones deal’s with them in this excerpt from his blog:

‘What he begins his attack with is something we as Welsh people have witnessed all to often, the ignorance of a monolingual trying to dumb down our language for borrowing words from other languages, as if to deem our language ‘moribund’ or ‘inferior’. Now if he wan’t to make that point let’s evaluate it, he states the language hasn’t had a new noun since the middle ages yet then goes on to describe evident borrowings that are evidently new and that are nouns?

Make your mind up Roger, are they new nouns or are they just borrowings? If so the case would you also explain to me the English for ‘Tomato’ ‘Coffee’ ‘Cul de sac’ ‘fait accompli’ ‘Orange’ ‘Orangutan’? Those middle ages in which you speak are when your pure English tongue changed so drastically it could be described part romance. Let’s take out every English word ending in ant/ent – Important, Apartment, Ailment, Ointment, Compliment, Distant. Let’s also remove all words ending in ance – Romance, Dance, Distance, Compliance, and Reliance. Need I elaborate further?

You see Roger 40% of  your lexicon is simple French, all words ending in ant/ent/ ance, able/ible/ que are all that of French origin, Im afraid your language has borrowed and continues to borrow more than any other which aids to part of it’s success a living language adapts and develops. I’m glad therefore that you’ve highlighted the many borrowings of Welsh to support this assumption and thus proclaiming Welsh a living flourishing language on your own behalf.’

Excellent stuff and it is well worth reading it all. The arguments of Roger Lewis are often employed by the same Anglophone bigots that live here in Ireland, cluttering up our news media, forums and social media with their anachronistic and racist ramblings. At least we can now see where they derive their ideas and beliefs from, none other than the right-wing, conservative and nationalistic British press. I wonder has Roger Lewis met Kevin Myers?

Meanwhile back with the Daily Mail there is even more bile, this time bordering on the slightly surreal:

‘But the trouble with the Welsh language is that it isn’t a quaint custom revived or the relic of cultural niceties — it is foisted on people for political reasons.

Though I was born in Caerphilly and have, as it happens, not a drop of non-Welsh haemoglobin in my veins, I detest the way Wales has been turned into a foreign country, with a Welsh language radio station, television channel, and dual-language road signs.’

The Welsh language in Wales is a foreign language? Welsh-speaking children in Wales are foreign children? Seriously? This reads like an article written by the Anglo hacks at the Irish Independent or Herald, but substituting the words Welsh language for Irish language. It is incredible to see how the media establishment in Ireland takes its anti-Irish bigotry from the same discriminatory attitudes of the media establishment in Britain. Do they even see this? Actually, do they even care?

As fellow Celts it is sad to witness how native speakers in both nations are treated by some as second-class citizens with second-class rights in their own native countries. Those who have a native Irish or Welsh identity, whether born to it or taking it as their own in later life, have every right to express it, free of fear, hate or intolerance.

Forget David Starkey. The real bigots in Britain are the those who daily promote discrimination against the Welsh, Scottish and Cornish speaking communities, the many hundreds of thousands whose native or adopted language is not English but who are forced to speak that language or face a torrent of racist abuse.

That is something I know only all too well, even here in the supposedly free and independent Ireland.

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