Isn't it embarrassing how you can live your whole life immersed in your culture, only to one day be told that you were doing it wrong the whole time? Truly mortifying! Thank God for those charitable outsiders who never miss an opportunity to enlighten us mere natives.
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| Clem Thomas: not your standard parochial nationalist |
It is hard to believe that here
I am in Llanelli in Wales in 2015 and people will actually try to tell
me how to speak and write my own language in my own country. Unfortunately
these sentiments are all too common particularly amongst a certain type of English
person; they feel they can go anywhere
in the world and tell anybody what their cultures are and how they should
behave.
Here are two anecdotes to illustrate what I mean: I was once trapped in a formal dinner next to an Englishman who spent the best part of an
hour telling me where in Wales the best Welsh was spoken. He did not speak a
word of Welsh but had worked for about two years in Bangor. I was so glad to
meet a world authority on my native culture. Then, while working in the West
Indies I heard on at least two occasions, English people telling Indians
from India what constituted a 'proper' curry! Amazing arrogance.
It is a funny old world where to stand up for one's own country
and culture is considered parochial nationalism but where it is OK to invade and destroy
other countries and cultures thereby bringing them Hope and Glory under the
tender wing of the 'Mother of the Free'. Don't make me laugh.
Clem Thomas
Clem lives in Dafen, Llanelli. A former Llanelli Rural Councillor, school teacher and factory manager. He returned to Wales with his wife and family from Trinidad after spending much of his working life in the Caribbean. One of the founder members of People First, he writes novels, does most of our welsh translation, and still finds time to be our treasurer.
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