Social cohesion. Democracy. Where next?
“Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel”, or so said Samual Johnson. According to Oscar Wilde, “Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious” Am I a patriot? Sometimes…
When I was driving through England on my way to the Netherlands, my youngest child (not so young now, 17) asked what all the flags hung on motorway bridges were doing there… And to be honest, I wasn’t sure how to answer… I’d hope that they were put up as a sign of the love people have for where they live… but often, they had the feel of a sign saying ‘no foreigners’…
When we got to where we were staying that night (with my friend Christophe, in Belgium), I thought about what the St George’s Cross means to me… and I am conflicted about it… I remember childhood friends who found it hostile, a banner that gets wrapped round a brick and thrown through their window… but also, I remember times when it, or the Union Jack or the simple sense of being British or English, has been something that I took pride in…
I remember watching the 2012 London Olympics and loving how our opening ceremony has Mr Bean playing the keyboard for Chariots of Fire (which was incredible) and Mo Farah, and Jess Ennis and Greg Rutherford all winning gold on one night.
I love the demented, determined silliness of ‘Sorry I Haven’t a Clue’ and Monty Python… and history makers like William Wilberforce and Emmeline Pankhurst and Clement Atlee…
So I decided to make an image that tried to stake my claim on this flag… to associate it with what makes me proud of the country it represents…
Things are weird just now… It’s like the past 20 years have been a massive experiment in what happens when everyone curates their own news and doesn’t want to hear anything they don’t already agree with… and the answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is division and a lack of social cohesion…
There is the odd sight of people claiming to be defending this nation’s Christian heritage, while ignoring everything that Jesus Christ (himself a Middle Eastern refugee who fled from Bethlehem to Egypt to escape the persecution by King Herod) said about behing nice to the poor and unfortunate.
I myself crossed a border in search of a better life… from England into Wales… I am currently exploring my own identity as a geographical and class migrant through my work.
Flags round bricks? Dim Diolch
Dw i’n immigrant. Dw i wedi croesi ffin, dw i wedi dod i gwlad arall achos dw i wedi eisiau bywyd mwy dda.
Yn wreddiol dw i’n dod o Lloyger. Nawr dw i’n byw mewn Cymru.
Ydw i yn immigrant dda? Dw ddim yn gybod. Dw i cefnogwr o têm pel droed o gymru…
Dw i wedi trio y dysgu Cymraeg, ond dw i’n fucking rubbish. Dim achos dw i ddim yn wedi trio, ond achos mae dysgu unrhyw iaith newydd yn hard as fuck.
Fy mhlant siarad Cymraeg yn perffaith. Maen nhw accepted fel Cymry. They ‘pass’.
Ond os dw i wedi dod un gwlad arrall, arall… fel India nae Afghanistan, nae China… fydden nhw’n stand out. A fyddai pobl syn meddwl fy mhlant ddim yn perthyn yma?
Beth y statuate o limitations on racism? Faint o generations to acceptance, if one of your forebears was not white?
Dw i’n immigrant mewn Cymru. Dw i caru fy gwlad newydd in a way that I sometimes struggle to love the one i was born in…
Mae nationalism Cymraeg temlo arall i nationalism Saesneg. Ddim based on skin colour, ond yn seiliedig ar caru am Cymru. Ar canu ac cerddoriath ac tirweddau arbenig.
Dw i ddim yn meddwl bo unrhwyn yn wedi wrappio yr baner cymraeg rownd a brick and chucked it through their neighbours window acos nhw’n dod o gwlad arall…
Os gwelwch yn dda peidiwch â dechrau nawr… Cymru am byth.
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