#chartism

It lambasted the Welsh language, saying that no Welsh literary tradition existed worthy of the name. It reported that the Welsh people had potential for "progress" and a strong perceptive ability, but were held back by their "backwards" language, called a source of moral decline. It criticized the nonconformity of the Welsh church.

It recommended banning publications in the Welsh language and establishing state schools that would teach only in English, to rid the region of cultural distinctiveness and forcibly assimilate the Welsh people into English culture to prevent labor uprisings in a valuable coal and steel producing region.

It served as a blueprint for cultural genocide elsewhere in the British Empire. The report should be read to get a glimpse into the nature of the methods employed by colonialists and the thinking that underlies it.

Here is the report in full:

For a Marxist, on the contrary (as for a Freudian), the pathological (the deviant misbehavior of some elements) is the symptom of the normal, an indicator of what is wrong in the very structure that is threatened with "pathological" outbursts: for Marx, economic crises are the key to understanding the "normal" functioning of capitalism; for Freud, pathological phenomena such as hysterical outbursts provide the key to the constitution (and hidden antagonisms that sustain the functioning) of a "normal" subject.

This is also why fascism definitely is a populism: its figure of the Jew is the equivalential point of the series of (heterogeneous, inconsistent even) threats experienced by individuals: the Jew is simultaneously too intellectual, dirty, sexually voracious, hard working, financially exploitative . . .

On 21 May 1838 an estimated 150,000 people assembled on Glasgow Green for a mass demonstration. There they witnessed the launch of the People’s Charter, a list of demands for political reform. The changes they called for included voting by secret ballot, equal-sized constituencies and, most importantly, that all men should have the vote.

Seriously though we need to start thinking of Australia as Hot Siberia, where Britain sent all its dangerous radicals who thought the poor were human beings.

Instead of learning about Captain Cook and Arthur Phillip maybe we should hear more about Thomas Muir and William Cuffay.

I just saw the trailer for “peterloo” it looks great and it’s about a very important piece of social history. In 1819 a conservative government turned cavalry on working people who were demonstrating for the right to vote. 15 people were killed. Always important to remember our rights weren’t given to us, they were hard won by workers movements. Representative democracy may only seem like a minor concession to us today but this was hard won and we owe it to the sacrifices these people.