Unlike
Scotland and Wales, Cornwall represents ambiguity
as a Celtic nation. Formerly Celtic-speaking, its
last native speakers having died before the nineteenth
century, for five centuries it remains an English
county. This paradox, accepted by many of its residents,
introduces this study by Bernard Deacon, Dick Cole,
and Garry Tregidga. (Cardiff: Ashley Drake-Welsh
Academic Press-Griffin Press, 2003. ISBN: 1-86057-075-5.)
Mebyon Kernow & Cornish Nationalism sums
up, concisely and dispassionately, the formation
of the 'Party for Cornwall' in 1951, its revivalist
and antiquarian predecessors, and its inspiration
for wider Cornish Solidarity pressure groups and
Cornish Assembly campaigns now agitating for de-evolution
in the wake of SNP and Plaid Cymru's successes over
the past decade.
The
language had faded well before industrialisation
took full hold over Cornwall. Contrasting with Welsh
and Scots nationalist efforts in the early 20c,
Cornish progressives took the momentum that erosion
of agriculture as a basis for most of its residents
provided, and celebrated the spread of the machine.
Yet, by the end of the last century, the last tin
mine having closed after millennia digging and refining
the metal that made Cornwall famed, the trust placed
in mechanisation had crumbled. Instead, the influx
of second-home owners from 'up-country' loomed,
along with the relegation of Cornwall as a touristed
but otherwise neglected backwater by Westminster,
as larger threats. Reasserting Cornish Celtic identity
has both played into the hands of those vacationing
or retiring there, and tricked those predicting
that cultural nationalism could never lead to political
activism among those once again proud to be Cornish,
not English.
The
second chapter surveys the early 20c language movement.
The Celtic Revival, as elsewhere in the Atlantic
archipelago, remained mired too often in antiquarianism.
Garbed druids were picturesque, but failed to use
their powers to halt emigration of the land's youth.
Many who sought to resurrect the language fought
against any accompanying radicalism, paralleling
the Gaelic League-IRB Hyde-Pearse contentions. Henry
Jenner is here quoted in 1926 as claiming 'no wish
on anyone's part to translate the Irish political
expression "Sinn Fein" into Cornish, [or]
to agitate for Home Rule for Cornwall [or to] foment
disloyalty to England's King or the British Empire.'
(16) Jenner's assurances of an apolitical revival
showed how fearful many of the elder generation
could be about any revolution, given the scale of
Ireland's recent wars.
Only
at mid-century, in the postwar British reassessment
of conventional pieties, did nationalists form a
constitutional party, Sons of Cornwall, MK. Even
tiny nudges towards what was perceived as a call
for federalism or regional representation aroused
mainstream culturalists' fears echoing Jenner's
jitters. Under Richard Jenkins and other committed
activists, change began, however small. The competition,
the content, and the compromises could be tiny:
unable to select among three vying canonized candidates
to be Cornwall's patron saint, it was agreed to
consecrate the Duchy to their care as a trio.
But,
by the early 1960s, more substantive rather than
symbolic considerations loomed. Although the authors
make no mention, the parallel with Sinn Fein in
the Wolfe Tone Society ginger group of the mid-60s
sharpens the depiction of what confronted a miniscule
cadre. Young Cornish patriots, like their Irish
and other Celtic counterparts, longed for not nostalgia
but real advance into a politically relevant and
economically practical terrain upon which the recovery
by Celtic nationals of their land, their subsistence,
and their citizenship could be contested and won.
For MK, the enemy emerged after the Greater London
Council was formed. The GLC proposed-hidden from
local scrutiny-that their metropolitan overpopulation
problem could be alleviated by the relocation of
thousands of its urban millions to rural areas such
as Cornwall. This 'overspill' would flood whoever
and whatever remained of a native, regional, and
Celtic culture, the MK argued. Inspired by the SNP
and Plaid Cymru, MK fought back through conventional
elections. Like the Welsh and Scots (and the Irish
parallel again of Official SF-The Workers Party,
unmentioned again by the authors), such methods
sputtered and few gains were kept in the invader's
Parliament. Powers of resistance again slipped away
from Celtic control.
Three
splits, in 1969, 1975, and 1980, weakened MK. Two
of these led to splinter parties. The complaint
reminded me again of that leveled against the Provos
more than once. The older organisation, restless
youth and militantly minded veterans complained,
was too broad rather than too narrow a place for
Celtic action. If everyone from soft-focus language
lovers to conservative ruralists to itchy leftists
belonged to MK, it could not move forward into grasping
and holding onto meaningful gains, politically or
practically.
By
the 1970s, opposition did coalesce around one main
enemy: housing. Holiday homes and the rising prices
that tourism spurred combined. They undermined the
ability of native Cornish to afford to remain in
their homeland.
But
the radical action of another group of Mebyon, the
Sons in Wales, the Free Welsh Army, and other shadowy
contigents was not the acceptable face of Cornish
nationalism. As the paper Cornish Nation became
radicalised by such Celtic guerrillas in the early
70s, protests were lodged about its 'increasingly
sympathetic coverage of Irish Republicanism.' (61)
And in a media climate that loved the global warming
of fist-pumping wild youth, the Cornish staged their
own performance art. Posing as, inevitably, the
'Free Cornish Army,' students from Plymouth Polytechnic,
among '40 fully trained units' as they claimed,
marched and were duly photographed and publicized
before the trick was spoiled. (62) The heated atmosphere
of the decade did, however, lead to another substantial
storm, albeit contained within the confines of the
Cornish nation. The Cornish National Party broke
away from a too-timid, so they charged, MK in 1975.
Two years later, the CNP leader left, lamenting
its 'infiltration by communist elements.' (67)
By
the 1980s, then, MK languished. As with the SNP
and Plaid Cymru, the authors explain, the Thatcher
years hastened MK's retreat into 'internal reflection
about its philosophical role.' (75) Restless younger
members, often with socialist ideological support,
formed into pressure groups for more immediate action.
Ties with leftists and Greens were sought. An elusive
An Gof entity threatened violence. MK and nationalists
consistently rejected physical-force efforts. They
preferred backing up anti-nuclear grassroots efforts.
They fought 'Devonwall,' in which the Crown would
consolidate Cornish with Devon's services after
its 1974 reconfigurations of the British counties.
The
new European Parliament, later that decade, inspired
calls for local representation, but the Cornish
constituency was deemed too miniscule.
With
the 1990s, the anti-Poll Tax protests sparked a
novel legal defense. It was deemed illegal under
a treaty, never repealed or superseded it was argued,
that was signed by England with Cornwall-in 1508.
Allied as Cornish Solidarity, many resistors to
the Crown expanded regional resistance. Although
only as a fill-in line under a newly placed box
marked 'Other,' the Cornish could present themselves
to the rest of Britain as a distinct ethnic group
for the first time. In 2000, ten percent of the
Cornish electorate, or 50,000 voters, signed a call
for a local Assembly. At the time this book went
to press, this effort met with stalling by Westminster,
but the authors cautiously conclude that such a
renewed pride in Cornish regionalism signals a sea-change
from ingrained attitudes dominant as late as the
1970s that diminished cultural heritage, belittled
local tradition, or condemned political activism
among the Celtic remnant at the tip of the British
island.
Their
summaries make instructive reading for The Blanket's
audience. Deacon is a lecturer in Cornish Studies
at the University of Exeter. Dick Cole currently
leads MK. Dr Garry Tregidga serves as the Deputy
Director for the Institute for Cornish Studies (at
Exeter). They hold that the language activists have
been often 'over-defensive'. (114) This may, they
suggest, reflect decades-and centuries-of malaise
in Cornish society. So long marginalised as the
Celtic Fringe colonised within England itself, its
natives lack confidence that its leaders can produce
change and decide actions on the local level. Yet,
the authors add, the cultural agenda derided by
many as nostalgic decades ago now proves that results
can be measured. The Celtic manifestations may be
more displayed as kitsch in souvenir shops than
before, but the Cornish flag flies, signs reflect
bilingual heritage long suppressed, and resistance
to the Anglophonic juggernaut can be seen more immediately
than before by locals and tourists alike. (Compare
my earlier Blanket review 'Eternal Elves
of the West' of Marcus Tanner's The Last of the
Celts, which has a pessimistic chapter on this
heritage industry in Cornwall and considers all
six Celtic nations as doomed to extinction as the
language erosion in turn eliminates any ground upon
which natives can survive with any indigenous culture
or self-governing polity.)
Still,
the visual recovery of a Cornish nationalism, the
authors warn, does not wrest territorial security.
The Cornish flag was forcibly removed from flagpoles
after the 2002 death of the Queen Mother, they note.
This symbolises how fragile are the symbols.
Flag-waving,
they concur, may make Cornish prouder, 'but it has
not fostered a clearly and consistently pro-active
nationalist political activism.' (115) But, the
druid-garbed revivalists of a century ago could
never have predicted how fluid Celtic identity could
become. Rather than looking back to antiquated slogans,
the authors remind us, the newest Cornish symbols
may be heard in music-and emblazoned on surfboards.
P.S.
See the New York Times, 17 November 2005.
Sarah Lyall's 'Saving Cornish: But Stop. Isn't That
Spelled With a K?' About 200 can converse in Cornish.
But four competing versions contend, and any e-mailer,
Lyall claims, rather than selecting the 'wrong'
version and so incite the recipient's hostility,
had better write only in English.
