What are we going to do with Carol and Dave?

Alun Smith

This is a long read. I’m sorry about that but we need to talk about something. We need to talk about these fetid, anti-intellectual, race-to-the-bottom, damaging, deceitful, disingenuous, hateful blydi ‘culture-wars’.

I’m not claiming innocence by the way, I’m just as guilty as many others on social media, and sometimes, in my writing, of engaging in battlefield activity that could have been….kinder.

I can claim, however, that I always try to avoid whataboutery and ad-hominem attacks, and I don’t say or write things that I know not to be true, that I can’t prove.

I don’t understand how that would help further a political point. The following is a mild example of what I’m talking about.

“Can someone give a sensible answer to why Rhun ap Iorwerth who obviously beleives in Welsh heritage culture language and its people, wants to turn it into a country where its in great danger of becoming a muslim state with islam in control? Genuine question” (sic).

The question above was asked, as written, by a woman on the Plaid Cymru Facebook page comments section.

For reference, the post itself, Plaid’s original post, was a simple press release talking about the rollout of free childcare in Wales for children aged 9 months to 4 years. It had nothing whatsoever to do with faith or immigration.

The author of the question was not a ‘bot’, she was a perfectly average Facebook user with a good job, hundreds of friends, a successful marriage that had produced children and grandchildren, who could be seen laughing and joking on her timeline, playing with the family pets.

She was based in Wales, not Russia. A perfectly lovely, ordinary Welsh family.

Then one day, she’s scrolling Facey, enjoying the weather we’re having, when Plaid’s post pops up. This woman’s first thought, her gut reaction, was to ask the question above.

How does that happen? My response below:-

“If most people thought you’d asked the question genuinely, then genuinely, people would answer you.

However, I suspect you’ve been answered a myriad times in a myriad ways before, and actually, you rather enjoy the disingenuous nature of asking the question, knowing that any response will simply be met with a laugh emoji and a determination to declare yourself victor over some imagined ‘lefty’.

However, in an effort to clarify any misconceptions, I’ll give it the old college try. Carol (not her real name), you must know that neither Rhun nor any other politician in Wales is advocating for Wales to become an Islamic state.

You must know that. You must know that the Muslim population of the U.K amounts to 6.5 % of the whole. There are only 67,000 Muslims in Wales, a country btw, that has no say in immigration levels, tiny as they are, because it’s not a devolved issue.

Sixty-seven thousand is a minority if ever there was one.

Never mind that Wales would have to be an independent nation in order for your invented fear to be realised. So, you leave your little laugh emoji if you want to, that won’t bother me in the slightest.

Mean-spirited

What does concern me is that there are quite a lot of people in Wales who believe and repeat the absolute pigswill that Reform and their kind spew out and are mean-spirited enough to enjoy the distress it causes honest, decent ordinary people.

Come on now, let’s put these culture wars to bed shall we, and get on with making Wales the fantastic nation we all KNOW it could be and deserves to be”.

Duly, the laugh-emojis then rained down on my comment like I’d breached some sort of right-wing dam with an errant bouncer.

The lady didn’t leave one. I can only hope that she went off and checked my figures and then decided to renounce her Reform membership and join Plaid Cymru for the sake of her grandchildren. I can but hope.

At least ‘Carol’ asked. Because she did I think my response could have been kinder, as I’ve said.

Usually, whatever the post, whatever the conversation, the laugh emojis are followed by “Don’t care, still voting Reform” or “Reform all the way”. That’s it, that’s all you get, then no response ever again from those ‘contributors’.

And you know they’re definitely ‘bots’ since we’ve already had the election.

‘Woke’

When it is a real person and you do get a response, 90% of the time, it’s just to call you a ‘woke, sham pain socialist’, more interested in ‘green hair than protecting are wimmin’, or some equally bizarre non-sequitur, given the conversation was probably about Port Talbot or something.

So what do we do about it?

Um, can I phone a friend? I do not consider myself an academic and I’m certainly not part of the ‘intelligentsia’, as some wag accused me of recently, so I’m really struggling to come up with an answer.

All I know is that the answer can’t be ‘nothing’. We cannot continue in this vein. Really. It is killing our democracy and leading us down a path from which there will be no escape.

Wales can lead here.
Politics is on the curriculum in Welsh schools. From three to sixteen years old our children learn all about rules, community, democracy, the Senedd, how laws are passed, what happens in local government, UK and World politics, different political systems and political parties, both modern and historical. The whole gamut.

Here’s the rub though. There’s nothing for Carol. There’s nothing for Dave, the follower of Voice of Wales, who genuinely believes, in spite of my attempts to convince him otherwise, that Rhun ap Iorwerth’s real name is Ron Jones and that he changed it because he’s part of a clandestine organisation within Wales seeking to introduce Sharia Law. My flabber has rarely, if ever, been more ghasted.

So, my question today is a simple one.

Adult education

What would happen if Carol and Dave had access to free, or heavily subsidised, adult education courses, teaching the History of Wales, Politics and the History of Welsh politics?

Would that help? Would it even get any traction? I wonder if that’s something Anna Brychan might look at. I’d join that course if it was on-line and I could afford it.

In a heartbeat. I’d be all over that like Jac Morgan at a breakdown.

What do you reckon Wales?