Fortnight Publications Ltd.

The Politics of LanguageAuthor(s): Mark RobinsonSource: Fortnight, No. 252 (Jun., 1987), p. 24Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25551223 .

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The politics of language

Mark Robinson

SINN FEIN last month announced that culture and its advocacy of the

Irish language would play a prominent part in its election strategy. Meanwhile it had caused something of a stir at the Celtic Film Festival

in Inverness, providing what might be termed 'a knee-jerk opportunity' for local Tory politicians by giving a fringe showing of Ag Labhairt

Amach ('Speaking Out'), a commissioned record of a conference on

current affairs organised by Sinn Fein in Navan in September 1986.

The screening of Ag Labhairt Amach was quite properly defended by the festival organisers, who had themselves made the

politics of language an integral part of the week's activities, organising a seminar on the subject and printing a challenging article in the

official festival programme by Ken MacQuarrie, a producer of Scots

Gaelic programmes at BBC Scotland. What makes some people nervous, of course, is the growing realisation that cultural politics may indeed be indistinguishable from 'real polities'.

Ken MacQuarrie feels that film and television can offer "a life

support for a language and culture". They can also stimulate confidence

and create significant numbers of jobs for users of a language. In this

context it is worth noting that of the 195 films, videos and television

programmes listed in the Inverness programme, five were in Irish, 13 at

least partly in Scots Gaelic and 32 in Welsh.

It is often assumed that Wales has always been some kind of

linguistic promised land, so accounting for the high output in Welsh.

But this is to ignore the impact of the creation of Sianel Pedwar Cymru (S4C)

- what Ken MacQuarrie terms "the explosion in creativity and

culture" - on film-makers and audience alike. The requirement on S4C

to broadcast in Welsh during peak time for 24 hours per week gives an

obvious incentive to programme makers.

Whether this level of exposure on the most powerful medium of the

age will affect the decline in the speaking of Welsh - from around 50

per cent of the population in 1900 to 19 per cent in 1981 - remains to

be seen. Paradoxically, most cause for optimism amongst those who

primarily want to see the language used might be found in the intention

of S4C controller Owen Edwards to make the service "outward-looking,

exciting and modern". For others this assertion of traditional

broadcasting values over linguistic and nationalistic concerns can only

complete the process of internalising foreign cultural domination.

S4C's output is currently supplied by HTV, BBC Wales and

independent producers. From 1989 they will have to compete on a

commercial basis. In Scotland and Ireland the partial break-up of the

BBC, and its realignment on the Channel 4 model in keeping with

Thatcherite thinking, could in theory provide opportunities for Irish or

Gaelic programme makers as independent productions are

commissioned. But whether a restructured BBC is intended to provide, like C4, a platform for new voices and new perspectives

- rather than an

opportunity for the privatisation of public service broadcasting - must

remain doubtful.

Such decisions on broadcasting policy cannot be separated from the

politics of language. Ken MacQuarrie: "The world of a multiplicity of

television channels is with us - only political decisions will now guard

the languages of small nations. Should this not happen then people the

world over will greet each other in the curt, staccato tones of the mid

Atlantic - a grey language, the spawn of miles of plastic tape." If this is true political actions will inevitably be taken to lobby for

political decisions. As Gwynfor Evans of Plaid Cymru pointed out to

delegates at Inverness, "The struggle for the Welsh language was not

won without a thousand Welsh people being jailed." He could also have

added that S4C was only brought into existence after he had threatened

to fast to the death if the then new Thatcher government reneged on

commitments to the new channel.

Why was it so important? For Gwynfor Evans, "The language is the

reason for the existence of the Welsh nation." The founder of Plaid

Cymru, Saunders Lewis, had earlier declared that the struggle for

language was a revolutionary struggle -

though if it was a struggle which might bring self-government in its wake, the language was more

important than self-government. Saunders Lewis was jailed in 1936 for

his part in burning down an RAF bombing school, an incident

celebrated in the recent BBC Wales film Penyberth. Ken MacQuarrie

quotes Connolly: "For 600 years the English strove to suppress that

mark of the distinct character of the Gael - their language - and failed.

But in one generation the politicians did what England had failed to do."

For the moment the last word from the Celtic Film Festival goes to

C4's Rod Stoneman: "One could dream of a world in which there would

no longer be anything but differences, so that to be differentiated would

no longer mean to be excluded."

NEXT MONTH: Is there a case in the north for

broadcasting in Irish?

A scene from Rhosyn A Rhith (Coming Up Roses), the acclaimed Welsh language film by Stephen Bayly shown at the Celtic Film Festival

24 June Fortnight

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