Wales is the land of song. Now it’s being silenced by cuts that threaten our culture | Will Hayward
WA nation hat? There are many variable definitions, but in the end they return to the same answer: a large group of people binding together through culture, history and common language. For us in Cymru, the idea of the Welsh nation is something that we are sensitive and protection. Our most provocative historian, Join Alf WilliamsHe said that Wales “from birth … lived with the threat of extinction” and that the Welsh nation’s survival is “one of the simple miracles of history.”
For those of you who know mainly Wells Through the cross holiday, the six nations and Gareth Bale, this may seem strange. After all, whenever I saw Wales or Wales, representatives anywhere they are loud and unambiguous, well, Wales.
But this is not just an expression of pride. It is a necessity. Wales is a nation that includes a little more than 3 million people on the borders of a country of 57 million people, so there is a present danger that we can swallow and integrate. Our nation did not have a capital until Cardiff was named in 1955. This is the insecurity of our existence to be summarized in the song’s choir. Yma O HydWho sang before Wales International Football matches:RY’n Ni Yma O Hyd / / Er GWaetha Pawb a Phopith.“ This translates as follows: “We are still here, despite everyone and everything.”
Once again in 1997, Wales voted in favor of the mandate, and the Welsh Association was created in 1999. This officially became the Welsh Parliament (SENEDD CYMRU) in 2020. It came with the promise that the future development of our nation will be in our hands and protects her. However, this promise has been put in place by a system that is worse around the world. Wales with the UK government leaves her feelings to wash her hands responsibility for us, while successive Welsh governments seemed to lack talent, leadership or financial cranes to make Wales better.
If you want an example of this, do not look beyond the position of the terrible culture really inside Wales. The numbers are blatant. A Report of the recent Senate Committee I found that Wales is ranked second of the bottom, among the selected European countries, in terms of spending cultural services for each person. Only Greece was less. Even from the UK’s point of view on a larger scale, Wales’s cultural spending is delicate. CYMRU spends 69.68 pounds for a person for cultural services, compared to 91.12 pounds in the United Kingdom. For context, Spain spends about 113 pounds, Ireland 149 pounds, Belgium is 209 pounds, and France is 237 pounds. Iceland tops the table at a price of 691.60 pounds. In sport, it is completely bad: Wales spends from 5 to 6 pounds for the head; In contrast, Ireland spends 27.50 pounds.
It was not always that way. Welsh cultural budgets have been reduced over the past decade. between 2014/15 and 2024/25The funding of the Royal Committee for the Old and Historic Antiquities in Wales fell by 34 % in real terms. Sport Wales witnessed a 9 % decrease, the total Books Council income decreased by 20 % and reducing revenue financing for the Arts Council in Wales in real terms by 29 %. It is heartbreaking to see how these cuts show the same day by day via Cymru. At the end of last week, the National Museum announced that it was Close its doors temporarily Because of the deteriorating state of the building. Reopened since thenBut still, events tell a story. Just nine months ago, the Welsh Minister of Culture gave assurances that the building would remain open.
Their National Falls of National Arts for Youth Arts, Wales, are a umbrella organization for the likes of the National Youth Choir and the National Youth Theater (and where Michael Shin, Matthew Reese, Roth Jones and Raki Ayula began). The situation became so much that Shane last month funded The launch of the Wales National Theater After the National Theater, Wales stopped existence “after 1.6 million pounds in its primary financing from the Wales Council of Arts.
There is a wider problem here in Wales because the arts are also a vital way in which the Welsh language is promoted. Returning to this definition of what is “a nation”, which is a major part of it is culture and common language. These cuts are not just tragic because they steal individuals from all the benefits that come with the arts; They also steal Wales from a large part, making it a nation.
The building of the National Museum Cardiff has been closed because of its dilapidated condition surrounds this particular case. Its construction began in 1912 as part of a huge state building program inside Wales. It was about making Wales distinct. At that time, the legislation covering England and Wales did not say “England and Wales” as they are now doing; It is simply reading “England” (this has not changed until the 1950s). To be a nation and not just an appendix to England, it was hoping that you needed a museum. Now, 25 years after his transfer, it is collapsing due to lack of money.
Blame for this unfortunate situation lies in several places. Since the beginning of the Conservative Party in 2010, successive Welsh workers’ governments have been forced to re -allocate funds in a struggling health service, which must confront the older population, a disease and more widespread than England. But this Welsh Labor Party government should not be granted. If they were behaving in the theater, their performance as the leader of Wales’s culture could have been easy and ridiculous due to the lack of complete credibility. Although it was directed to a difficult hand in financial terms, there are failures that they must possess.
Last weekend holiday I have published the contents From an internal report leaked from within the “Cultural Section” within the Welsh government, which surveyed employees ’views. This included condemning the alleged lack of “real performance management” within the government, which means that “the managers who may not want to hold difficult conversations that they can avoid, and thus the employees who do not perform” escape from that. “He also found that the employees felt” there was no Feeling of long -term strategic planning “and there was” a wide point of view that the ministers’ expectations are not managed. “It is sad that this is the section accused of supervising culture in Wales.
When the Welsh culture erodes, you wear Wales. The arts are not “good to have”; They are vital. An urgent change is needed, otherwise the risk land that is finally silenced.
