ROSC Eanáir 1973
Editor forced to break law
le Pól Ó Duibhir|
The latest addition to the long and distinguished list of those in Wales
refusing to pay their television licences is Clive Betts, editor of the WELSH
NATION, the Nationalist Party's weekly newspaper. Clive's protest is against
the very small proportion of Welsh on TV in Wales and for a separate Welsh
language channel. He was born in Southampton and his first language is English.
His wife's first language is Welsh.
On the 4th of October this year he was fined £10 with £2 costs for not possessing a TV licence by Cardiff magistrates. The court hearing was in English. He told the court: "I am taking this action as part of a bid by thousands throughout Wales to prevent the nation becoming a one language country, with that language English. One of the most important factors in this anglicisation is television, particularly as it affects the very young. "Quite a large number of people have chosen to break the law for the first time in their lives as part of this fight to help a language that is in crisis. It is important that you know their reasons and why, in a supposedly democratic state, they chose to act outside Parliamentary channels. "We only wish that Westminster would show the remotest interest and action over the language problem: it has become clear over the last few years that they only move when forced to. We only wish that the interest were equal to that taken by the Swiss Government of its 500,000 Italian speakers who receive twice as many hours TV each night as Welsh speakers of whom there are a gr«a!er number. Or that we had the equivalent of the TV station of the 200,000 Icelanders who speak a language all of their own. "Breaches, or threats of breaches of the law have suddenly and dramatically forced several governments to change their minds and give Welsh equal treatment with English. If the government takes notice of the demands for a Welsh language television channel, running side by side with the present English ones, it will not be because of Westminster's love of the Welsh language, but because sufficient people in Wales have shown they are not afraid to defy the law in their fight for justice for a language. "Only last week, the Union of Welsh Independents, the Congregational Church in Wales, called on all Christians to consider to refuse paying their television licence fees until a Welsh TV channel was set up. "It is becoming increasingly evident that the people who are being taken before the courts by the Post Office and police are those groups who are fighting for justice. The Post Office and police by their actions are condoning and supporting injustice. Magistrates who support these forces of so-called law and order are in their turn putting a stamp of approval on injustice. "For the adults this preponderance of English programmes is not nearly as serious as for the young child. I have two children, the elder a boy of two-and-a-half. My wife, whose first language is Welsh, and I are trying to bring them up truly bilingual with a command of Welsh that will enable them to take a full part in the life of their nation. Although we speak next to no English to him, is it surprising that almost the little boy's first words were 'One, two, three, four, five, six' in faultless English picked up from the television screen! It is heartbreaking and a wicked injustice. "I have never been in the dock in a court before in my life. But when I see an injustice as terrible as that over Welsh television I am forced to break the law just as others throughout the world fighting other injustices find themselves forced to take similar action. I am not the first English-speaker to appear in the dock in these circumstances. I undoubtedly will not be the last." |