Daily Archives: July 30, 2017

MP SPEAKS | BNs repressive tactics, beginning with forcing DAP to hold a party re-election four years later after our last re-election in 2013, banning G25s book and forcing political cartoonist Zunar to cancel his 'Ketawa Pink Pink' exhibition in Penang, is a harbinger of more oppression should BN win the coming 14th general elections.

Even though Penang is ruled by a Pakatan Harapan state government that promotes freedom of speech and artistic expression, there is no guarantee that Zunar can hold his exhibition featuring 50 pieces of his artworks due to alleged threats from his opponents.

Zunar said he was supposed to hold the event dubbed 'Ketawa Pink Pink' tomorrow on Beach Street, from 8am to 12pm, but was forced to cancel his cartoon exhibition in Penang because of alleged threats from a group from Umno Penang. Instead of holding their own cartoon exhibition, they had distributed posters urging their members to come and "visit" Zunars exhibition.

DAP can understand Zunars fear of physical intimidation when last year, his exhibition in Komtar resulted in not only Zunar being physically attacked by a Penang Umno Youth member, while the police arrested him under the Sedition Act. Umno Youth chief Khairy Jamaluddin should be ashamed of such behaviour of Umno Youth members, which Zunar had described as "very rowdy and aggressive".

DAP agrees that the banning of the book by G25, which is a collection of essays 'Breaking the Silence: Voices of Moderation - Islam in a Constitutional Democracy', is "illogical" and "utterly ridiculous", when the authorities failed to explain how the book is prejudicial to public order. This is not just another example of the Malaysian government suppressing free speech.

The BN governments refusal to give reasons, lends suspicion that this is a naked abuse of power intended to send a chilling message and extract political capital in the run-up to the general election. G25 comprises former top civil servants, diplomats and pro-BN personalities such as Chandra Muzaffar. Chandra said the ban is an attempt to curb balanced, rational and open-minded thinking on matters pertaining to the practice of Islam in Malaysia and that the essays were not just about the practice of Islam, but about upholding the federal constitution.

Instead of banning books, civil action of defamation can always be filed if any party feels offended. Clearly BN is intent in maintaining Malaysia as both a kleptocracy and autocracy, with neither room for dissent nor protection for genuine whistleblowers of corruption at the highest levels.

LIM GUAN ENG is DAP secretary-general and Bagan MP.

Originally posted here:

Zunar's plight sign of more oppression should BN win GE - Malaysiakini (subscription)

Plans for a sculpture near a Welsh castle have been shelved after thousands signed a petition claiming it celebrates the subjugation and oppression of the Welsh people. Here, Dr Matthew Stevens argues that is a misguided stance which fails to recognise the rich historical and cultural inheritance of Wales.

It saddens me to see the negative popular reaction of some to the recently approved art instillation at Flint Castle.

It is a reaction that radically underplays the deep, rich, fascinating and, most importantly, complex medieval cultural inheritance of Wales.

I worry, though I would be reluctant to say for sure, that it might also underscore a troublesome lack of self-confidence in a proud Welsh identity.

In 1066, some 951 years ago, a Norman Frenchman and his rabble conquered England and secured it with his own iron ring of castles, the centrepiece of which was the Tower of London.

The Tower is now celebrated not as the instrument of Norman oppression it was created as, but as part of the rich tapestry of English heritage. In 1277, some 740 years ago, Flint castle was begun by Edward I. Cannot we too, as a nation, manage similarly to wrest free our own cultural inheritance from the centuries-old past, and make Wales iron ring our own?

As noted in the Welsh Government press release, the architect states "the sculpture will take a balanced form, some buried beneath the ground, the remainder projecting into the air, to demonstrate the unstable nature of the crown". This sculpture is a crooked crown, knocked off kilter by the people, and rightly so.

There are at least two good reasons why we ought to see the sculpture as celebrating Welsh resilience and the futility of foreign "conquest".

First, the short reason.

Yes, Flint was one of the first four castles built by Edward I to secure his military gains following his first war against the last Prince of Wales, Llywelyn ap Gryffydd, in 1277, along with Builth, Aberystwyth and Ruddlan. Now, three of these castles are in the hands of Cadw, and the fourth, Aberystwyth, belongs to the local council, and the Welsh flag flies proudly over all sites. The iron ring as it were, is now Welsh and in Welsh hands. From a heritage perspective, the iron ring has long, long since been knocked off kilter by the people of Wales. That is something to celebrate.

Second, the long reason.

If one wants to go digging around in the history of the conquest they need to know that the situation was much more complex than English versus Welsh.

Wales, in the 1100s and 1200s, was divided between the Marches of southeast and south Wales, and native controlled north and west Wales. And within native Wales there were three Welsh kingdoms, Deheubarth in the southwest (think Cardiganshire), Powys in mid-east Wales, and Gwynedd in the northwest. These kingdoms fought tooth and nail for dominance over one another until Llywelyn the Great ap Iorwerth of Gwynedd used both talk and war to dominate the other kingdoms. This included, at one point, sidling up to bad King John of England and even marrying his illegitimate daughter Joan!

Five things to think about before you get too angry about the Iron Ring sculpture

The princes of Gwynedd then started calling themselves Prince of Wales, and bullied the other Welsh kingdoms to toe the line until their relations with England soured, followed by Edwards conquest. But in reality, the princes of Powys resisted, making alliances with the English king when helpful, and as Prof. David Stephenson has recently published the men of Powys were in armed conflict with Gwynedds princes of Wales more than 25 times between 1132 and 1282, including as allies of the English in Edward Is 1277 and 1282 campaigns of conquest.

Much of the old kingdom of Powys outlived the conquest and the construction of the iron ring, until the princely lines of Powys simply died out. One ought not overstate the role of the iron ring.

Edwards four castles of 1277, including Flint, were also not as helpful as he would have liked. Edward again waged war on Wales in 1282, after which about ten more castles were built by Edward, or men to whom he granted lands conquered from the Prince of Gwynedd, including iconic Caernarfon, Conwy and Harlech castles. These too proved not enough, and following the widespread and destructive rebellion of Madog ap Llywelyn in 1295 during which Caernarfon castle and at least three others were taken by the Welsh he began work on Beaumaris castle, which ultimately he could not finish because he ran out of royal funds.

In fact, Edwards arguably futile castle building was so expensive that it hampered his other political aspirations in Scotland, and substantially contributed to the virtual state of English bankruptcy under which the ill-fated and constantly cash-strapped Edward II would come to the throne in 1307, only to be deposed by his wife and teenaged son in 1327 and miserably executed. The cost of the iron ring, one could argue, unbalanced the English monarchy for two generations.

Moreover, as fate would have it, the last of Edward Is Plantagenet dynasty, his great great grandson Richard II himself a notorious tyrant was deposed after he was caught by his enemies and forced to surrender at Flint castle. Richard II, whose rule effectively ended in Wales on the site where Edward Is first great castle was begun, would later be ingloriously starved to death in captivity. This is the transfer of power to the usurper Henry IV which was famously dramatized by Shakespeare, something of which the Welsh Governments press release shows awareness.

Lastly, the deposition of Richard II and the shaky revolution in England would form the backdrop for the rebellion of Owain Glyndr, who would conquer and control the iron ring castles of Aberystwyth and Harlech in 1404, holding a Welsh parliament at Harlech in 1405 and making it his military headquarters for the next four years. Throughout the rebellion Owain would do everything in his power not just to assert control over Wales, but to destabilise the new English monarchy. This included, in 1405, making his tripartite alliance with two factions of rebellious English barons, and even hosting an invading French army which spent the summer campaigning with the Welsh.

Even beyond the Middle Ages skipping over such crucial characters as the Welsh Henry VII one could go on to point out how the English Civil War was fought in Wales around the castles of the iron ring, such as Flint, which were generally manned by conservative Welsh royalists, in opposition to Cromwells overwhelmingly English parliamentarian forces. In fact, Flint and Aberystwyth, cornerstones of Edwards 1277 iron ring, are in the ruinous state we see them in today because Cromwell ordered them destroyed after capture to prevent Welsh royalists again occupying them. By the seventeenth century the iron ring was thoroughly Welsh.

Against this complex backdrop of the rich historical and cultural inheritance of Wales, it is sadly short-sighted to see the iron ring as simply a marker of Edward Is conquest. It is not inappropriate to put this installation of an off-kilter ring, representing a destabilised crown, next to Flint castle. Flint, and the rest of the iron ring, in the fullness of history, do not represent centuries of steady oppression, but the resilience of the Welsh, who have punched above their weight in directly or indirectly destabilising the English monarchy and government over the centuries. The iron ring is woven into the tapestry of Welsh history in a thousand ways, and the off-kilter ring as proposed, to be lined with engravings celebrating local perspectives on the site, would require some creative negativity dismissive of much of the history of north Wales to be seen strictly as a symbol of English oppression today.

Matthew Frank Stevens is senior lecturer in medieval history at Swansea University and fellow of the Royal Historical Society (2010-present). He completed a PhD in history at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth in 2005 and has since been a postdoctoral fellow of the Economic History Society at the University of Oxford (2005-6), researcher at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London (2006-10) and visiting fellow at Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toru, Poland (2010). He has wide ranging interests in the interrelationships between the economy, law, gender and race in the medieval and early modern periods. He is author of Urban Assimilation in Post-Conquest Wales: Ethnicity Gender and Economy in Ruthin, 1282-1348 and is currently preparing his second book, Race Law and the Origins of National Identity: Northern Europe in the Middle Ages for Manchester University Press. He may be reached at m.f.stevens@swansea.ac.uk .

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To see the Iron Ring simply as a symbol of Welsh oppression is short-sighted and underscores a troublesome lack of ... - WalesOnline