Rally a collective act of symbolic defiance and reawakening
BEING at the Wales Independence Rally in Caernarfon on Saturday along with at least 8,000 other people was an uplifting and positive experience. The long, colourful river of people of all ages walked from the car park below Morrisons past Galeri and into the walled town in a collective act of symbolic defiance and reawakening.
The reawakening has been kindled by recent political events. From the despair felt following the Brexit vote based on falsehoods three-and-a-half years ago to the recent election of Boris Johnson as Prime Minister of a divided, unequal “United Kingdom”; from the shambles that is Westminster to rising levels of child poverty in Wales and the cruelty of austerity; from attacks on minorities everywhere, including upon Welshspeakers, to mounting evidence of the rise of the far-right, racism and attacks upon women.
Rather than despair at recent events, people turned up in their thousands in Caernarfon on July 27.
They turned their frustration into hope. That’s why people were smiling and laughing and singing their way around the town to the Maes.
Despite the gloom surrounding Westminster politics, the atmosphere was optimistic, positive, uplifting, inclusive and open. Our hearts and minds are set on a better way.
Speaker after speaker talked of an alternative future for our country and for all our communities.
They talked of a future where we stand on our own two feet and where we are empowered to do things our own way. And that a new modern Wales awaits everyone who lives here – and that everyone who lives here is included in our new national project.
People are waking up to the fact that there is a better way. That things don’t have to be like this. That we don’t have to see our fellow-citizens homeless or poor. That Wales can do so much better as an independent nation. An outward-looking, inclusive and caring nation standing tall amongst the other nations of the world.
We defiantly rejected Boris and Brexit on Saturday. We rekindled hope. We are on our journey.
I look forward to seeing this movement go from strength to strength over the coming months.
I am so proud that Caernarfon has played such a vital part in that journey and so privileged to have been amongst the vast crowd near the castle – which has miserably failed to break our spirit! Yma o hyd!