Introducing the concept of Cornish Genocide

 
Anyone taking a serious interest in what is happening to Cornwall, for whatever reason and from whichever point of view, cannot seriously say that they are unaware of the two faces of Cornwall which present themselves as the two contradictory truths of a created Cornish Paradox.   These contradictions exist as part of the unique political culture of the Cornish people as they continually seek to reassert their own identity against an establishment, and its media, which is clearly alien and insensitive to Cornish aspirations.   Given that the Cornish Dimension has its foundations firmly set in the facts of history, there can be only one way to interpret the cause and effect of this paradox and in order to focus attention on the Cornish situation it is necessary to examine such an extreme political dogma as genocide.

There is no attempt within this examination to draw a direct comparison with the atrocities that we read about daily and which form the commonly perceived perception of genocide.   I speak and write as a Cornishman who is witnessing the destruction of both my historic territory and people.   This is a fact not lost, bizarrely, on the Nazi propaganda machine during the 1930s as the following extract from the Mebyon Kernow submission to the Kilbrandon Commission on the Constitution, 1972, explains:

"In the late 1930s, when the outside world was becoming increasingly vociferous over the Nazi's treatment of the German Jews, German newspapers, fed by the Nazi propagandists, tried to counter criticism from British sources by claiming that the English should be the last to complain, since they had 'persecuted' the Cornish from time immemorial."

In order to relate to the concept of genocide, I have derived the following hypothesis which should stand for any application of genocide.   This is:

"That where a people-group that once existed no longer exists, or is in danger of no longer existing, as a consequence of a deliberate policy (or policies) enacted against the interests of the targeted people-group by an external dominant people-group, then....... culpable genocide is proven"

The starting point for an examination of perceptions on genocide is to review the United Nations "CONVENTION ON THE PREVENTION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CRIME OF GENOCIDE". Approved and proposed for signature and accession by General Assembly Resolution 260(III)A on 9th December 1948 and which came into force on 12th January 1951. Articles 1, 2, 3 and 4 are as follows:

Article 1
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
Article 2
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a)Killing members of the group;
(b)Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c)Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d)Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e)Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article 3
The following acts shall be punishable:
(a)Genocide;
(b)Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c)Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d)Attempt to commit genocide;
(e)Complicity in genocide.
Article 4
Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.
If the concept of equating the Cornish Problem to genocide is thought to be offensive and in poor taste then I would suggest that there is much ugliness around the world which is 'tolerated' because it is 'unseen' and all that I am doing is bringing just another aspect of this ugliness into view.   The UN definitions above focus on 'physical' acts against those of a targetted group but any understanding of Genocide, needs to take into account the fact that physical atrocities are not the only way of destroying a group.   The following link shows that there is still pressure, since being rejected in 1947, to bring 'Cultural Genocide' into the definitions.

You may well ask why it is necessary to 'bring into view' something which is allegedly right on our doorstep?   The simple answer is - because it is unseen!   Why is it unseen?   Because it has been, and is being, perpetrated over a very long timescale and by ordinary people!   How then can it be identified as 'genocide'?   Because the underlying intention is to kill the 'Cornish' consciousness.   [ see discussion on a Genocide Model!]

To remove any ethnic consciousness over a short timescale is only possible by replacing it with nothing, i.e. death!   Carried out over a long time period it is possible to replace one consciousness with another by using the appropriate mechanisms.   Let us just reflect upon the known existence of a wartime tactical mechanism called 'brainwashing';   relate this to the winning of hearts and minds as a requirement of a particular political strategy and then control the rules in order to ensure that the strategy succeeds.

Another way of looking at it - and an aid to understanding what is going on around us in Cornwall - is to think of a national identity as a people-territory relationship.   Destroy that relationship in any way and you destroy the nation and its identity.   Again, the function of time in the Cornish Case means that our relationship to Cornwall is being deliberately, and wilfully, fragmented and weakened and now being replaced with a new territorial focus, i.e. 'Devon & Cornwall', 'the two counties', 'Westcountry', 'Southwest', 'English' etc.

Within the short timescale the resolution can only be extreme, absolute and visible!   The Cornish Case is piecemeal, seemingly innocuous and invisible but - unless we wake up to the fact! - is equally deadly!

It does not matter whether an object is modified rapidly by the application of acid or, over an unspecified time, by the inexorable drip of water.   If it is a crime to change the state of the object by the extreme method then it must also be a crime to achieve the same end result by any other method - however innocuous it might seem at any particular point in time.

Others might say, dismissively, that it is something that 'just happened'.   Nothing ever 'just happens', there is always a cause and effect.  The concept of genocide by means other than the more obvious is something that has been recognised by others in a similar position to the Cornish.  A website on the 'Bloodless Genocide' of the Pitcairn People is one that originally spurred me on to take the plunge in creating this website.

For genocide to exist, as I see it, there must be the following:

aTwo territorial people-groupsCornish & English
bMotivation by one to remove the otherCovert Coercion
cIdentifiable Acts to achieve that motivationMethodology
dPerpetrators of the ActsCulpability

There is an argument that suggests that my use of the term 'genocide' within this site 'overstates the case' and should be replaced with the alternative term 'ethnocide'.   I would welcome any discussion on the merits of either but I must remain with my perception that the historic 'Cornish people' are being removed from peoples' perception and the term 'genocide' and a broader examination, above, of its definition is an instant reminder of what is happening.   I do not consider that the term 'race' is, or has been, appropropriate to the individual peoples of Europe for the past 3000 years.   The possibility that one people [whether defined by race or ethnicity] is better than another, is only for the mentality of those without the ability to think - another paradox!

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