This page will concentrate on the methodology and mechanisms of genocide which coerces us into thinking in terms of a territory other than 'Cornwall'. The function and purpose of such policies are aimed at destroying the very foundations of that special people-territory relationship which form the fundamental basis of our Cornish national identity.
The process is achieved by:
| a) |  |
demeaning the existing relationship to destroy confidence |
| b) | |
creating multiple relationships to cause confusion |
| c) | |
applying a new focus for consolidating the new identity |
| d) | |
provision of symbols of external domination |
In some instances the action may be misconstrued as quite innocent and innocuous but must still be seen within an Inertia of English Imperialism which respects no others but itself. As has been said elsewhere in this site, if the end result is wrong for Cornish Rights then the policies themselves must also be wrong for Cornish Rights!
| a) |  |
demeaning the existing relationship to destroy confidence |
Possibly the most significant example of this policy is the wilful denial of provision of access to our history and the complementary demeaning of the Cornish constitutional status as 'an administrative county of England(sic)'. Reference to the Duchy of Cornwall as 'the county' ad nauseum and a moronic preference, by some, to use this instead of the identifying term Cornwall, or Duchy of Cornwall, exists only because the story of Cornwall has not been told to our children.
In its place we find the surreptitious implantation of the Imperial myth of the 'Island of England' with any Cornish history belittled or swept under the carpet and a contrived stigma attached to 'all things Cornish'. We have been officially deprived of the means to see our identity within a comparative context which would have been a catalyst to consolidating an unambiguous Cornish Identity and the pride and confidences that this would ensure.
If we wish for our future adults to take a continuing pride in their territory and heritage, then it is up to us to see that they are aware that it exists and to see that we are proud that it exists and what that means in terms of the past, present and future.
| b) | |
creating multiple relationships to cause confusion |
Can anyone be in doubt, since 1967, as to what this means in practice? The subliminal nature of unambiguous territorial epithets like 'Cornish' - even 'Cornwall' - is that, where it is used, it immediately focuses attention on something that we consciously identify with and we know precisely what it means and to which we can unambiguously identify with. More importantly we can say, unequivocally, that it is "ours". Even more important is the fact that if it is "ours" then we feel more responsible for its success. Where this "ours" thing involves employment possibilities we stand a better chance of having an even stronger identification with "our" territory and which minimises the effects of other mechanisms of genocide such as economically enforced exile.
Multiple relationships are established by a variety of means but principally by the mechanisms of 'border blurring' and 'redefinition'. The failure of the Cornish to reject this process en masse is simply because they have not been able to see the 'water dripping on a stone' consequences for a truly Cornish future. They have been denied the basic right to consider such actions within the context of their right as the Cornish Nation to have their integrity protected.
This process has many faces but all originate from a failure to respect Cornish Rights, as a single historic and geographical entity, where policies impose corrosive disingenuous cross-border activities. These include: | |||
| a | - | the early 20th century, saw the Cornish Duchy lost within the undefined convenience phrase 'westcountry' - used to entice the gullible tourist. | |
| b | - | as a consequence of Imperial English inspired invisibility, our Cornish Duchy nearly disappeared within, what one writer of the time [Fawcett 1919, republished 1942 & 1960] advocated as, 'the Devon Province', with the English city of Plymouth as regional capital, as the post Irish concept of 'Home Rule' all round grabbed the imagination of some. | |
| c | - | the English media, without exception, wilfully imposed its Imperial English propaganda, devoid of any sensitivity, on the Cornish people | |
| d | - | to accommodate war-time contingencies, the Cornish Duchy again disappears within the definition of the 'South West' | |
| e | - | after the war, circa 1948, various 'South Western' nationalised utilities came into being. These were not necesarily coextensive with each other nor with the 'official' South West. Although Cornwall was originally respected at a sub-regional level, this soon changed as each utility began a process of centralising both offices and work opportunities away from Cornwall and establishing cross-border sub-divisions. | |
| f | - | the English regional aspiration saw the development of a South West Economic Planning Council, in the 1960s, within which, notably, the Cornish border with England was ignored within a sub-regional alignment based on the English city of Plymouth. The beginning of a new phase in this mechanism of Cornish genocide! | |
| g | - | It was clear that external opinion considered Cornish Integrity as an irrelevance 'to be disposed of' and the Fawcett concept that no boundary was sacrosanct meant that the Cornish where political fodder for all and every political and commercial whim which could be dreamt up to destroy us! The first practical example of this was the failed land-grabbing aspirations of the parasitic connurbation across the Tamar, following the Abercrombie war-time proposals, 1942, to rebuild the English city of Plymouth. But, it did open further considerations for the expansion of Plymouth into a "Tamarside" county which comes directly from the thinking of Fawcett and the idea that sub-regional boundaries should be based on watersheds. Phrases such as "Tamarside" and "city regions" will continue to be at the heart of any political process of Cornish genocide. | |
| h | - | within the many sub-regional alignments it was obvious that a pattern of 'border blurring' was evolving which facilitated the formation of an entity comprising the Duchy of Cornwall and the English county of Devonshire. This alignment, although officialy becoming referred to as "Devon & Cornwall" ad nauseum, was politically seen from a Cornish point of view as a "Devonwall" construct [Fawcett's Devon Province!] and, significantly, the first casualty of this coercion was our Cornish Constabulary when in 1967 it was merged into a "Devon & Cornwall" police authority centred on Exeter - another new identifying mnemonic had been established | |
| i | - | The next casualty was an openly flaunting of our Cornish territorial integrity. It was one thing to be 'lost' within a collection of amorphous utilities or merged as a "Devon & Cornwall" authority but what followed in 1969 was an insidious mechanism to coerce the Cornish into openly denying our Cornish Integrity. The introduction of postal codes for the sorting and delivery of mail not only ignored the existence of the Cornish Border with England but actually imposed codes, for the majority of Cornwall, that were based on centres ["PL" - Plymouth and "EX" - Exeter] outside of the Duchy. Only the area beyond Newquay and St Austell bore a Cornish ["TR" - Truro] postal code!
At this time, also, the modernisation of telephone exchanges provided the means to impose the common exchange name and dialing code for the English city of 'Plymouth' to those exchanges on the Cornish side of the Tamar. Thus the English Establishment had found an alternative means to impose the mnemonics of a "Tamarside" county and it was not long before an economic planning focus started formulating proposals for a "Plymouth travel to work area"! Full-page newspaper adverts appeared and encouraged further colonisation of Southeast Cornwall with the slogan "Live in Liskeard Work in Plymouth". | |
| j | - | At this time, 1969, an English boundary commission [Redcliffe Maud] was formulating proposals to transfer the civil administration of Cornwall to the English city of Plymouth, together with a 'minority' report [Senior] proposing the establishment of 'city regions' based on Exeter, Plymouth and Truro. These proposals were interrupted by a General election but the English city of Plymouth elders saw their chance and made their own bid to establish a "Tamarside" county at the expense of Cornish territorial integry.
This bid fortunately failed but, sadly, so did a Cornish plea to the Kilbrandon Commission on the Constitution to acknowledge Cornish Territorial Rights. The Commission's Report in 1973 acknowledged the need for some protection of Cornwall's territorial integrity but felt that this could be safely accommodated by a greater use of "The Duchy of Cornwall"! | |
| k | During the past 30 years there has been a greater consolidation of cross-border activities which create the illusion that Royal Duchy of Cornwall and the English county of Devonshire are a single entity. As someone once said to me that, whilst in conversation with someone in London, he was identified as coming from "Devon & Cornwall" | ||
| c) | |
applying a new focus for consolidating the new identity |
Having been previously employed for 43 years in a nationalised utility, which went through a period of completely changing its culture as a consequence of privatisation during the 1990s, it has been possible to see how people's minds are manipulated to identify with the new 'business' order. The external forces acting upon the minds of the Cornish people have precisely the same political agenda of cultural replacement in that, put simply: History is irrelevant, Cornish is bad and English is good. Whilst the commercial equivalent is insidious but honest, transparent and coercive, the cultural genocide of the Cornish people is sinister, repressive, dishonest, devious and coercive.
Instead of the Cornish being administered by a council, or assembly, for the [Cornish] Duchy of Cornwall - as is our constitutional right - we are administered by a council for the [English] county of Cornwall. This effectively denies the existence of Cornwall as a distinct non-English territory whilst simultaneously embedding in Cornish minds the completely erroneous but demeaning concept that we are English. The associated symbolism of 'county' being visually imposed upon us from the moment we start school until it spontaneously replaces our use of the word 'Cornwall' and imposes a disturbing psychological stigma as to even using the word 'Cornish'.
Being administered as an 'English county', as with the mythical phrase 'the British nation', immediately brings into play a differing set of emotions and perceptions which are consolidated by providing means of symbolising and celebrating the new identity - for the benefit of the gullible! As referred to elsewhere, what used to be known as the 'Cornwall Music Festival' has become the unimaginative and unidentifying 'County Music Festival'. Part of this consolidation plumbs to new depths with the annual 'Miss County of Cornwall' contest. This does not reflect what is the truth but as with anything offered, irrespective of value, will receive some measure of support. Such divisiveness, once initiated by suppressing Cornish Rights, creates the paradox of identity.
However! As one process succeeds it leads inevitable to another stage of socio-political cultural manipulation. With the failure to honour Cornish Rights and recognise our Cornish Border with England as inviolate we have witnessed simultaneously, both the fragmentation of our Cornish territorial integrity and the submergence of Cornish territory within larger 'English' territorial units. Each of these carrying with it the associated symbolism which mnemonically draws us further away from our true Cornish territorial identity. None of these are acceptable but the worst is, of course, 'westcountry' - a term which facilitates the removal of any form of Cornish territorial identity whether this be of our country, our town or our village.
Without the respect for our rights to a Cornish education and the creation/retention of intrinsically 'Cornish' institutions, this process of brainwashing has to be endured under duress. It will gain in credibility only from those without conscience and invariably from the contrived mass of the English colonising fifth-column. Yes! I know! There are also a lot of Cornish who are not concerned about Cornish Rights. Are they all really fifth-columnists, quislings, collaborators or just 'santa zone' ignorant?
We are on the verge of either consolidating our Cornish territorial identity through the success of the Cornish Constitutional Convention and the establishment of a Cornish Assembly [the petition is currently above 50,000 signatories - September 2001], or total submergence - a coup d'état - through the actions of a South West Constitutional Convention.
| d) | |
provision of symbols of external domination |
The news [31st January 2001] that the Administration within the Duchy is to replace some of the tourist signs - bearing English Rose symbols - with signs which have Cornish symbols was qualified by the official statement that this was not as a consequence of the existing symbols continually being defaced by Cornish nationalists but was something that was already being contemplated. Such signs have been defaced for more years than I care to remember which must give some indication of that Administrations efficiency.
The significance of this tentative official move towards 'Cornishness' was totally lost on the newsreader of our daily dose of English Television news who made references to "symbols of the county" and they even found a 'Cornishwomen' who decried the Cornish 'vandalism' (sic) of the signs thus showing that this, as with other English symbols, not only denied a Cornish legitimacy but profoundly influenced people's perceptions of their true non-English identity.
The English Rose symbol gave rise, during the 1980s, to an organisation called 'CaTER' [Cornish against The English Rose] which advocated the removal of these external symbols of domination. There has been a consistent campaign of defacing such signs ever since and long may it continue.
In a new phase of 'action' early in February [2001] and which received some measure of media coverage was a campaign by 'Cornish Solidarity' - who are, surely, to be congratulated - to effect 'repairs' to the vandalised signs by covering them over with the flag of St Piran. This laudible action has been justified because "Cornish Solidarity cannot and will not condone damage to property..." and "... the flag of St Piran ... will be more acceptable to the people of Cornwall."
