Hannan's Call to Order

BBC Wales broadcaster Patrick Hannan casts his veteran eye over the twists and turns of the row surrounding the future of the Welsh language.

The most dangerous place to stand in Wales at the moment is anywhere close to the brick-throwing that has broken out over the decline of communities in rural Wales.

Politicians, public servants and pressure groups are pretty well agreed on one thing - that there is a problem.

If we have learnt anything from the arguments of the last forty years or so it is that there is no single answer to the problems besetting the Welsh language, although many ideas have been presented as such.

Where they fall out, often bitterly, is over what the solution might be. Former allies have come to verbal blows.

That is not surprising because, once the dust kicked up by this latest skirmish has settled, people will realise that there is no solution.

That to discuss the fate of rural communities, and in particular the fate of the Welsh language, in terms of straightforward measures that might be taken by the government or by the Welsh Assembly, is futile.

You can't blame people for taking this line, though. Politicians like to suggest, especially around election time, that there are simple answers to difficult questions and that they know exactly what those answers are. But there isn't one problem and there isn't one solution.

This year's villain has been the English (or English-speaking) immigrant. The theory is that if you find some way of stopping them buying houses in the Welsh heartlands then you will be a long way down the road to preventing the further erosion of the cultural life of those areas.

Various new rules are proposed: they include quotas for second homes in some areas, a new definition of a community and who belongs in it, subjecting housing developments to language impact studies and, more crudely, telling English people they can't live here.

Well, maybe such measures would have some impact but, of course, they ignore an equally significant aspect of this question. When you have stopped people coming to live in rural Wales how are you going to stop the native population leaving?

The words of an old song come to mind: "How're you gonna keep 'em down on the farm, now that they've seen Paree?"

Economic regeneration is the answer, says the First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, and who would argue? But even if you can do it, and people have been working on the problem for a hundred and fifty years, you still have all the factors that seduce young and energetic people away from those communities: the glamour, glitter, fun, challenge, money, entertainment, and excitement available under the city lights.

Television channel

If you want to halt that process you'll have to stop educating them and confiscate their TV sets. As immigrants head west for small-scale tranquillity and beauty, emigrants set out east in search of exactly the opposite. Good communications, an essential aspect of economic regeneration, make it as easy to get out as to get in.

If we have learnt anything from the arguments of the last forty years or so it is that there is no single answer to the problems besetting the Welsh language, although many ideas have been presented as such.

Official forms in Welsh, road signs, equal validity for the language in the courts, the extension of Welsh medium education, and a Welsh language television channel are among them.

They may have improved matters but even in combination, never mind separately, no-one could say that they have saved the Welsh language.

It is because they haven't, of course, that we are having this current dispute. So if you hear anyone, however distinguished, saying they have the answer, you can bet it's because they are asking the wrong question.

Patrick Hannan's weekly political programme, Called to Order, is live on Radio Wales, 93-104FM, 882 and 657AM, and DSat channel 867.

You can also listen to BBC Radio Wales live online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/live/rwv5.ram.

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