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ON BECOMING WELSH
Journeys can be long, short, planned or unexpected, eventless or very
meaningful. My journey was unexpected or forced, it has gone for 45
years and has certainly been extraordinarily meaningful for myself and
my family. Being transported from one country/culture into another is
a complex business looked from the passenger window seen years and decades
gone by without always noticing that one changes and never stays the
same.
Coming from a world where not even the word Wales was known to being
able to feel the Welsh hwyl as part of one’s blood is not just
a journey but something more especial.
When I hear Welsh prince/princess appointments coming from non-Welsh
quarters I turn my gaze towards the Welsh dragon looking for spitting
fire from his mouth protecting our hwyl. Because, everywhere, I have
always chosen unity rather than division, is that foreign appointments
in our Welsh home land should not be welcome. In the same way how no
self-invited guest should be welcome in somebody else’s home, the
basic principle of respect should be universally held. To keep silence
or to look away is not approval.
Something valuable that this journey has given me in this Welsh land
has been to learn that diversity is unity and that the richness of a
community rests in valuing every one of its members without prejudice.
It is true that the Welsh dragon can spit fire but it equally can spit
warmth and affection when it is most needed and this has been the luck
of my/our journey in Wales since we arrived here as political refugees
from Chile in September 1977, 45 years ago.
On this new 9/11 remembering Allende’s government palace on fire
burning democracy, social justice and peace, we remember many of those
wasted lives as well as the warmth of our new home country Wales which
allowed us to protect our children and our faith in humanity.
Diolch Cymru
Jose H Cifuentes
Former Chilean political refugee.
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