Originally Posted by
jon1959
Identity is about how we feel about ourselves and our roots, and is probably riddled with contradictions.
I was born in Wales but lived almost all of my life in England. I don't have many ingrained memories of Cardiff from my childhood - but I do have some (we stayed with grandparents in Cardiff regularly and came back to Wales on holiday). But from my earliest memories I have identified as from Cardiff and Wales (my unfortunate brother was born in Shrewsbury so has had an identity crisis all his life!). That feeling got deeper and stronger over time.
For me it is partly to do with history and a sense of injustice in the way Wales and its language and culture were crushed and subsumed into England (no act of union for us, unlike Scotland or Ireland). It was Owain Glydwr, Dic Penderyn, the Newport Rising, the Black Domain, the ethnic and national melting pot of South Wales, pride in the Fed, shame at the race riots, Nye Bevan, Cardiff City and Welsh rugby in the golden age. It was also exposure to low level anti-Welsh jokes and abuse from certain types of English twats - in my experience laddish suits in the construction industry.
Pride in roots, memories, a sense of place, protection of language and culture (I don't speak Welsh - but half my family do), a drive to assert that identity and push back against repression of all sorts defines small nation nationalism for me. It is resistance. Big nation nationalism is quite different. It can have some benign features and also be about maintenance of cultures, but it is often aggressive, imperialist and oppressive. There is a world of difference between Welsh, Basque or Palestinian nationalism on one hand and English, Russian or American nationalism on the other.
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