Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Symbols


Who knew that when the 15C bard Lewis Glyn Cothi thanked the men of Elfael for the gift of a horse by invoking the blessings of the cross of Tyfaelog, now in Llowes parish church, he was infact praising a symbol of white power?  This at least was the implication of last night's Panorama programme about soccer hooliganism in the Ukraine and Poland.

The Panorama programme did give the impression that Poland and Ukraine are hotbeds of neo-Nazism. While this doesn't appear to have had much impact in recent parliamentary elections, it certainly seems as if the two countries do have a problem with street graffiti and public order at soccer matches.  It is also true that these hooligans have adopted the Celtic cross as a symbol of their violent and xenophobic ideology, indeed the political use of the Keltenkreuz is banned in Germany. Hopefully even the assiduous centralists of the Brussels bureaucracy will not seek to extend the ban into Radnorshire.

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