Bronterre News

PEOPLE in charge of important public meeting-places need to be able to think straight. If they can’t, they need to make way for people who can.

  That must be the conclusion in the case of Borth Community Hall Committee, who have made it pretty obvious that the power of reasoning is not their strong point.

  This foggy-brained body has banned a charitable event at the hall in aid of Palestinian women, men and children enduring agonies for want of food, water, medicines and shelter. They accuse the organisers of showing political favouritism.

  What silliness is this? Almost incredibly, the committee have shown themselves incapable of recognising the overwhelmingly pressing obligation to ease desperate human suffering in Gaza, and to recognise that this imperative blots out considerations of political evenhandedness.

  The day-long programme of entertainment on which they’ve put the kibosh would have raised money to buy medical and other life-saving equipment for people who, as organiser Alex Harwood puts it, are “caught up in extreme violence and war through no fault of their own.”

  The committee, through its chairman, Ray Quant, says that to assemble help specifically for Gaza’s destitute and dying Palestinians – rather than for them and for Israelis – would show political bias.

  An email from him to Harwood says: “Our view is that with the present conflict we don’t want it to be ‘perceived’ that the hall committee is promoting one of the protagonists.”

  This is muddled thinking of the first order. For nearly a fortnight before the decision to refuse use of the hall, the United Nations, aid agencies and reporters had spelt out with heartbreaking clarity the dire predicament of up to two million Palestinians.

  Of course Israel has suffered dreadfully as well but, following the murderous Hamas assault, vast numbers of Israelis have not been clinging on to life (or not) for want of basic necessities, as have been countless citizens of Gaza.

  Israelis have suffered grievously as a result of the sickening Hamas attack. but, unlike Gaza’s Palestinians, they have not been at death’s door for lack of food, water, medicines, fuel and shelter. 

  Harwood and her colleagues are not being politically selective. They merely wish to help those in greatest need. 

  The hall committee’s staggering failing has been to not recognise – instinctively, you would have hoped – a simple humanitarian imperative. To not see the crying need to single out help for the homeless, the hungry and the thirsty.

  Instead, this committee has seen to it that humanitarianism has been usurped by irrationality. 

‘Freedom of speech’ – but check with us first

MORE CHAOTIC thinking – this time from Maria Hinfelaar, vice-chancellor of Wrexham University.

  She tells a visiting psychology professor he has a right to freedom of expression – then sacks him after he exercises exactly that liberty.

  Nigel Hunt, from Nottingham University, said on Facebook he thought bilingual road-signs could be dangerous for drivers who didn’t understand Welsh.

  Maria tells him there have been “several complaints” about his social media posts, with the university being tagged more than 100 times online. Oh dear.

  She adds: “The university acknowledges you have the right to freedom of expression. However, we consider that the affiliation to our university within the media posts has brought our name into disrepute. Therefore a decision has been taken to withdraw your visiting professorship association forthwith.

  Dear Maria, you’re talking rot. ‘Freedom’ of expression which comes parcelled up with the penalty of losing your job isn’t freedom to say what you think but a strong incentive to keep your trap shut.

Keep on walking – it’s your promenade

CEREDIGION council’s Let’s Foul-up Aberystwyth Committee continues on its wrecking way.

  Demonstrating indifference to multiple warnings that its proposal to make people pay to park on the seafront would threaten the survival of promenade cafés and town centre shops already struggling to survive, it now rubs salt in the wound with its admission that buying ticket-machines and signs and painting parking bays would cost a not inconsiderable £150,000. Oh, yes, plus an undisclosed sum to take on extra traffic-wardens – let’s say another £60,000 to £100,000.

  This council needs to be very careful. Ceredigion ratepayers as a whole are already fuming over an authority which repeatedly squeezes them financially while not hesitating to increase councillors’ pay, and tipping stratospheric salaries into the pockets of senior officials. 

  Aberystwyth has particular reason to feel aggrieved. While overall council tax rose this year by 7.4 per cent – the second highest in mid and west Wales – the town has borne the brunt of the hike, ratepayers there in receipt of bills of around £2,000, higher than anywhere else in the county.

  People there will not tolerate a further financial raid in the form of parking charges on parts of the promenade where parking has always been free.

  This seafront has always been central to the outdoor lives of people living in Aberystwyth and the surrounding area. 

  This is where generations have always walked, have always chatted to each other, have sat and watched spectacular seas and skies, have socialised at outdoor cafés. 

  This is their place, their seafront, and they will not capitulate to any attempt by the council to impose parking charges or petty time restrictions. It’s as simple as that.

Hoarding and breast-beating at national library

THE National Library of Wales announces its intention of becoming “an actively anti-racist organisation”.

  Beating its breast, it says black, Asian, mixed-race and minority ethnic people have been underrepresented in Wales’s heritage and culture. 

  While colonialism “placed Wales at the centre of systems that created the structural racism and inequality that still exist in our society today.” What exactly they mean by that

we’re left to try to work out.  

  Accordingly, the library has commissioned four artists – Joshua Donkor, Jasmine Violet, Mfikela Jean Samuel and Adéọlá Dewis – to come up with new works “in response to the library’s collections, whilst facing some difficult or challenging aspects of history.” More guesswork there.

  It is all laudable. If slightly woke-heavy.

  The only snag I foresee is that the new works will presumably soon go the way of the great bulk of the library’s artistic brilliance and be slotted into racks deep in its storage rooms. Rarely, if ever, to be seen again.

  Yet again, the library needs to be pressed to open up. Making works of art available online is just not enough. People want to see the real thing. After all, we’re talking here about publicly-owned art, works which, if they were on view, would spice up lives and generate touristic income.

  This great institution would like increasingly to be seen to be at the forefront of Wales’s cultural life. Hoarding is really no way to make that happen.

25 October 2023