Happy Star Wars Day. May the force be with you this May the Fourth.
I often blog about Star Wars on Star Wars Day, and this year I'm linking my post to the very current Senedd election (happening on Thursday!)
I've decided to write about a trending word in politics here in Cymru, that always makes me think of Star Wars. Recently some politicians have started using the word "separatists" to describe people who support Welsh independence.
Which, of course, makes me think of the conflict in the Galactic Republic in a galaxy far, far away....
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| CIS ("Separatist") flag |
Brief recap: in the original Star Wars film, there was a passing reference to Luke Skywalker's dead father fighting in "the clone wars". Very little was explained about that but 20 years later, when George Lucas wanted to write the Star Wars prequel films, he decided it would be about the 'clone wars'.
If you're going to write about a war, you need to have two sides. In 'star wars' the combatants were the Empire and the Rebels. But something different was needed for the prequels, so we had the Republic and, um, the Rebels Separatists.
In the prequel films, the Separatists were either conniving warmongers looking to make money from galactic upheaval, or were being manipulated by the Sith Lord, Darth Sidious, who was using the war as a way of gaining total power for himself. However, in later media, like the Clone Wars cartoon, Separatist characters were introduced who had nobler reasons for wanting to be independent from the Republic.
But initially we were meant to regard the Separatists as bad guys. The offical name for the Separatists was the "Confederacy of Independent Systems" (CIS). 'Confederate' is a loaded word in US-centric cultural media. So the narrative dice were loaded against the Separatists from the start.
However, like I said, later Star Wars product has introduced some ambiguity. Can there be noble reasons for wanting to be independent? In other words, is separatism automatically bad?
Well, it seems the answer to that depends on what you are separating from and why.
We see in the first prequel, The Phantom Menace, that the Galactic Republic, is ineffectual at responding to an urgent threat to the planet Naboo. Decisions are being made at a distance from the flashpoint and there are multiple competing priorities. The reported suffering of the Naboo population doesn't speed up the decision-making process.
Additionally, there are wider issues. Slavery still exists on several planets. Large areas of the galaxy are under the dominion of crime lords and gangsters. The Republic has not used its strength and power to liberate people from lawlessness or to lift up people living in poverty.
Certainly, within the Star Wars galaxy, "separatism" can spring from noble aims.
And the Galactic Republic's response to the separatist movement reinforces the doubt about the Republic's legitimacy. They go to war. They take control of an army of clones - disposable humans - and fight against the Separatists. Now, sometimes this is justified because the Separatists are attacking planets loyal to the Republic, but as the war rolls on, any planet in the CIS becomes de facto an enemy.
The other thing the Republic does is centralise power. The Chancellor becomes a proto-Emperor with emergency powers that become difficult and then impossible to revoke, and the Republic becomes an Empire.
And then, ironically the 'good guys' flip. What had been the good Republic against the bad Separatists becomes the bad Empire against the heroic Rebel Alliance.
And so to the discussion of Welsh Independence or Welsh Separatism...
I don't think 'separatist' is the terrible slur that people using it seem to think it is. Because, as I've said, that depends on what people want to separate from. It's fair to say the UK has problems and part of that is weak leadership both domestically and in a volatile international setting.
It feels like Labour's hegemony has been broken in Cymru. While canvassing I have met loads of former Labour voters, including ex-members, who say they are done with Labour. The promise of change that many people hoped for when the Westminster government changed in 2024 hasn't been delivered.
And Westminster has had decades to make life here in Cymru better. Successive governments - Labour and Tory - haven't dealt with root issues, especially poverty in both rural and post-industrial areas. Poverty is always a political choice, whether it was David Cameron's cabinet of millionaires introducing 'austerity' or Keir Starmer's Labour Party taking away financial support for disabled people.
There are structutal and societal issues behind this too. Supporters of annibyniaeth (independence) are always told Cymru is too weak and too poor to go its own way - and when we ask why Cymru is so weak and so poor, we don't get an answer.
If we always do what we have always done then we will always get what we have always got. There is no plan in any party manifesto for parties that support the status quo to bring in any structural or constitutional changes to make life better in Cymru. It's more of the same, or slightly less.
Star Wars presents the warning that overarching political structures seek to protect themselves first and foremost. They respond to threats by centralising more and punishing those they think are an enemy. That natural sense of protectiveness is easy to manipulate by people who seek personal gain. They might not be Sith Lords, but they don't have to be.
In that context, if the government feels far away and seems more interested in it's own ends, that feels dominated by the wealthy and has permitted poverty to persist, is being a Separatist so bad?
