Archdruid Mererid's comments from the Maen Llog in Wrecsam
I could focus today on the wonderful Wrexham warm welcome and on the astonishing variety in this year’s Eisteddfod programme – and let’s take this opportunity to congratulate everyone who has contributed to it. Diolch o galon. But as I was preparing for this morning’s meeting, the one image that insisted on imprinting itself on my mind was that of Robin McBryde carrying the Gorsedd sword – a sword which, in the impracticability of its weight and in the sheath that always covers its blade, is a symbol of peace.
That’s the pressing word today, and our question ‘A OES HEDDWCH?’ (Is there peace?) that does not ask us to answer with ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but rather with a plea, as we respond each time with what is, I know, a sincere, heartfelt yearning: ‘Heddwch!” “Peace!”
We have pleaded for peace in times of war throughout the decades. They were warring times when Iolo Morganwg opened the Gorsedd meeting in Pontypridd back in 1814; just as they were warring times in 1945 when the Eisteddfod was in held in nearby Rhosllanerchrugog.
This year, Friends, we can see and hear that these are warring times yet again. Gaza. Ukraine, Myanmar, Darfur, Congo, and many more.
To see. To hear. Two of the five senses that enable us to perceive the world from outside-in. But we can also perceive the world from the inside-out – through faculties such as our ability to remember, reflect … imagine and hope too.
There will be many opportunities this week to remember and to reflect on the victims of war, yesterday’s and today’s, and that’s important … as long as we avoid the danger of letting this drag us down, leading us to believe that the problem is too great and that we’re too insignificant to address it – because that’s just not true. No more than the myth that has been pushed through the ages – in Western cultures at least – that we’re a belligerent species by nature and from the very beginning. Read the works of people like Douglas Fry and his colleagues to just begin to see that living together in peaceful societies is not possible but is who we really are.
The challenge is to turn the remembering into hoping – that positive, constructive energy that enables us to imagine the better thing and to find a way of reaching it. The challenge is to change the narrative - tell the other story, the one that suits us, the many ordinary people of this world, and not those mighty few who benefit from the profits of warmongering; the story that says ‘enough is enough’.
Two suggestions:
Read Academi Heddwch Cymru’s report, the one that introduces the notion of Wales as a Nation of Peace. Importantly, please offer suggestions, improvements, be part of the co-imagining – what difference could ‘Wales as a Nation of Peace’ make to this aching, old world?
And secondly, we need your help. There has been talk of erecting a statue of Iolo, the great imagination behind this Gorsedd and so many other aspects we hold so preciously. But after careful consideration, we have decided that now is not the time to erect yet another statue to yet another imperfect man (for though you could, I’m sure, swear that some sitting behind me are indeed saints – let me dare to suggest that they too, are also imperfect – just like you and me. The idea now is to commission a striking work of public art commemorating Iolo’s principles instead, and despite the shortage of money in our current climate, we believe this important. A work that will encourage all who see it to ask, not only in Eisteddfod week, not only when faced with images of the horrors or war, to ask what living in peace really means: peace not as a means to end a war, but peace so that there is no cause for war in the first place.
Years ago, I remember holding a banner on Carmarthen square and somebody came to me asking what did the word ‘Heddwch’ mean. She had just had the Welsh grammar class on the imperative form of the verb:eisteddWCH – sit down!, darllenWCH – read! siaradWCH – speak! She wanted to know what ‘HeddWCH’ was asking her to do. I can’t remember how I replied. But if she were to ask me today, I would tell her without hesitation, that the word ‘heddwch’ is asking her to hope.
Hundreds of Gorsedd members will be meeting this week, and I know that it is not possible for me – nor anyone else – to represent everyone’s opinion on everything. Beyond the matters that are directly to do with honouring the arts and protecting the Welsh language – the oath we all pledge on becoming members – I cannot claim that my opinion is yours. But in the passion I sense when we ask that question beneath the shadow of Robin o Fôn’s sword, I will venture to think that you will at least consider these thoughts.
And as I am no politician or preacher – I shall finish with a poem, one that stems from a belief that in war, the root problem isn’t the different warring sides, but war itself.
Newid y drefn
Trech na’r cwestiynau
pwy, sut a pham,
yw dal yn dy galon
un tad, un fam;
trech na’r holl holi
am werth cell a chaer,
yw dal yn dy galon
un brawd, un chwaer;
na gofyn pwy chwalodd
yr awyr iach,
trech dal yn dy galon
un plentyn bach;
a threch na thwyllo
bod y gofid ymhell,
yw dal yn dy galon
y gwybod gwell:
gwybod, na rhyfel
na bom, na gwn,
trech heddwch, trech cariad,
a’r heddiw hwn
na maes y gad,
trech cadair a bwrdd,
trech dod at ein gilydd,
siarad, cwrdd;
a threch nag anobaith
troi dy gefn,
yw gwybod dy galon:
rhaid newid y drefn.