online: 2 march 2007
modified: 1, 2 march 2007

23 february 2007 a civil parliament


On the way through rebuilt dockland to visit the Welsh Assembly building in Cardiff... the bus stops for a few minutes by a grassy bank on which daisies are already flowering... the driver gets out to smoke a cigarette and then we continue...

...one of the exceptionally friendly people i spoke to in Cardiff showed me where to get off the bus and walked with me to the Assembly building*...

*...its correct name is The National Assembly for Wales, a semi-parliament, the first since the brief parliament of Owen Glyn Dwr at Machynlleth in 1404...

...its powers include education, enterprise, environment, health, local government, culture and social justice - but exclude diplomacy, finance, armed forces, police, law courts and prisons and it is not empowered to raise taxes...

...a semi-parliament, you might say, but i prefer to call it civil one (excluding the power to use force against its citizens, or those of other countries)... a good omen, perhaps, for the future of government anywhere?

...according to Max Weber the state is a human community that 'successfully claims for itself the monopoly of legitimate physical force' (page 131, The Essential Weber, a reader, edited by Sam Whimster, Routledge, London and New York) 2004...

...is it possible that in the future people will be able to live without official violence?

...after a security check one is free to walk unescorted in all of the areas visible from outside and to look down (through thick glass) into the committee rooms and into the circular assembly chamber itself (which meets only on tuesday and thursday afternoons)...

14:30 waiting for a tour to begin, i'm sitting in one of the classic Danish modern chairs in the public area next to the wooden exterior of the ventilating cone above the assembly chamber, or senate... this conical duct draws warm air from geo-thermal heat exchangers in the earth 100m below to a cowl that rotates in the wind ... excellent as this may be as a non-fossil source of heat in winter and of cooling in summer, i can't believe it's particularly relevant to politics.... the conical duct also admits natural light from above and adjusts illumination in the chamber according to circumstance...

...but everyone i speak to seems both proud and pleased with the building...me too, when i think of, and marvel at, its existence as well as at its ingenious and eco-friendly (and even people-friendly) form... and its openness...

...but i cannot help feeling sad at the rejection of my proposal for a decentralised mobile assembly that would meet in a different part of Wales each year, as does the National Eisteddfod.

...incomplete...

...the tour notes...

...tea in the Assembly building with bara brith and Welsh cakes...





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