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I am an obnoxious Cymrophile. Everyone I know knows that I am obsessed with all things Welsh. Over the last dozen years, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Wales. It has always been in month to six-week increments. There are dragons all over my apartment. The lilting noises of that beautiful singsong language regularly float out my windows in blaring BBC Radio Cymru programs and online Welsh Lessons. But now, I am packing the dragons away, and moving out.  I have four days left to accomplish this task, because I am becoming semi-permanently nomadic, starting with a three-month visit to Mother Jones Land. Yes, my mother is a Jones.

But I am your typical stupid American Traveler (Y Teithiwr Twp). Although I took languages in school (French and Spanish), and even lived near the Mexican border for forty years, I have been monolingual most of my life. You know the joke, right?

What is a person who speaks three languages called?

I don’t know.

Tri-lingual.

Oh. Yeah, yeah.

What is a person who speaks two languages called?

Bilingual!

Yep. What is a person who speaks one language called?

Monolingual!

Nope. An American.

Well, that was me, until fairly recently. Now, I can say that I speak Welsh - rather haltingly, and a bit like a toddler, but I can do it. I can hold a discussion with you if you are a learner or a teacher of the language, but the moment I step into Blaenau Ffestiniog my face is as confused looking as the proverbial deer in the headlights. What are those people saying? Why are they swallowing their words, and blowing them out their noses? Nonetheless, I am more excited for this year’s trip to Wales than I have been for any other I’ve taken. It will be a longer trip to the U.K., and I will be spending most of it in Wales and a good amount of that time yn Gymraeg.

I will also be sharing periodic stories from Mother Jones Land with you, and hoping to make you drool and yearn (which seems like a decent definition for “hiraeth”). I’ll visit pubs in Cardiff, where I met Chris Segar “The Ferret” last year, and had a full conversation in Welsh. I will be working as a Steward at the Hay Literary Festival, and will encourage you to go and bust the bank (and your back) bringing books home from the antiquarian bookshops. I will wander along the coast and hills of South Wales looking for ancient chapels, holy wells, and perhaps the Blue Stones in the Preseli Hills before I head to Stonehenge for the Solstice to actually touch those stones that somehow miraculously walked all the way to the Salisbury Plain by themselves. I will hang out with musicians (my friends Sera Owen, Gai Toms, and many more), and writers (The Naked Blond Writer – yes, that is what she calls herself) and hopefully be able to send you some pictures (no, no, no, not pictures of Naked Blonds!), video and stories. I will spend time in the North, and struggle to keep up with the “Cofi” pace of Caernarfon Welsh – minus the easy to understand and infamous four-letter word familiar greetings. Then I will end my three months of traveling at the National Eisteddfod helping to build stages and run sound for a fringe music festival put on by Cymdeithas yr Iaith.

I am extremely excited to share my travels with you, but if after the trip you don’t immediately buy your tickets to join me next year yng Nghymru, I will pout like a four-year old, because I won’t have fully accomplished my task.

Till, my next posting…Pob Hwyl.

The bestselling autobiography of the first superstars of rugby union, Terry Davies, has reached the shortlist of rugby book of the year at a prestigious awards.

Terry Davies - Wales’s First Superstar Fullback by Terry Davies with Geraint Thomas has reached the The Cross Sports Book Awards Rugby Book of the Year short list.

‘The Cross Sports Book Awards is the major annual promotion for sports writing and publishing leading to Father’s Day. The Awards will be filmed and aired on Sky Sports.

In his autobiography, Terry Davies reveals the truth about his life in rugby in the 1950s as well as the loss of his talented brother to leukaemia at a young age.

He also reveals all about what happened to that crossbar that was stolen from Twickenham in 1958.

The book tells of the remarkable life story of the Lions star, encompassing his childhood in Llanelli, learning rugby in Strade School, making his debut as a schoolboy for Swansea, entering the Royal Marines and winning his first cap before going on to become a household name

The boy from Bynea, who combined the good looks of a young Robert Redford with silky skills and tough as teak tackling, went on to wow crowds across the rugby playing world through his displays for Wales and the British and Irish Lions in 1959. The 2017 British and Irish Lions will embark on their tour to New Zealand in June.

From the highs of touring New Zealand and beating the All Blacks in their own back yard to the lows of a career-threatening shoulder injury, his rugby journey, which began as a nervous 17 year old one rainy day up in Ebbw Vale and ended with universal acclaim, is real Roy of the Rovers stuff .

‘Terry is a natural storyteller,’ said co-writer Geraint Thomas, ‘His book is packed with humour. He typifies the Welsh humour once so prevalent amongst the working class,’

‘His tale is both a social commentary and cultural account of Welsh life pre and post war as well as a priceless account of a bygone age of rugby union’ added Geraint.

‘As a young inspiring player he left a huge impression on me due to the way he stood out from the rest.’ added Sir Gareth Edwards, who wrote the introduction to the book.

The book is presented in memory of Terry’s brother Len, who was caped for Wales before Terry, but died in his twenties of leukaemia.

Geraint Thomas is a Swansea Valley based journalist, writer and playwright. After graduating from Cardiff University's School of Journalism he secured a position as a news reporter on the South Wales Evening Post where he is currently still employed. He also writes the occasional feature for Swansea Life magazine.

Category winners will be announced at a star-studded black tie dinner at – Nursery Pavilion, Lord’s Cricket Ground on 24th May at 6pm.

The winners of the awards will become the shortlist for the overall Sports Book of the Year 2017, voted by the public at www.sportsbookawards.com .

The Terry Davies Story: Wales’s first superstar fullback by Geraint Thomas (£9.99, Y Lolfa) is available now.

Far from London’s Swinging Sixties but feeling the full force of the gravitational pull of its lawmakers, financiers and Armed Forces, Wales endured a number of traumas in that epochal decade that led the country down an unfamiliar path. The insensitive way in which our people and resources were being treated by the British Government had caused a feeling among many that their country was being oppressed and in danger of losing its defining identity. In the vacuum left by non-representation by a toothless and treacherous political mainstream, many young people felt they needed a different approach to creating an independent Wales. Precursed by White Eagle of Snowdon graffiti on walls, road signs and rocks, units of the Free Wales Army seemed to emerge spontaneously in all parts of the land, an important component in awakening the population’s sense of the nation’s destiny and of the resistance against encroachment of its land, water, people and language.

They adopted the White Eagle as their emblem and wore their homemade uniforms in public. They had a sense of internationalism and met representatives of the I.R.A., the Brittany Liberation Front, the Scottish Liberation Army, and other groups fighting to defeat occupying powers. They marched in Dublin with like-minded activists to commemorate the 1916 Rising. They also marched in Machynlleth, the site of the first Welsh parliament.

Away from the gaze of Special Branch, this group conducted armed training manoeuvres and bomb-making instruction in remote moorland areas. However, its armament was largely antique or the weaponry of the countryside. They claimed that they had “7,000 men” and were “ready for war”. Much of the energy of the F.W.A. was expended in propaganda including claiming responsibility for acts of violence which it did not commit. Their main objective was to achieve independence for their country.

Its commandant was Julian Cayo Evans, a product of the English public school system, who had fought Communist guerrillas in Malaya with the South Wales Borderers. He bred horses at his farm near Lampeter and his father was a former High Sheriff of Cardiganshire.

For an army, its paramilitary actions were few and, in the confusion of having a number of different groups and individuals planting bombs in the same period, difficult to definitively attribute. They were involved in the failed bombing in March 1967 of an Elan Valley water pipeline supplying Birmingham. Ironically, another type of warfare, the bouncing bombs of the Dam Busters, had also been practised in these same reservoirs. It is possible that the F.W.A carried out the bomb attack on the main administrative centre of the Welsh Office of the Secretary of State for Wales in Cardiff on 25 May 1968 in a joint operation with Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (Movement for the Defence of Wales).

They made their public debut at the vociferous protest at the official opening of the controversial Llyn Celyn reservoir in 1965 but arguably their greatest victory was during the aftermath of the Aberfan tragedy. The large sum of money that had been raised by voluntary donations to assist the devastated families had been become mired with sloth-like bureaucrats, showing little inclination, and even less sensitivity, in allocating the money to those for whom it was collected. With tensions mounting and the establishment acting in its usual cavalier manner, a journalist, John Summers, asked the F.W.A. to intervene and to exert pressure on the fund committee. In September 1967, 50 uniformed F.W.A. men marched through Merthyr Tudful with banners flowing, drums beating and singing battle hymns. At the post-march press conference, Dennis Coslett, a senior commander, issued an ultimatum that, if £5,000 was not paid to each affected family within the week, Merthyr Town Hall, the offices of the Disaster Fund and those of the solicitor acting as treasurer and secretary of the Fund would be bombed. The money was paid on time.

The F.W.A. and another nationalist group, the Patriotic Front, were invited to appear on David Frost’s TV programme. Coslett, who had lost an eye in a mining accident, wore an eye patch due to an infection. This led the celebrated broadcaster to refer to Coslett as “Dai Dayan” as he believed he resembled the Israeli general Moshe Dayan, an indication of how they were regarded by the media. However, despite their penchant for uniforms and self-publicity, the authorities were beginning to increasingly take them seriously.

The F.W.A. had plans for an uprising in Caernarfon to prevent the investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales. To support this rebellion, they planned to take over the Welsh Office building they may have previously bombed and try to hold out for as long as possible. This campaign never got off the ground as 9 members including Cayo Evans and Dennis Coslett were arrested and charged with Public Order Act offences in the authorities’ drive to suppress protest ahead of the investiture. The trial in Swansea lasted 58 days and ended, with uncanny coincidence, on Prince Charles’ big day in Caernarfon Castle. Coslett refused throughout to speak English. He and Cayo Evans were sentenced to 15 months imprisonment mainly on the “evidence” of the interviews they had given journalists and regarded the experience as a show trial.

This was effectively the end of the F.W.A. and the drive for greater self-determination took on alternative tactics as a new decade dawned. Much of the story of the Welsh radicals and their confrontations of the 1960s has been airbrushed from the record and from the minds of those whom they sought to serve. It is important to acknowledge the struggles of those who precede us, to listen to the beat of our history, and to be curious enough to want to follow rivers from their sources to the ocean.

Son of Pillgwenlly

in the former domain of

Gwynllyw Farfog

on the loquacious Usk

and the tongue-twisting old tongue

you sacked conventional work

unless to pay for your passage

eschewing the teeming path

of the Empire’s Christian soldiers

to sleep under the forever stars

in a vastness with railway arteries

and waning bison heart

you were

transatlantic

transamerican

transhuman

you wondered at Nature

the great outdoors

as you wandered

the Great Dominion

and the Great Plains

that reverence for

the unmanufactured world

always walked with you

the lines in a weathered face

telling so many histories

the detail in the hedgerow dazzling

that moment’s contemplation

of the search for

the next coin

the next smile

the next shelter

the next stanza

from you tramping and your courage

in living with physical trauma

to your single-minded campaign

to become a man of letters

the story of you is a lesson

to us in our hours of doubt

and cruel but needless isolation

On 26th July 2016, Tom Davies left his home in Presteigne. Nine weeks later he arrived home, having walked the 1,100-mile perimeter of Wales, raising £6,700 for Alzheimer`s Society.

Now his newly published book, A Welsh Wander – An Epic Trek Right Around Wales , is his heart-warmingly open and honest story, bursting with facts about places along his route. With vivid descriptions and photos of stunning scenery on the Offa`s Dyke Path and Wales Coast Path, Tom describes magical wildlife encounters, bizarre anecdotes, random and life-reaffirming generosity from strangers, and even a few dark moments when he felt like he’d bitten off more than he could chew.

‘During my years of teaching, my maternal grandma developed Alzheimer’s and while in the middle stages of the disease, passed away very suddenly. Two years later, my maternal grandfather was diagnosed with vascular dementia,’ explained Tom, ‘Seeing two people who I love very dearly afflicted by such a personal and confusing illness inspired me to begin fundraising for Alzheimer’s Society.’

It was for this reason that Tom had the idea for his challenge – to circumnavigate his home country in one go, carrying everything he needed to survive in his loyal backpack, Wilson,. 1,100 miles, two months away from home, a £1,100 sponsorship target and a daily online blog called Tom’s Welsh Wander that would become far bigger than he ever dreamed possible.

‘Each night, I would sit in a quiet corner of a pub, or a bedroom, or my tent, and pour my heart into my blog,’ said Tom, ‘It became a friend in whom I could confide my every thought, feeling and emotion, and that is why I have decided to share it now.’

Tom’s blog hits eventually climbed to over a staggering 26,500 and his fundraising reached a total of £6,700 – well above his original £1100 target. His journey also drew the support of one famous follower, TV presenter and Welsh meterologist Derek Brockway.

‘I first heard about Tom and his Welsh Wander after his mum got in touch with me in August 2016. She told me all about her son’s challenge to walk the whole perimeter of Wales and raise money for charity’ said Derek Brockway. ‘My dad suffered from dementia, Tom’s grandmother died of Alzheimer’s and now his grandfather has developed the illness too. I decided to offer my support and join him on part of his trek of a lifetime, to help raise awareness of this terrible condition.’

‘Tom is a proud Welshman who loves his country and his love of the Welsh countryside, its beauty, history and magical wildlife really shine through in his writing,’ added Derek, ‘It has been a pleasure for me to get to know Tom and one day I hope to follow in his footsteps and complete my own Welsh Wander!’

‘My Welsh Wander has been the single greatest experience of my life. I’ve seen so many breathtaking sights, had some incredibly special moments and battled through some tough ones too,’ added Tom, ‘‘I hope it will inspire people to explore the countryside on foot and to learn new things about the area they live in as well as making want to visit other corners of the incredible country that is Wales!’

The book also includes practical tips and checklists for anyone thinking of taking up long-distance walking.

Offa’s Dyke National Trail Officer Rob Dingle said, ‘For anyone planning to walk around Wales, the Offa’s Dyke Path or who just wants a good read about one person’s walking adventure, I would highly recommend that you have a read of Tom’s A Welsh Wander. ’

Tom Davies grew up in a close farming family in Presteigne, developing a love for nature and the great outdoors. While at Bangor University studying Primary Education, he joined the Mountain Walking Club, becoming treasurer and a leader, and spent most weekends taking groups into Snowdonia. After graduating, he spent four years teaching. He is now combining his love for teaching and the great outdoors by working as an outdoor activities instructor.

The book will be launched in Presteigne in late June in the company of Tom Davies and Derek Brockway.

A Welsh Wander – An Epic Trek Right Around Wales by Tom Davies (£12.99, Y Lolfa) is available now.

The mid-sixties was a period of protest and fun a young man Robat Gruffudd took advantage of the new small offset printing process to produce cheeky, colourful material for the Welsh youth of the time. He had produced the first issue of ‘Lol’, a satirical magazine, with a friend while at Bangor University, before settling in Talybont, where his new wife, Enid, was a teacher at the primary school.

‘It was an exciting and hopeful period, but I was lucky too. Talybont turned out to be the perfect location - a friendly, cultured village right in the middle of Wales’ said Robat, ‘Ceredigion too has provided us with talented authors and staff, and we were lucky that the Welsh Books Council, who have been very supportive, were nearby as well.’

Now the publishing and print company is celebrating 50 years in the industry and is by now Wales’ most prolific mainstream publisher, producing over 80 titles a year. It has a turnover of more than £1m and employs 20 full-time staff. With more than 700 authors on its books, including broadcaster Huw Edwards and prominent sports personalities such as Nigel Owens, the range of books includes Welsh language tutors such as Welsh is Fun , which has sold over 250,000 copies, fiction and biography, books of Welsh interest for the tourist trade, and several series of original, children’s books by home-grown authors and artists.

‘We’ve always supported local authors, artist and designers because this is a way of supporting people’s livelihoods. Publishing is an industry and we are very proud that we’ve built up a sustainable, small business providing proper, professional jobs in a Welsh rural area.’ added Robat.

The company is now run by Robat’s two sons, Garmon who is Managing Director and Lefi as Director of Publishing. The company has been particularly successful with its Welsh language fiction list, having won Welsh Book of the Year three years in a row.

‘We’re well known as publishers but we’ve always printed our own books, enabling us to control both costs and quality. But this means we can also offer a competitive general print service. We now have a high-tech five-colour Komori B2 press, a perfecting (two-sided) press for bookwork, and a Xerox digital press for short runs’ said Garmon.

‘But machinery by itself is of no use without skilled staff to operate them. The main reason for our success over the last half century is the quality of our staff, and their skill and depth of experience both on the printing and publishing sides of the business.’ he added.

Print is run by production manager Paul Williams of Aberystwyth, ‘Being relatively small enables us to provide a really good, personal service and we pride ourselves that customers who come to us very rarely leave.’

Paul joined Lolfa from Cambrian Printers. Around half the company’s turnover comes from its printing side and it prides itself on its fast, friendly service.

A book festival, Bedwen Lyfrau, will be held between 10 and 4pm on Saturday the 20 ^th of May at Aberystwyth Arts Centre. Y Lolfa’s 50 ^th birthday party will be held at Marine hotel, Aberystwyth at 8pm.

INVITATION: Printers and publishers Y Lolfa celebrate 50 years in business Saturday, 20 May, at the Marine Hotel, Aberystwyth. Local Assembly Member and Presiding Officer, Elin Jones, will open the proceedings followed by live bands.

‘The party is going to be really huge as we’re inviting everybody. There’ll be plenty to enjoy, musically and otherwise.’ said Fflur Arwel, the company’s marketing manager.

‘We’ll be showing a new, anniversary ‘mural’ design by local artist, Ruth Jên, as well as our new, mobile friendly, website. Y Lolfa was the first Welsh-language publishing company to have a website and we want to stay in front of the queue technically and creatively’.

CONTACTS: Garmon Gruffudd, Paul Williams, Robat Gruffudd, Fflur Arwel all at 01970 832 304 or via their emails: garmon@ylolfa.com , paul@ylolfa.com , robat@ylolfa.com , fflur@ylolfa.com .

EDITOR’S NOTE: In a world dominated by large corporations and bureaucracies, Y Lolfa believes that ‘small is beautiful’ in publishing as in life. It was André Gide who said: ‘I like small nations. I like small numbers. The world will be saved by the few.’

From the Wikipedia: " Joseph Jenkins (27 February 1818 – 26 September 1898), was an educated tenant farmer from Tregaron, Ceredigion, mid-Wales who, when aged over 50, suddenly deserted his home and large family to seek his fortune in Australia. The Australian Dictionary of Biography says that "Jenkins's noteworthiness stemmed from the rich documentation of his experiences and thoughts that has survived". He was a consistent diarist for 58 years of his life and a consistent if not outstanding poet, under the bardic name Amnon II. He achieved fame posthumously from publication of some excerpts of his Australian writings. The compiler, his grandson Dr William Evans, a Harley Street cardiologist, coined the title Diary of a Welsh Swagman by which name he is familiar to generations of Victorian school students for whom the book became a prescribed history text in 1978." Read more here

On July 31 ^st 2017 two large-scale ceremonies will take place to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of one of the bloodiest battles of the First World War – the Battle of Passchendaele. Tyne Cot Cemetery in Belgium will be the venue for the international ceremony and a few hours later the Welsh National Memorial at Langemark will be the site of the Welsh national event.

The very word ‘Passchendaele’ has become a byword for the suffering of the Great War. A remorseless slog by Allied soldiers through mud and rain, by the time the battle ended on 10 November 1917 hundreds of thousands of men on both sides lay dead or had been wounded.

The Welsh at Passchendaele 1917 by Dr Jonathan Hicks is a significant new interpretation of the Great War battle for the Passchendaele Ridge, telling the story of the battle through the words of the soldiers and airmen who were actually there.

The author has trawled through regimental histories, war diaries, family histories and archives to compile this detailed account of the part played by Welsh men and women, and those who served in the Welsh regiments, in this enormous and historic conflict.

Beginning at 5.30 am on the morning of 31 July 1917, the British Army launched an enormous assault on the strongly-held German positions. Simultaneously, the Welsh battalions began their attack at Pilkem Ridge. Second Lieutenant Stephen Glynne Hughes described what he saw that morning;

‘At daylight we could see Pilkem Ridge literally heaving up and down – the whole ridge was boiling – we saw the Guards leave the trenches – walking slowly and laboriously over ‘no man’s land’ – one moment you would see a number of men – then a blanket of an exploding shell would hide them – clear away – and the stragglers marching on. The German prisoners could be seen struggling and splashing through the shell holes – some being hit by their own Batteries.’

The author’s own grandfather fought at Passchendaele, and using first-hand accounts and photographs gathered over a period of several years, he allows the men and women who were there to tell their stories.

Dr Jonathan Hicks is an award-winning military historian and novelist, and his meticulous research provides new insight into this famous battle. He has previously won the Victorian Military Society’s top award for his book on the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 ‘A Solemn Mockery’, and was awarded the Western Front Association Shield for his book ‘Barry and the Great War’.

Dr Hicks is also a member of the Welsh Government’s First World War Centenary Programme Board and sits on a variety of other committees advising the government on the centenary of the Great War. He also writes crime fiction featuring the military policeman Thomas Oscendale, and both his novels ‘The Dead of Mametz’ and ‘Demons Walk Among Us’ have drawn widespread praise.

His 2016 number one bestselling work ‘ The Welsh at Mametz’ recieved critical acclaim including from the Western Front Association who described it as ‘excellent’.

Dr Hicks has dedicated The Welsh at Passchendaele 1917 to his grandfather Ernest Hicks, whom he never knew, and all the other men who fought ‘in that terrible battle’.

The Welsh at Passchendaele 1917 by Dr Jonathan Hicks (£14.99, Y Lolfa) is out now.

Those who of us who live in Wales in these first decades of the 21st century can count ourselves lucky not to have witnessed terror attacks or heard the terrifying sounds of bomb explosions in our homeland. I don’t know what that says about us as a people: it’s true that we have our tensions, our divisions, our differences, but we have not succumbed to the tactics of the terrorist or experienced such retribution in our peaceful land as a result of the cynical foreign policy of the Kingdom that rules us.

It was not always this way. In the 1960s there were bomb attacks at the following sites among others: the construction site of the Clywedog dam (1963 and 1966); a pipe carrying water from Lake Vyrnwy to Liverpool (1967); the Temple of Peace and Health, Cardiff (1967); a tax office and the Welsh Office building, also in Cardiff (1968); a water pipe at Helsby, Cheshire; a tax office in Chester (1969).

These attacks were attributed to Mudiad Amddiffyn Cymru (M.A.C.)-Movement for The Defence of Wales-a paramilitary nationalist unit that was created in response to the drowning of the Welsh-speaking village of Capel Celyn in the Tryweryn valley in order to create a reservoir to supply water to Liverpool. One of the group’s founding members, Aberystwyth University student Emyr Llywelyn Jones, was convicted of blowing up a transformer at the dam construction site on 10 February 1963. He refused to name his accomplices who, on the day of his conviction, retaliated by blowing up an electricity pylon at Gellillydan near Blaenau Ffestiniog. This in turn led to the arrest and imprisonment of Owain Williams and John Albert Jones, the two other originators of the organisation.

One would have thought that M.A.C. would have ceased to exist at that time but a new leader, John Barnard Jenkins, a serving Non-Commissioned Officer in the British Army, moved into that position in the shadows to take their fight to different battlefields and potentially more spectacular targets.

The investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales in Caernarfon Castle on 1 July 1969 caused M.A.C. to plan to detonate a number of bombs in Gwynedd, in an attempt to disrupt the event and to promote its agenda of Welsh independence. The night before, two of its members, Alwyn Jones and George Taylor, were killed when their weapon prematurely exploded near government buildings in Abergele. These were the only fatalities of a 6 year armed campaign. On the day itself, a bomb exploded in a Caernarfon policeman’s garden providing some competition for the 21 gun salute. A device that was planted near the castle failed to go off as did another that had been placed at Llandudno Pier with the objective of preventing the Royal Yacht Britannia docking.

Charles was invested as the 21st Prince of Wales on that fateful day, cementing centuries of royal charades, unjust power and unwanted connections, an outsider unaware, in the pomp and euphoria of ceremony, of the actions he was inspiring.

John Jenkins was arrested in November of that year and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment in April 1970 after being found guilty of 8 explosives offences. His Prison Letters was published by Y Lolfa in 1981.

Liverpool City Council issued a formal apology for the flooding on 19 October 2005.

Wales is a much different place than it was in the 1960s. We have a devolved assembly government serving a much-changed population, a Welsh language TV channel, and the Welsh Language Act 1993 put that language on an equal footing with the English language as far as the public sector is concerned. The treatment of our country by the British state in that decade in such dark incidents as the Capel Celyn flooding and the Aberfan disaster must never be allowed to be repeated as it could once again provide ammunition to desperate and motivated citizens to plan violent acts against the buildings, infrastructure and symbols of the ruling system.