Therefore, we now proceed to the short debate, and the short debate today is to be presented by Mick Antoniw, and I'll allow people to leave the Chamber quietly.

If people can leave the Chamber quietly, we still have business continuing, and I call on Mick Antoniw to propose the debate in his name—Mick Antoniw.

Thank you, Llywydd. Throughout history, there have been men and women—whether through science and learning, through culture, the arts, trade, innovation or political struggle—who have advanced the interests of their nation and its profile in a way that achieves international recognition. Their achievements often have a world-wide impact and are duly recognised as such.

In Wales, we have many such heroes, but sadly many have not been given the recognition they deserve. In fact, many, to this day, remain unknown in Wales other than to a small number of interested people. To some extent, Welsh achievement has been camouflaged by an overbearing UK or British identity, but whatever the reason we need to correct the record and assert Wales's proud contribution to world events.

I hope the change in our school curriculum will contribute to an increased awareness, but I believe there is also a role for this Parliament to help ensure Welsh heroes get the recognition they deserve. This is not for the purpose of some sort of personality cult, but in order to ensure that Wales's contribution to international events, history and development is properly recognised, as is the case with most other countries.

I only have time to focus on a few, but I believe recognition of these will help start the process. This year was the eightieth anniversary of one of the great heroic acts during the Spanish civil war. On that day, Welshman and Cardiffian Captain Archibald Dickson rescued and saved the lives of 2,638 men, women and children fleeing Spain and General Franco's approaching fascist troops. A blockade of the port of Alicante by Italian destroyers and the threat of German bombers led to scenes of chaos and desperation. Captain Dickson of the SS Stanbrook, witnessing these tragic scenes, in an act of utmost bravery, left his cargo behind and instead took on board the refugees. Ten minutes into the journey came the sound of explosions and bombs landing near the Stanbrook. Yet, Captain Dickson broke the blockade, undoubtedly saving many lives. In Alicante, there is a memorial to Captain Dickson in Spanish, Welsh and English and plans are in hand to unveil an identical plaque in the Pierhead on the Assembly estate. 

Llywydd, in November each year in Ukraine members of the international community mark the day of remembrance of the victims of Stalin's artificial famine of 1932-33, known as the Holodomor, which in Ukrainian means death by hunger. It was a famine created by Stalin to enforce collectivisation of agriculture and to break Ukrainian resistance to Russian Soviet rule in Ukraine. There were more than 4,000 uprisings against this policy and these were ruthlessly suppressed. In December 1932, the central committee of the Communist Party ordered all grain, including sowing seeds, to be seized. Villages that failed to co-operate were blacklisted and deliberately starved to death, and an estimated 1 million people deported to Siberia. An estimated 4 million to 6 million people perished, and it's estimated around two-thirds of children perished. Precise figures are impossible because Stalin ordered all records to be destroyed.

Welsh-speaking journalist Gareth Jones, born in Aberystwyth, buried in Barry, witnessed the Holodomor and, alongside Malcolm Muggeridge, was one of the few journalists with the courage to report on the scale of the famine and its causes. He is regarded in Ukraine as a hero, where he is honoured, and there is soon to be a street in the capital of Kyiv named after him. On 31 January in the Chapter cinema in Cardiff, BAFTA Cymru will be hosting a Welsh premier showing of the new film Mr. Jones, starring actor James Norton, followed by a question-and-answer session. Gareth Jones is recognised abroad, but barely known in Wales. But he is truly a Welsh hero and exemplar of ethical journalism.

John Hughes, Welsh industrialist and engineer from Merthyr Tydfil, travelled with a team of Welsh miners and engineers to Donetsk in Ukraine, then part of the Russian empire, to establish a coal and steel industry in a place that was to become one of the greatest steel and coal producing cities of the world, named after him at the time as Hughesovka. There is a statue to him in the centre of the city, but I'm not aware of any statue or recognition of him in Wales, despite his international stature.

Llywydd, these are just three relatively unknown heroes, but there are many more: Arthur Horner, president of the South Wales Miners' Federation, former member of the Irish Citizen Army during the Irish revolution, who gained an international reputation as an advocate for miners and their working conditions across the world; Bertrand Russell, Nobel Prize winner in literature, internationally renowned writer, philosopher, humanist and champion of freedom of thought; Francis Lewis from Llandaff, signatory to the US declaration of independence; Henry Richard, Tregaron, secretary to the Peace Society and campaigner for the abolition of slavery; Thomas Jefferson, author of the declaration of independence, whose family came from Snowdonia—in fact, around a third of the signatories of the American declaration of independence were of Welsh descent; Robert Owen, from Newtown, internationally recognised as one of the early founders and promoters of co-operativism, of whom Friedrich Engels said, 'Every social movement, every real advance...on behalf of the workers links itself on to the name of Robert Owen'; and many others who went on to mark international success in the foundation of trade unions and social movements internationally.

Llywydd, my intention today in this short debate is not only to highlight the importance of recognising the contribution of these Welsh heroes to our history, but to underline how important they are to our future as role models for today's generation and generations to come.

I didn't mention Paul Robeson. Of course, he wasn't Welsh by birth, but in many ways he's a very famous Welshman, insofar as he is recognised probably more in Wales than he even is in his home country, and maybe there should be a statue to Paul Robeson in the capital of Wales.

Every nation needs its heroes, and now more than ever. The challenges facing today's generations are immense. From climate change to the search for new antibiotics, from the rise of fascism to the pollution of our oceans, it is a new generation of heroes that Wales and the world now needs, and I believe that in part they will find their inspiration in the past. 

The Deputy Presiding Officer took the Chair.

Thank you. Can I call on the Deputy Minister for Culture, Sport and Tourism to reply to the debate? Dafydd Elis-Thomas.

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. It gives me great pleasure to respond to this debate. A short debate is one of our more creative pieces of Standing Orders, in that it allows Members to choose a topic and then it falls to any appropriate Minister that is available to respond to the debate. But I'm particularly pleased to be able to do that today because, I believe, by choosing to celebrate internationalists from Wales who have made an undoubted impact on the international scene, you have made a significant contribution to the rewriting of the national curriculum for our own country.

Because I do think that it is part of the process of greater autonomy that the nations and regions who achieve that autonomy will seek not only to rewrite the present and the future, but also to rewrite the past; understanding it in a way in which what would have appeared oppositional or marginal or even extreme in some other perspective does in fact represent a tradition that we need to celebrate as we galvanise our own resources of thought for what faces us, as you described so well at the end of your remarks.

That's why I think you're absolutely right to say that Welsh achievement has in the past been camouflaged by 'overbearing UK or British identity', to quote your own words, and I think it is time that we reasserted the distinctiveness of our heritage, in particular to redefine the contribution that Wales has made to internationalism. That includes the legacy of the peace movement and the support for the League of Nations, and going back to the establishment of the Temple of Peace here in our own capital, through to the long history of the peace movement, of the anti-nuclear movement, of the women's movement. All these are aspects of our history that have international significance.

I'm glad that you selected your—not quite top 10, but you were almost there, I think, of heroes. And I'm also glad to see the word 'heroes' used not in the context of some individualistic achievement, as sometimes does happen, even with sporting heroes and other heroes, but that we celebrate the fact that these heroes come from a community, from a train of thought, from a social experience, which they then take to achieve for themselves. But they're not just achieving for themselves, they're achieving for the culture that they come from.

I have always had a strong personal interest in the civil war in the Spanish nations, and I was privileged in my own life to have known and had very interesting conversations with Tom Jones, who was universally known—in Welsh, certainly, and probably in English as well in Wales—as Twm Sbaen. His experience and his contribution, not only during the conflict in Spain but to the politics of the trade union movement and of the left and of internationalism in Wales, is a very distinguished one.

I was also pleased that you mentioned the events in Ukraine, with which obviously you have a strong personal and family connection, and I think we still have much to learn about the struggle of Ukraine throughout the nineteenth century and from the twentieth century to the twenty-first century. To select the figure of Gareth Jones reminds us again of the importance of independent journalism and the ability of people to speak out, along with, as you've described, Malcolm Muggeridge. I was not aware that there is in Kyiv a street named after him, and I was very pleased to hear that and I look forward to supporting your attempts and others' to ensure that he is recognised as well equally in Wales.

John Hughes, again, a distinguished meteorologist and engineer. How many Welsh people or Welsh-born people have established a city? I can't think of one offhand. No doubt there is some significant nonconformist figure that should have come to my mind. Maybe, actually, it would be that the Mormons would be the equivalent, in Salt Lake City. But certainly, to have done that and to have established a manufacturing centre is a distinguished contribution.

And then, coming closer to our time, through the history of the miners' union, we come to Bertrand Russell now. I'm pleased to say in this Chamber that I did actually have the honour of meeting Bertrand Russell in the context of the peace movement, in the context of the contribution that he made with his famous telegram sent from Penrhyndeudraeth to Washington and Moscow at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, which was a very frightening period for me as a relatively young man and for many other people. He was certainly a great philosopher and a great humanist. I don't think he was much of a Welsh nationalist, but I can't criticise him for that.

Clearly, the other international figures that you mentioned: there is a strong urge, especially among my colleague the Minister for international relations, that we celebrate Robert Owen properly, and we will do that. But it's also important that in those celebrations we're able to recognise that internationalism as it was promoted by these sons and daughters of Wales is something that we need to recapture today. This place is not just about devolution for Wales, it's about what Wales can continue to contribute to the international scene.

Diolch yn fawr. That brings today's proceedings to a close. Thank you.

The meeting ended at 19:00.