Sir, – Regarding the photograph displayed above Harry McGee’s article on Fianna Fáil’s Ardfheis (Alan Betson, Opinion, April 29th): I can think of a number of sites on which Fianna Fáil might usefully plant the party’s flag. Iwo Jima, however, is definitely not such a location.
I will leave it to professional historians to comment on the ironies that abound in Fianna Fáil’s choice of posters designed to motivate the party faithful over the weekend of the ardfheis. Effectively, the party appropriated two classic wartime images; the famous Lord Kitchener recruiting poster from the first World War (your country needs you) and the iconic photograph from the second World War showing US marines raising the stars and stripes on Iwo Jima.
It is the appropriation of the latter that rankles. American soldiers paid dearly in life and limb to capture that island during the war in the Pacific. To suggest, either consciously or subconsciously, that party members rebuilding Fianna Fáil after the electoral disaster of 2011 are displaying the same level of courage as that exhibited by Allied soldiers during the second World War is deeply offensive.
In case Fianna Fáil has forgotten, the Allies were involved in a profound struggle against dictatorship during the second World War. The near implosion of Fianna Fáil in 2011 was a direct consequence of the arrogance and incompetence displayed by that party during the period of 14 years it spent in power following the 1997 general election. Any suggestion that the reconstruction exercise now faced by that party is the moral equivalent of the Allied campaign during the second World War is nothing short of delusional. – Yours, etc,
PAUL GULLY,
St Lawrence’s Road,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.