Madam, - Recent violent demonstrations in the Middle East,the burning of Danish flags and Danish embassies in Syria, Iran and Lebanon, as well as the murder of a Catholic priest in Turkey, as a result of the publication of cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, is a small illustration of what everyday life is like for millions of people from different religious, political and ethnic backgrounds in Islamic countries. It is very wrong for some Irish commentators to say that fundamentalists can do whatever they want in their own country, as long as they do not do it on our doorstep.
We have seen that the protesters are unable to differentiate between the journalists and newspaper responsible for the cartoons and the Danish government and citizens whom they have targeted, with the tacit support of these states. In those countries there is no free press as we know it. The government or the military or the mullahs control the press.
As a Christian, Jew, Assyrian, Armenian, Yezidi or Kurd in Iran, Turkey or Syria, it is your fate to be the victim of such blind hatred, resentment and anger on a regular basis. You are frequently faced with angry and violent mobs that are supported by that state's government. You witness the duplicity and hypocrisy with which these states pander on one hand to international, anglophone opinion, yet employ the language of hatred to shamelessly incite unrest at home, and you are voiceless to contest it.
I hope the whole Western world realises that this is a wake-up call - that it can no longer ignore the actions of backward states (Iran, Syria, Turkey and others) and their roles in promoting ignorance and supporting violence.
I am very surprised that the Irish media did not publish the contentious cartoons if only in support of a principle. If you tolerate this, what is next?
Finally I must protest at the misrepresentation of Middle-Eastern peoples in the Irish media. While pages are written about the Islamo-fascists, the plights of democratically minded protesters, opposition groups and exiles of these countries have great difficulty reaching a Western audience. While a demonstration by a small group of Islamic fundamentalists in London on February 11th received significant coverage in the Irish media, a protest by 50,000 Kurds calling for their democratic rights in Strasbourg on the same day was not deemed worthy of comment. When will Europe listen to the voices of reason from the region, instead of always focusing on the backward elements? - Yours, etc,
LATIF SERHILDAN, University College, Cork.
Madam, - In his article of February 21st (Opinion & Analysis), Martyn Turner describes the 12 cartoons published in the Jyllands-Posten which have been at the heart of the recent controversy. In relation to the second, which features a boy standing before a blackboard on which there is some writing in Arabic script, he says: "You will have to explain that one to me."
With pleasure, Mr Turner: the boy's jumper says "Future" in Danish, while the writing on the blackboard is in Farsi and says: "Jyllands-Posten are a bunch of reactionary provocateurs". The cartoon shows a more subtle understanding of the situation than most commentators on either side of the debate - just as the cartoon printed above Mr Turner's article demonstrates a keener understanding of the situation than the article itself.
It was thoroughly irresponsible for the editors of Jyllands-Posten to publish the cartoons in question, especially as it was not likely that they or the cartoonists would be the ones to suffer; and it is facile to proclaim that cartoonists "don't do blood" when 40 people have died as a result of publication. - Yours, etc,
KATHERINE FARMAR, Upper Beechwood Avenue, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.
Madam, - President McAleese is reported as saying she "had no difficulty with people expressing their views". But that is precisely what she has a difficulty with - people expressing their views on Islam in a way which she does not approve. She is trying to have it both ways.
Meanwhile, in one of those ironies you couldn't invent, her defence of giving an address to a segregated audience in Jeddah echoes the liberal defence (as articulated not least by Conor Cruise O'Brien) of people visiting and working in apartheid South Africa, which was totally rejected by the anti-apartheid movement worldwide. - Yours, etc,
EOIN DILLON, Ceannt Fort, Mount Brown, Dublin 8.