Madam, - It was with growing perplexity that I waded through the recent column in World News (July 19th) by the Canadian journalist Mark Steyn. His Irish grand-uncle might have described it as "a load of old blather." He described the comfy cages that the Guantanamo detainees are held in, and then went on to present his views on those same detainees in a surprisingly right-wing, adolescent rhetoric.
However, it was interesting to read first-hand the kind of racist invective that our American cousins are bombarded with daily by the powerful media. He makes it clear that he supports the neo-judicial system for Guantanamo detainees that reflects the utter contempt Bush and his cronies have for international humanitarian law.
It was unclear why he persisted in comparing the tragic death of the Canadian woman journalist to the postponement of the trials of British detainees from Afghanistan.
The two issues were like chalk and cheese, with a tenuous link that couldn't sustain comparisons.
In Steyn's black-and-white, two-dimensional world, the combatants in Afghanistan are typified by the cardboard cutout of "the Afghan warrior's idiot cousin", while those who have lived and worked in the West are doggedly conniving to bring down all that we hold sacred.
The racist stereotype we are to adopt from this is: Middle-Eastern men on welfare are probably terrorists-in-training. Does this add anything to our understanding of the world and its peoples?
Mr Steyn might also be well-advised to have an Irish colleague vet his script for transatlantic slang variations.
Although diagnosed by Steyn to be a "poor boob", I doubt if the Canadian Foreign Minister will be scheduled for a mammogram anytime soon.
More anxiety was provoked in the re-reading of the introduction to this piece, "This is his first Irish Times column." Please God it will also be his last.
Yours, etc., -
SHEENA WALSH
MCMAHON,
Herbert Road,
Bray.