Sir, - Fr Sean McDonagh wrote (The Irish Times, January 12th) of the movement to cancel international debt, which is gaining momentum. While it does not appear to have fired the public imagination in Ireland yet, I believe that the fire is smouldering in many a heart, and will soon flame out.
As a people with a history of oppression, hunger and despair, perhaps we can bring light to our own dark memories by acknowledging and responding to that darkness in others today. I call on leaders in media, who shape our opinions; leaders of religion, who bring to bear the challenging light of the moral imperative; leaders in politics, whom we have chosen to be spokespeople and agents on our behalf, not just for our fears, but also for our ideals. Leadership of integrity can inspire people towards a stronger realisation that the earth's resources are for all the children of the earth; that each has a right to the means to sustain life with dignity and to be cared for in our weaknesses.
Many of us are riding high on the back of the tiger. Are we oblivious to the earth underneath us? Are we blinded to the eyes of the sisters and brothers and children with whom we are co-inheritors of the earth? Are we deafened to the whispering hunger of our own spirits for the truth? In the heady drive of our journey, do we believe we can control this beast born wild? And is it this world of blindness, deafness and fear that we want to bequeath to our children?
I think our history makes us bigger than that. We are longing to be our greater selves. We could do with the support of leadership that will make demands, for we want the opportunity to shape a more human world in a new millennium. -Yours, etc., Maire O'Donohoe,
Salthill, Galway.