Madam, - In response to Jakob De Roover (Opinion Analysis, June 19th), let me start by saying that cultural diversity is a great thing. It has transformed Ireland from an inward-looking monoculture to a dynamic island with a rich mix of ethnicities and nationalities from Europe and beyond.
There is much that we can learn from other cultures, about their history and their way of life. But I'm about to say something which is almost heretical these days: that most of these cultures can learn a lot more from us than we can from them.
I am talking about respect for human rights, for freedom of thought and for democracy. It was in Europe that great thinkers like Locke and Voltaire dared to suggest that all humans were created equal, that the people should decide their own fate, and that religion should be a matter for oneself to decide on.
De Roover starts by saying Europe has difficulty coping with cultural diversity. I would say the same thing, only I'd say Europe has trouble coping with undemocratic and oppressive cultures, especially when they try to import their undemocratic and oppressive tendencies into our own free societies. He seems to forget these important ideas when he kowtows to the sensitivities of cultures in countries such as India - which still does unfairly segregate people based on caste, a system born of superstition - or China, which saw the longest continuous despotism in the history of the world, or much of the Middle East, where women can be sentenced to brutal lashings for the crime of being gang-raped.
I reject his world view. I do not want Europe to embrace a partnership of mutual respect with countries such as Saudi Arabia and China, because it is morally repugnant to treat as equals countries which habitually and often officially detain their citizens for non-crimes, use torture and fear to oppress dissent, and dictate to their people, often on pain of imprisonment or worse, what they can or cannot wear, say, believe or even think.
Something cannot be right in one country and wrong in another. Either a thing is wrong or it isn't. These totalitarian regimes are not equal to Europe by any credible moral measure, and it would not be unthinkable for India or China to reprimand us for our shortcomings (and they do exist), as De Roover says; it would be laughable.
It would be laughable for the President of Iran to talk down to us for allowing our women to go uncovered. It would be laughable for Robert Mugabe to criticise the EU bureaucrats as undemocratic and out of touch with the people.
It would be nice if we could all get along, wouldn't it? But let me ask Dr De Roover this: Would he invite his neighbour over to his house for a barbecue if he knew his neighbour wouldn't let his wife leave the house unless she was wearing a headscarf? Would he respect the man next door if that man thought the other guy down the street was untouchable?
If his answer is yes, then he is untouchable to me. I cannot respect anyone who not only refuses to take a stance against the morally objectionable practices of other humans, but actually talks down to us for not embracing their hate in the name of good relations.
These countries, these cultures, while they have insights to offer, and certainly have the potential to flower into bastions of civilisation and learning, right now deserve less respect from the West, not more. - Yours, etc,
DAVID OSBORN,
Carysfort Wood,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.