THERE are frequent letter contributors whom I particularly enjoy reading. One of my favourites is Selma Rahman, whose letters are always insightful, thought-provoking and well-argued. But her contribution in response to the New Zealand shootings (Letters, March 18) I found particularly moving and I felt her frustration.
It is true, why do they show a picture of the murderer as a cute blond-haired baby? It’s irrelevant. All terrorists were nice cute babies once – but those who caused the Manchester bombings, the attacks in Paris, the murders in Las Ramblas Barcelona etc, they were never show as cute little babies (rather the media always refer to their previous convictions, if any – with an underlining message instead that “they were always bad”) – why?
With that is an inherent prejudice that a blond, blue-eyed white baby must have had something particularly horrible happen to them, rather than the fact that they are a far-right white supremacist linked into a like-minded international network. That is the truth and their rise is truly frightening. It is inherent racism in the media that does not look at that instead. It is the increasing and increasingly extreme, open and violent actions of the far-right white supremacists that should be focused on, not them being blue-eyed, blond babies!!
One thing I’d personally add to her letter is that when we are an independent country, if God forbid such an awful tragedy occurs here, we as a country can turn round and show the same compassion and respect as the people of New Zealand, with their Prime Minister Jacinda Arden acting with compassion as a human being, not a politician with platitudes, and the number of ordinary New Zealanders turning up to spontaneously do the Haka, from Maori bikers to different groups of school children. A true expression of national cultural outpouring of emotion saying: “you are part of us, you are part of our family”
Crìsdean Mac Fhearghais
Dùn Èideann
NOBODY seems to have noticed how the whole philosophy of Brexit runs completely contrary to that of our most famous poet, who in one of his masterpieces wrote:
“For a’ that, and a’ that, It’s comin’ yet for a’ that,
That man to man, the world o’er, Shall brothers be for a’ that!”
Sadly, this concept seems to run at loggerheads with the desires of Little England MPs. Not one Tory MP, from north or south of the Border, has expressed a grain of sympathy for the vast majority of Scots, who voted to remain in the EU; six times in proportion to the margin by which the rUK voted to leave! Yet the latter vote is held to be sacrosanct!
This is particularly disappointing, but unsurprising, with regard to the Scottish Tories (if that is not a contradiction in terms!) and I hope they will be held to account by the Scottish electorate in due time.
The problem for so many of our friends living south of the Border is, and has been for centuries, that when they go anywhere abroad they see the indigenous residents, and not themselves, as the foreigners.
Indeed they have coined many disparaging epithets to apply to our continental neighbours. I will limit myself to one: “Johnny Foreigner”.
Michel Barnier told the UK two-and-a-half years ago that we could not expect as good a deal out as we had in, and that the problem would be Ireland. To his credit, this has remained their position throughout, but incredibly it is still falling on deaf ears.
Scotland, I fear, is plummeting earthward in an aircraft for which the vast majority of us did not buy a boarding pass. There is but one parachute, and that parachute is independence. To quote “our man” again: “Wha can be a traitor knave?”. Well not many of us will fluff the answer to that!
Joseph G Miller
Dunfermline
MAY I thank David Kirkwood for his letter (March 19) in response to my query regarding previous correspondence by P Keightly.
I have the publications Mr Kirkwood mentions plus Ferguson’s collection of Burns’s letters and realised P Keightly had got the date wrong. I did not object to the sentiments expressed, but rewriting Burns without quotes is misleading and unfair to him.
He never wrote “I am fed up” or
“I feel attached to my sense of Scotland independence and to honour”. He agreed with those beliefs by quoting someone else, but those were not his words.
Jim McLean
London
REGARDING letters from Robert Burns to Mrs Dunlop. On April 10 1790 he wrote: “Nothing can reconcile me to the common terms, English Ambassador, English Court, &c. And I am out of all patience to see that equivocal character, Hastings, impeached by the Commons of England. I believe in my conscience such ideas as my Country; her independence; her honour; the illustrious Names that mark the history of my Native Land.” In the same letter he wrote the more often quoted: “Alas! have I often said to myself, what are all the boasted advantages which my Country reaps from a certain Union, that can counterbalance the annihilation of her Independence , and even her very Name!”
Hugh Farrell
Ayr
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