SeriesYour Thoughts
Our readers have their say on the week’s news.
EVER SINCE THE Journal started back in 2010, our readers and their thoughts have been fundamental to our coverage of the news. Here’s what you’ve been saying to us this week. Have something to say? Send a mail to letters@thejournal.ie. You can see our letter guidelines here.
Visas delayed or declined?
['Appalling injustice' - academics call on Taoiseach to intervene over visas for Gazan students]
Dear Editor,
Ten days ago, I leant over my iPad and listened intently to the arguments in the High Court over the cases of Gazan students refused visas to study in Ireland. My sister, who has helped sponsor and support one of the students, told me 10 of the students were listening too, huddled in a flimsy tent in Gaza City.
On 10 October, you reported that the Minister for Justice had allowed the appeals of three of four students to the High Court. No matter of principle. A simple procedural appeal. What relief. At last, justice would be seen in the case of the 53 students outstanding.
There had been pleas from top human rights academics, from lawyers, student organisations, from host families, opposition politicians, from celebrity opinion writers, and Palestinians living in Ireland. There have been petitions, and individual letters to the minister and government backbench TDs. They pointed out that original documents, banks and post offices were now in the rubble of a destroyed Gaza. As the government knows and has stated, Gaza is being subjected to genocide.
All the work was worth it.
But no. The Department of Justice has gone back to a hardline stance, arguing that they cannot examine all the cases quickly. They look for a distant date for the Court hearings and hope the campaign will disappear. That the deadline for evacuations will pass.
I cannot wipe from my mind the image of those hopeful Gazan youngsters, still under Israeli airstrikes and bombardment, listening, huddled, for the chimes of Irish justice to ring.
On this one, the Irish government can’t hide behind the US government or EU Trade policy. It’s a decision of their own making. For some incredible reason.
Yours sincerely,
Betty Purcell,
Dublin
***
Election Season
[Could Islamophobia cost Abdul El-Sayed the race for the US Senate?]
Dear Editor,
Barack Obama was right when he said that roughly 80% of the world’s problems come from “old men hanging on”.
Vladimir Putin, 74, still redrawing maps in blood and devastating millions of lives to satisfy his imperial ego.
Benjamin Netanyahu, 76, cannot seem to distinguish national survival from personal survival. To dodge prison, he is sabotaging the international institutions built to keep the global order intact.
Donald Trump, 80, treats the presidency less like public service than a lifetime-achievement award, and American democracy like a buffet for billionaires.
America’s upper chamber is starting to resemble a care home with a security detail. Mitch McConnell, 84, freezes at podiums, gets wheeled through committees like a museum piece, and needs prompting just to vote ‘aye.
Oligarchs like Elon Musk funnel hundreds of millions into political campaigns so the laws get written around their needs, hoarding wealth they couldn’t spend in 10 lifetimes.
These men could solve problems that have plagued humanity for centuries. Instead, they’re using their fortunes to dismantle democracy, and stretch a wealth divide that is already obscene.
They just need one more year, one more term, one more war, one more tax cut for their pals. The rest of us get the bill: the climate, the body bags, the debt, the burned-out future.
At some point, the question must be asked: how much more are we supposed to sacrifice to keep these men feeling important?
Kind regards,
Alan T. Kelly,
Kildare
***
What type of neutral are we?
[Where will the money to fund Ireland's ambitious defence investment plans come from?]
The following is a letter I sent to Minister Helen McEntee in response to her recent comment that “Ireland now takes defence spending seriously”:
In addition to the defence spending that is needed, I suggest Ireland is in possession of a completely underused asset that can potentially prove of huge importance, not only for Ireland’s security but also the security of other countries. This is the untapped power that our neutrality is imbued with. This power was not always untapped, as former Minister of External Affairs, Frank Aitken, so graphically displayed during the 1950s and 1960s.
However, there are two completely distinct forms of neutrality: passive neutrality and active neutrality. Passive neutrality is for the most part not only irresponsible, but also reflective of a lack of moral courage. A creative and courageous use of active neutrality has the potential to strengthen defence and security, by helping to prevent wars and conflict before they occur, or expand further.
I realise there is an unawareness of the many hidden powers contained within this reality called active neutrality. Powers that are desperately needed in this increasingly dangerous world we are all part of. The following is my attempt to shed light on the implications associated with the greater utilisation of this neutrality power Ireland is in possession of.
A primary problem is not that we humans, regardless of whether we occupy positions of power or not, can easily form premature conclusions without having a whole series of crucial facts and other relevant information.
The more primary problem is that we can easily then function without noticing we don’t have all the relevant facts. However, a much more active exercising of our neutrality can, even in surprising ways, expand awareness in a manner that allows discovery of significant new facts and new information, which can then have a very beneficial influence on our capacity for a more balanced perspective of the reality encountered. Furthermore, progress in this regard can help avoid the following danger.
An absence of open and direct communication leads people to make assumptions about each other, or about situations that they only hear about secondhand, which may or may not be correct, or comprehensively correct. People may then continue to view each other through these assumptions, which gives further weight to the inaccuracy or incompleteness of these assumptions to begin with.
The following statement quoted recently in the Financial Times, from In The Realm of the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama, indirectly adds further weight to this point:
Dissent within one’s own circle – not disagreement with one’s opponents – is the core of what it means to be liberal*.
There is a direct link between the lack of exercising our neutrality and the ongoing dissolution of our independence. So many courageous Irish people fought and died over many centuries to provide us with this very precious gift that is our Irish independence. It will be a huge betrayal of these people if Ireland ultimately whittles away this crucial resource to the point that our independence ends up in name only.
Ireland is a very special place with a unique and very special history. The book by the late American historian Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilisation, provides fascinating evidence in support of this. In the spirit of John F Kennedy’s famous statement at his inaugural, I suggest the question we may need to be asking is not how Europe can help us, but how we can help Europe.
Given the shocking responses, including non-responses, by certain European leaders to the ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank, I suggest the integrity of the European Union is in serious need of Ireland’s help, for this and several other important reasons involving double standards and self-contradictions.
Eddie O’Brien,
Director, The Thinking Centre,
Tipperary
***
Albania
Dear Sir/Madam,
As an Albanian living in Ireland for over 20 years, watching the violent turn of protests in Albania is deeply troubling. What began as an environmental protest against a controversial luxury tourism development linked to Jared Kushner has evolved into a broader movement demanding action on corruption and democratic accountability.
After more than four months of largely peaceful demonstrations, protests have escalated into violence, amid allegations of police provocation and excessive force. Violence is never acceptable, but neither should it obscure the frustration of citizens who feel unheard by their government and European institutions.
The burning of the College of Europe’s office on Tirana’s main boulevard is particularly symbolic. In one of Europe’s most pro-EU countries, it reflects a troubling disillusionment with institutions that Albanians have long looked up to as symbols of democracy and accountability.
Albania is advancing towards EU membership. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other senior European officials have visited Albania during the protests, praising accession progress, yet there has been little visible engagement with those demonstrating.
Irish diplomatic and parliamentary representatives have also visited Albania, welcoming its European progress, but without apparent engagement with protesters. As holder of the EU Council Presidency, Ireland has a responsibility to champion inclusion of all citizens in European integration, even those that express dissatisfaction with the current status of Albania.
The European project, rightly regarded as precious by Ireland and EU institutions, risks losing its credibility if accession is disconnected from citizens’ concerns.
The burning of the College of Europe office should not be seen as a rejection of Europe, but as a warning that Europe risks losing the trust of some of its most committed supporters.
Kind regards,
Dr Enida Friel,
Dublin 15
***
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