Letters to the Editor: Nazi insignia should not be ignored
Continued Particularly Reader World The Given One Says Appearance Swastikas Picture: Is Of Events, Pointed, Pa Recent Graffiti
I’m not Jewish, but I have many close Irish contacts and friends who are.
I have been told of two recent incidences of graffiti swastikas scrawled in public view, in places where my Jewish friends work, and these were first ignored by passersby, then reported to management by my friends, then subsequently removed.
One of these places was the local university and the other a local supermarket.
My friends and I were obviously disgusted that this type of graffiti didn’t attract immediate condemnation by passersby and management.
In hindsight, the gardaí should have immediately been contacted in both incidences.
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These incidences and a complaint would then be on record, and maybe CCTV could have been used to identify and punish the culprits.
Unfortunately, my children have told me that there was always the odd swastika carved into a desk or two at school. Having reported the perpetrators to teachers, the reply was “he doesn’t understand the meaning of it".
Given recent world events, the continued appearance of these symbols is particularly pointed.
The swastika is an insignia of the Nazi party who were responsible for the elimination of 6m Jewish people, along with countless other ethnicities who did not fit their intention to create an Aryan race. They created death camps that murdered captives on an industrial scale.
This symbol can only be interpreted as representing pure evil, and is particularly intimidating to those whose families have suffered at the hands of this evil.
Scrawling a swastika on a wall must be seen as the equivalent of burning a flag, or proclaiming the battle cry of any terrorist organisation, so should not be tolerated or ignored by us as a society.
We need to consistently disclose those who would aim to intimidate and harass, and we should not be so "casual" towards these symbols and chants. We should call them out for what they are: A hate crime.
Our relationship with animals is based entirely on their subjugation and our dominance. The animal rights philosophy rejects this, and instead believes in the fundamental right of nonhumans not to be used, owned, branded, labelled, enslaved, exploited, and generally commodified to serve our interests and convenience.
Animal rights in practice means that animals deserve certain kinds of consideration. Consideration of what is in their best interests and regardless of whether any human cares about them at all.
It means recognising that animals are not ours to use — for food, clothing, entertainment, transport, experimentation. A dog or a pig or a cow has an interest in not having pain inflicted on him or her unnecessarily.
We are obliged to take that interest into consideration and to respect the animal’s right not to have pain inflicted upon him or her.
Speciesism is the human-held belief that all other animal species are inferior. Speciesism leads humans to draw non-existent distinctions between animal species, based solely on the purpose that those animals might serve.
For example, most humans wouldn’t dream of treating their dog the way pigs are treated in the food industry — even though pigs are able to experience the same pain, joy, fear, and misery that canines do.
It’s speciesist to believe that farmed and captive animals don’t suffer or feel emotions to the same extent as the animals with whom we lovingly share our homes.
The fact that the "Irish connection" to George Orwell’s is little known is reflected in the fact that your editorial on the subject ignores that connection.
The term "Ministry of Information" in itself sounds Orwellian, which it is indeed, especially since it actually was a British government ministry in the Second World War and Orwell actually worked there.
Although he obviously supported the Allies, Orwell hated telling lies on their behalf.
When he wrote , the Ministry of Information became The Ministry of Truth — whose job it was to literally rewrite history to conform to currently convenient "truths".
Orwell insisted to himself that the boss of both the real-life and fictitious versions of that organisation should have the same initials.
So it was that the Irishman Brendan Bracken (BB), Orwell’s boss, became Big Brother.
Of all the political commentators, only Mick Clifford has the self-awareness to humbly admit that “nobody really knows anything any more” ('Mid-term results suggest nobody knows exactly what they want').
What we do know is that the sun was shining and up to half of the electorate stayed away from the polls. It will be a different story in November or March when a general election is called, and the mood of people turns seasonally sour to match the temperature outside.
Micheál Martin is right to criticise the polling companies and the “know-nothing commentators” for his party yet again defying the odds.
By the same token, I doubt Sinn Féin and their followers will be under the cosh of the current prevailing media commentary when the general election is eventually called.
So let’s enjoy the summer and wish all the newly elected councillors and MEPs well. It won’t always be this nice.
The challenge for renewable energy in Ireland, as in Germany, is refusal to consider a small proportion of nuclear as a reliable support for increasing levels of unreliable renewable energy.
This refusal to remove our ban on generation of a small proportion of electricity by nuclear energy, is as determined as Germany’s continued phasing out of a large proportion of their existing nuclear power; both countries driven by outdated public concerns.
The infrastructure required for large scale production of wind and solar is behind schedule in Ireland, as it is in Germany, due to bureaucratic delays and the tendency of citizens to approve of renewable energy projects but “not in my backyard”.
Though there is progress in the deployment of renewable energy production facilities and infrastructure, it is nowhere near fast enough in either country.
New levels of obscenity were reached when the rescue of four Israeli hostages — though welcome — took precedence in Western media reportage, including in Ireland, over the mass slaughter of 274 Palestinians and the injuring of almost 700 more in the fiercest daily attack yet by the invading Israeli military.
Given this distorted preferential treatment, Palestinians can only conclude that they are perceived by the West as being less human than Israelis.
Is the mainstream media so out of sync with the Irish people who in polls have, by large majorities, declared their belief that the extreme violence perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza is a genocide and that EU countries should impose economic trade sanctions on Israel?