Letters To The Editor 2005-05-06

Racism and Soccer

Some things can't be forgiven

James McDermott's article 'Let's forgive Big Ron' (Village, 29 April - 5 May) is the second wrong-headed race article to appear in the Sports section of Village in its short existence.

Aragones never said "Black piece of shit", as quoted in Graham Hunter's article (5-11 March). This is an invention of Fleet Street to maximise the story by moving the translation from what could be perceived as borderline-politically-incorrect to overt racism. In fact, no possible translation of "negro de mierda" can give you 'black piece of shit'. My best effort at a translation is: 'that f***ing black' but there may be variations.

So what's the difference? Isn't that worse? The difference is in the metaphor. Aragones does not say, as Fleet Street (and now Village) has implied, that Henri's blackness makes him comparable with a lump of turd. 'Black piece of shit' stirs up negative imagery in a way that 'negro de mierda' cannot – it is far more lurid than the coach's actual comment.

Certainly what Aragones said was racist: he knew Henri's name but referred to him by his colour. Add in the swearword and it underlines how inappropriate it is. Certainly he is guilty of the sort of casual racism that the Spanish FA needs to stamp out, but it's not fair to hang a man for what he didn't say. Neither is it fair to imply that all the other erratic things he has done make him more likely to hate people.

Ron Atkinson's comment about Marcel Dessailly after last year's Champions League semi final was far more racist – not only because he used the 'n' word, but because he implied that Dessailly had responded to the situation in a typically black way; that his 'lazy' performance was due to his race; that his blackness transcended his appearance and influenced his actions.

Fleet Street may choose to welcome Big Ron back to football journalism after a suitable hiatus (as Geoffrey Boycott was welcomed back to cricket commentary some time after being outed as a wife-beater) and at the same time hound Aragones out of a job for a lesser crime. Village writers would do better paying attention to Darkus Howe (whom James McDermott wilfully dismisses in his article) – any black "social commentator" who can accept Bernard Manning's humour can accept an apology when it is merited.

But maybe there are some things that should not be forgiven.

Willy Robinson

Dublin 7

M3 Motorway

We can learn transport lessons from Boston

Some thirty years ago, Boston, Massachusetts was in the exact same dilemma as Greater Dublin is in today. Previous plans partially completed with highways, airport jammed, rail transport limited, bus ways on highways and bound up in traffic.

And, more importantly for the Dublin problem today, millions had been spent on the best traffic engineering solution to the problem.

Governor Sargent, a former Highway Commissioner judged that something was wrong with the plans in that they did not provide a balanced approach, did not integrate all forms of transportation, and especially, were not sensitive to the historical value, environmental damage and housing in the construction rights of way.

He ordered a moratorium on all construction and obtained funding for a Boston Transportation Planning Review.

This review invited citizens, members of affected neighbourhoods, scholars, business people and their associations to provide input to the government at a series of meetings over two or three years.

After a rocky and contentious start, the engineers and the people were able to come out with a general report which brought about major highway and rail improvements (the "Big Dig") and completely new access and parking at Logan Airport.

It is not too late in the construction process to do the same thing in Ireland.

Truly the input of scholars, historians, poets and average citizens can allow government engineers to place a proper monetary cost on the damages these people bring to their attention and factor this cost into the overall cost of projects.

It is my hope that citizens will find a receptive ear in their government leader who will learn from Boston, immediately call a moratorium on construction and fund a new citizen participatory study.

William P. Reynolds

Galway

Pope Benedict XVI

Leaving the Catholic Church

I have just finished reading "Pope Benedict XVI Verbatim" (Village 22-28 April). On account of this I have made a definite decision on something that I have been contemplating for some time. I am going to officially leave the Catholic Church.

I will do this above all because I will not have my name put to an organisation that institutes discrimination and incites bigotry of the most repulsive nature. I will not in any manner be part of an organisation that institutes discrimination against women through patriarchal structures, subordinating one sex to the other by denying women all positions of power.

I will not in any way be part of an institution that describes homosexuals as "intrinsically disordered" and as having a "strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil". Nor will I be part of an institution that describes the concept of marriage for homosexuals as, "the ideology of evil" and encourages employment discrimination vis a vis an instruction to Catholic institutions against employing homosexuals to work with children.

There is nothing "morally evil" about homosexuality. Nor is there anything "disordered" about people who are homosexual. Homosexual love is as deserving of respect and recognition as heterosexual love. I say this as a matter of fact, not opinion. I mean it in the same way as I recognise that men are not superior to women and white people are not superior to black people, despite the time it took for society to universally recognise this fact.

Discrimination and bigotry are intolerable in a healthy society. Religious institutions are part of society and thus are no exception to this rule. The institutionalisation of discrimination within the Catholic Church and the inegalitarian, bigoted statements that come from its highest representatives are unacceptable. As a powerful institution the Catholic Church represents an example to society and as such discrimination and bigotry within its structures serve to legitimise discrimination and bigotry in society at large.

I do not support such discrimination. Yet my official membership of this organisation (even if only in name) means that this discrimination is being carried out in my name. Unless I withdraw my membership of this organisation, I will be giving aid to the legitimisation of discrimination and to the illusion of my support for it. I will not tolerate this. I am leaving the Catholic Church.

Louise Caffrey

Delgany, Co.Wicklow.

Old Dublin

Madness on Moore St

A resident of Balbriggan for the past 30 years I still get a great kick from taking the train into Dublin city, and wandering the streets I knew so well as a child.

My mother was born and bred in the Liberties and to this day regales us with stories of what we regularly refer to as "Dublin in the olden days". I remember the Iveagh market and the Liberty market and the traders on Thomas St and lighting as many candles as possible in John's Lane church without getting caught by a passing priest.

I remember knocking on neighbour's doors and running away at the speed of light, heart hammering, hoping not to be nabbed. I remember walking from my Nana's house on John Dillon St into the city centre via George's St, passing Cassidy's clothes shop and crossing at Dame Street to go over the Ha'penny bridge and right round to Henry Street.

And then there was Moore Street buzzing with street traders doing what they did best and I remember the banter and bitching and craic and walking back to John Dillon Street laden down with stacks of stuff.

Every now and then I still take a trip into the city. Although I pass the street traders on Moore St I rarely pause in my step to stop and look or indeed to make a purchase. And a couple of weeks ago I stopped and saw what looked like lovely mandarin oranges and dark green granny smith apples and not too ripe yellow bananas and so I blissfully bought the lot and when I got home the bananas were black and the apples were yellow and the oranges were brown.

Last Monday I found myself once more on Moore Street and, determined not to be outdone, asked the first trader I encountered would it be possible for me to please pick my own oranges and put them in a bag. Her reply was a simple, no-nonsense "No".

Ever determined, I moved on down to the second stall and made a similar request and was rewarded with a somewhat more sardonic "No you cannot!" to which I replied, "No problem, I'm not buying them here so," to which she replied "Don't bloody bother".

Not one to give up without a fight, I found myself at a third trader's stall where a young French woman was doing her best to buy one banana. The trader in question tiredly told her in no uncertain terms that bananas were five for a euro and the French girl finally threw in the towel exclaiming in French that she didn't want five bananas and duly took her leave while this same trader threw her eyes up to heaven and nodded her head at me in a 'some people are just plain mental' way.

Imagine her face when I asked her would it be possible for me to point out the oranges I required to purchase all the while thinking the reason the previous two had refused me was for fear of me bruising their fruit. Her whole demeanour changed and in her eyes I saw that she saw me as even more mental than the French girl who had gone before me.

In any case, to cut a long story short, when I made my request her precise words were, "Are you for f***ing real? What planet are you from love?" to which I duly replied "Same f***king planet as you love."

That same evening I happened to be in the company of some cousins of mine and told them what had transpired on Moore St that day and how I was neither permitted to pick the fruit I wanted nor indeed to point it out. Not for a moment did I imagine the sumptuous fruit laid out at the front wasn't really for sale and when I told my story there was hysterical laughter and further stories ensued and a very enjoyable evening was had by all. For this I would like to extend my thanks to the stall holders on Moore Street who must have thought that I was utterly mad.

Helen Cox

Balbriggan, County Dublin

Education in Northern Ireland

Schools and public services are not for sale

Once again the most vulnerable in our society, the young and lowly paid are being attacked by New Labour, who has imposed drastic spending cuts on the five education boards in Northern Ireland. This year £31.6 million will be wiped off school spending followed by larger cuts in 2006-07. These cuts will affect not only every education worker in Northern Ireland but every child.

The ongoing dispute between the government and the education boards is over restructuring the boards make up. The government want the five education boards amalgamated into one. The boards don't want change claiming that the government want to reduce the education system to the poor standard of England.

The non-teaching staff are faced with the loss of thousands of jobs among essential workers such as classroom assistants, cooks, catering assistants, janitors and maintenance workers, cleaners, canteen and play ground supervisors, school bus drivers, and school crossing patrols. Most of these workers only get 16 hours work a week.

Any reduction in their hours means they will not be able to claim working families tax credits forcing many workers on to the unemployment lines while enabling the privatising of the these essential services.

Teachers and children will also suffer greatly with classroom numbers rising while the number of classroom assistants will fall. Special needs children will be forced in to mainstream education without the help of special care teachers. Services such as cross community programs to tackle sectarianism in Northern Ireland will be lost for ever, this year the five Boards will cut a total of £33 million on items such as maintenance, transport and catering.

These unfair and unjust cuts on our already stretched education services will result in the total collapse of our education system, all because Tony Blair would rather bring our standard of education down to that of England rather than spend the money needed to raise the English standard up to ours.

He has been able to find £70 million for loyalist paramilitaries and wasted hundreds of millions on the discredited Stormount Assembly and yet he not find the money needed for our children's education.

The four main trade unions operating in the education system – T&G, GMB, NIPSA, and UNISON – have been left with no choice other than ballot their members for industrial action and are scheduling a one-day strike on Friday 13 May.

All parents should be persuading education workers in their childrens' school to vote positively for industrial action. This strike is not about wages or terms and conditions as elements of the media have portrayed it. It is about your childs future education and the privatisation of school services which will most likely lead to all school having to change tuition fees of at least £300 per year per child.

The Northern Ireland public need to know the truth about the dire straights the education system is in. To date, 32 Councillors have resigned from the education boards in protest at the reductions. If the chief executives of the five boards are really concerned with our children's future education, they too should resign. The political parties must do better than just blame the boards. Sole responsibility rests with Tony Blair and his minister Barry Gardner.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions is right to call on all education workers, political parties, Church leaders, parents and students organise locally and join the education workers on to the streets of every city, town, and village of Northern Ireland on 13 May, to stand hand in hand and join the fight to defend our children's future education.

I remember when snatcher Thatcher took the children's milk. Tony Blair and New Labour want to take their future. The first meeting of the campaign group defending our children's future education is planned for 11 May in Transport House 102, High St, Belfast.

Sean Smyth

Belfast

In response to Michael Pidgeons letter "A woman of courage and conviction", claims have been made that Mary Harney has been over-criticised.

But the question must be asked, why there is a PD-bashing bandwagon in the first place? The recent criticism of the Tánaiste in relation to the nursing home charges was not fabricated to fill the papers on a slow news day. Mary Harney knew what she was getting herself into when she chose what has been referred to as the "politically suicidal department" and must now ride it out, taking the bad times with the good.

The National Council on Ageing and Older People was set up to advise the Government on issues and legislation that relate to older people. When Mary Harney freely admitted that she had not and would not consult with this council on the recent issue in the spotlight of nursing charges, it became evident that she had resigned herself to adopting the "Hear no evil" approach.

It is true that, throughout the years Mary Harney has done many things for this country but, as they say, you must take the bad with the good. Just because she has actually done good things, this does not mean she should be elevated to a higher, untouchable position where she cannot become subject to the criticism of the public.

Martin Maps

Blackrock, Co Dublin

The re-opening of Bewley's hopefully won't revive the television reminiscences of those with middle class aspirations, who bleated and shed all those handy camera-friendly tears when it closed.

For decades it appears it was only wannabe geniuses who sat around that caff all day spending nothing and just taking up room as they lied to each other of great books they were going to write, or boasting of paintings that never got past the imagination stage. We've heard from some these last few months as they lined up to tell us how 'poor' they were, way back when they were struggling young artists and writers, but waited patiently in the oasis that was Bewley's for the inspiration that was going to make them household names.

How many of them ever really did a day's work while they waited for the great breakthrough is not very clear. Perhaps they did the odd bit, but indeed preferred to tell us of the starving-in-a-garret routine. Very impressive.

How many of the new generation who've taken up the 'road to fame' torch are now putting pen to paper or bought an easel recently, but are also in that land of make-believe where they think talent is there for the taking as long as one rubs shoulders with others who whinge about university tuition fees in the right environment? Are we to now suffer another century of Bewley boys and girls who'll have a mint spent on their education and will end up on a daily basis sharing the odd cuppa and dressed in trendy lefty clobber from the charity shop, all the while name-dropping and wishing their lives away as they wait for that hefty inheritance from aunty Maud?

"Move along there now,folks – there's nothing to see here... all the tables are only for paying customers this time around,"should be the policy of the new management.

Robert O'Sullivan,

Bantry, Co Cork