Letters

David Trimble's objection to the British government's handling of the Northern Ireland peace process (June) is essentially that it did not take the side of the Ulster Unionist party (UUP). But the key to the British government's success was its policy of neutrality, which made the status of Northern Ireland a democratic question solely for its own people. Trimble complains that the British government was not hard enough on Sinn Féin, but republicans argue that the agreement was fudged to save Trimble and the UUP from the growing electoral strength of the "extremist" DUP. British neutrality was mirrored in Dublin; President May McAleese's husband was even sent to play golf with UDA "brigadiers." These things were necessary. As Jonathan Powell (May) put it, the Troubles were "a struggle between two traditions for recognition and influence." The agreement was a belated coming to terms with reality.

Sean Swan
Gonzaga University, Spokane

Ulster peace process 2
11th June 2008

David Trimble was a remarkable leader of the UUP, but I disagree with three of his criticisms of my book. The book was deliberately written from my diaries and contemporary government papers to avoid the trap of hindsight. David, in his comments, has fallen into that trap.

First, contrary to what David says, the Good Friday agreement was ambiguous on the issue of decommissioning. It had to be, because the gap between Sinn Féin and the UUP was too wide in 1998, and the only way to bridge it was through constructive ambiguity. The period from 1998 to 2003 therefore had to be dedicated to negotiations on decommissioning, rather than on implementation, as David knows because he participated.

Second, David thinks we should have been tougher on republicans in this period because he believes there was no prospect of the IRA going back to violence after Omagh. That was not the judgement of the British government at the time, on the basis of all the information that was available to us. We were not going to give in to the threat of violence, but we did not want to tip Northern Ireland back into the Troubles by miscalculating. And Adams and McGuinness could not deliver the IRA on anything they wanted, as David claims. The relationship was more complex. Tony Blair used to compare it to the relationship between a Labour cabinet and a Labour NEC.

Finally, there was no counterterrorist answer to the problem of Republican violence. The much-maligned British "securocrats" had concluded in the early 1980s that while they could contain violence at "an acceptable level," they could not extinguish the IRA militarily. As Hugh Orde, head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, has recently pointed out, there is nowhere in the world you can "police out" a terrorist movement. In the end you have to find a way of addressing it politically, once both sides recognise they cannot win by military means.

Jonathan Powell
London W6

A gay lifeline
29th May 2008

Elizabeth Pisani (June) makes an association between gaydar.co.uk, unsafe sex and the number of HIV-positive foreign men in Britain. We would like to make it clear that our website neither condones nor promotes unprotected sex or activities such as drug abuse. We work closely with agencies such as the National Aids Trust and Terrence Higgins Trust to advise our users of the importance of safer sex. Counsellors are on hand in our internet chatrooms to provide confidential advice about sexual health.

Of course gaydar.co.uk has revolutionised the way gay men date and socialise, but it's important to remember that for thousands of isolated individuals living in countries where homosexuality remains illegal or homophobia highly prevalent, Gaydar is an invaluable lifeline.

David Muniz
Gaydar.co.uk

Liberalise or die 1
21st January 2008

Philip Collins and Richard Reeves's article (June) exemplifies the very "poisoned well" it is purporting to criticise. Taxing "bads" creates two insuperable contradictions: it makes public finance for "goods" dependent on private vices, but, worse than that, it allows the state to define "bads," taking the real power of moral decision away from the citizen.

Michael Kowalewski
Melbury Osmond, Dorset

Liberalise or die 2
6th June 2008

It is disappointing that Collins and Reeves are so willing to see Labour throw in the democratic socialist towel. While there is a beguiling viability to the new liberal argument they espouse, it is not the only option for progressive politics.

The Labour government may have overcentralised public services, but the remedy need not lie in radical decentralisation. Rather, it is to better manage the provision of services so that they are more responsive to the needs of people, even where individuals will not be aware of what their needs actually are. One does not need to be a rabid paternalist to believe that professional expertise has a strong role to play in delivering quality public service. Rather than the atomised individual markets which Collins and Reeves want, orchestrating collective care is surely the best way to protect the most vulnerable in our society which is, after all, the historic aim of the Labour movement.

Richard Mollet
Chiddingfold, Surrey

NGOs in Afghanistan
15th June 2008

The cover line you used to describe my article (June) was misleading and incorrect. I would like to clarify that "How NGOs screwed up Afghanistan" were your words, not mine. My article made it clear that there is much to be said for the work of NGOs in Afghanistan and in general. The problem is a broader one, lying in the way that donors and the international community allocate funding to a complex of organisations—UN agencies, private contractors and NGOs—that set up parallel organisations that can undermine the state, rather than reinforce it. The challenge is to find the right frameworks to balance the activities of state, market and civil society in post-conflict conditions such as Afghanistan.

Clare Lockhart
Institute for State Effectiveness

Racial wrongs
17th June 2008

In his review of my book (June), Mark Pagel suggests that casual observations about racial differences "collide" with my "insistence" that race "is nothing more than a social construct." Those very observations are at the heart of the book, which demonstrates at length how "it is possible—in fact quite easy—to distinguish genetically between races."

Far from claiming, as Pagel suggests, that "unless 'race' corresponds to absolute boundaries, it is a useless and damaging concept," my book is a polemic against that very argument. I defend James Watson's right to have made his controversial comments about race last year and criticise the Science Museum for gagging him. I point out that "it makes little sense to… ban the use of racial or ethnic categories in research."

However, I also argue that races are not natural divisions of humankind, but social categories that have biological consequences. Mark Pagel undoubtedly disagrees with this, but it's a pity he didn't disagree with my actual arguments, rather than some invented ones I do not hold.

Kenan Malik
London SE3

For the machines 1
4th June 2008

Tom Chatfield's cover story on video games (June) intriguingly discusses the power of the escapism they offer—something that surely has plus points as well as negatives. It's a sad indictment of society that many children seem to give up on themselves at a young age—some may accept, or be told to accept, that they won't "make it" in life. For such people, gaming represents an opportunity to experience the kind of lifestyles, culture and travel not otherwise available. This point is often overlooked. Gaming breaks down typical academic and workplace barriers, allowing people to achieve in ways not possible in their ordinary lives.

Paul Wragg
University of Birmingham

For the machines 2
5th June 2008

Tom Chatfield's article was refreshing. However, he missed a strand in the controversy. Games can be extraordinarily efficient teachers. Players must learn rules and approved strategies in order to progress, and failure to learn is penalised. It seems plausible, therefore, that games can teach people values and assumptions about common sense. This is hugely important because games may well become the dominant entertainment medium.

Colum McCaffery
Lucan, Ireland

Macho '68
1st June 2008

John Gretton (Letters, June) quotes Anthony Giddens (May) as saying that feminism was the "main thing that survived 1968." But Giddens also wrote that, "It [a more embracing kind of feminism] was an offshoot of 1968 rather than part of it." This is closer to the truth. At the time, I was amazed and shocked by the macho attitudes among France's '68 "revolutionaries." Several cartoons and posters were produced associating revolutionary fervour with male sexual performance, such as a poster showing a naked girl having an orgasm with the slogan "Le Mouvement du 22 mars vive encore," or the slightly earlier situationist cartoon of a scantily dressed girl with the speech bubble, "Je ne connais rien de mieux que de coucher avec un mineur asturien—voila des hommes!" ("I know nothing better than sleeping with a miner from the Asturias—they really are men!")

S Hayes
Shaftesbury

Being polite in China
29th May 2008

Mark Kitto (April) sheds light on how many Chinese people think about important life decisions. I have been teaching at Chinese universities for several years, and my students behave very similarly to Xiao Zhou in Kitto's article, who turned down a good job for fear of leaving her employer in the lurch. One of my very wealthy Chinese friends has gone so far as not to buy a car, despite wanting one, because his boss cannot afford one. So many personal opportunities like these are missed to preserve social harmony.

Arthur Laing
Xi'an, China