24th April 2006
Cultural tourist (May) states that the first six novels to be published by Macmillan New Writing have received "no attention, reviews or bookshop space." This is nonsense. In fact, the books have received a level of attention seldom enjoyed by debut novels: substantial reviews and reports have appeared in the Guardian, the Times, the Independent, the Spectator, the New Statesman and the Scotsman. Moreover, the book trade has responded with enthusiasm: many thousands of copies are on display around the country, and Waterstone's is including two of the titles in its "three for two" promotion.
Will Atkins
Macmillan New Writing
Torturers as recruiters
24th April 2006
Michael Ignatieff (April) mentions two arguments against torture—that it is morally shaming to a democracy, and that it is not an effective tool for information-gathering. But there is another good reason to ban it. In the modern "war on terror," the use of torture may backfire. Consider the Abu Ghraib scandal. The pictures of humiliation and abuse were about the most effective recruiting tools the Iraqi insurgents could have hoped for. We regularly see how support for terrorist groups grows within their own communities when the enemy is seen to be committing human rights abuses. The maltreatment and torture of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails has helped rally support for Islamic Jihad, Hamas and other groups in the West Bank and Gaza. More community support means more resources, more recruits, and more attacks.
Michael Bond
London SW3
Sociology of science
11th May 2006
It's a pity that AS Byatt (May) agrees with Lewis Wolpert that the sociology of science is "unhelpful." Not all sociologists seek to relativise science as just another practice undertaken by a group of people with a particular worldview among other equally valid worldviews. Anthony Giddens has written that we should resist the "hegemonic claims to universality" of the two major competing philosophic traditions: positivism, the logical form of the natural sciences; and hermeneutics, or interpretation, as they relate to human conduct. Pierre Bourdieu was also concerned to make sociology more scientific, and to make scientists more aware of what they take for granted. Without doing so, we run the risk of claiming to be scientifically rigorous about everything except science and scientists. Moreover, human phenomena like faith are not just natural phenomena we can observe as if we are in some way disconnected from it. As Giddens says, the social world is constituted by the doings of active subjects.
Chris Mowles
Red Kite Partners Ltd, Oxford
University teaching
8th May 2006
Joseph Palley (Letters, May) argues that new lecturers should be qualified specialist teachers and that lecturing should be made a separate career track to research. I couldn't agree more. My own experience as a student both in England and abroad has made it clear that distinguished scientists can be hopeless teachers. My best tutors and lecturers have, with few exceptions, transferred from teaching posts in secondary school. In the face of ever increasing demands for departments to boost scientific output (see News and Curiosities, May), universities should expand their range of positions to include full-time scientists and full-time teachers. This will remove a thorn in the flesh from pedagogically hopeless researchers and uncomprehending students alike, and allow academic staff to specialise in what they do best and enjoy the most—for the benefit of all.
Karsten Konradsen
Rotherham
Mill the rightist
2nd May 2006
Mill was always a man "of the left" says Richard Reeves (May). But Mill's libertarian vision is hardly consistent with the centralism and controls that the left regard as crucial to achieving their own vision of society. In chapter five of On Liberty, for instance, Mill specifically argues that if roads, railways, universities and other enterprises became mere branches of government, and if local government too were subjugated to the central administration, then "not all the freedom of the press and popular constitution of the legislature would make this or any other country free otherwise than in name." Unfortunately, this has already happened, and it is governments of the left that have driven it.
Eamonn Butler
Adam Smith Institute
Marmite migraine
21st April 2006
Alex Renton (May) talks about monosodium glutamate (MSG) with all the authority of a husband extolling the pleasures of pregnancy while his wife suffers morning sickness—he doesn't know what he is talking about. Some ten per cent of the population show dose-related effects from the consumption of MSG. This is not surprising, as the MSG molecule is a powerful nerve-ending message transmitter. My own response is a 12-18 hour migraine which can be so bad that I cannot lift myself off a bed.
Since recognising this source of migraine, I cannot eat out without nervousness, I avoid Germany and Switzerland, where MSG is used in almost all cooking—even mashed potatoes!—and I never eat prepared frozen foods without reading the labels very carefully. But even then I still get caught out. Two weeks ago, I ate in a Chinese restaurant where they said they could provide the meal without MSG; they couldn't. A great pity, as I love Chinese food.
SA Goulden
Assisi
What about the fathers?
4th May 2006
Reading Alison Wolf on the balance between working life and motherhood (April), then the subsequent letters (May), leaves me with a question: where are the fathers of these children? We need a society that allows ambitious men to express their ambition in their most important role, as fathers. We need a society where paternity leave is as normal and accepted as maternity leave, and where employers and society at large agree that a well-functioning society needs well-functioning families. We all know that children require care, love and devotion to grow up as happy, well-adjusted individuals, and that this is what society will need. We have to pay a price for that, and that is to allow working parents to be both working and parents. When their children are ill, they should not be scowled at for taking a day off work. Is this really too costly? Sweden has had working fathers for at least 20 years. Unlike Norway, it has little oil money to draw on, but it still manages to give parents the opportunity to combine work and raising children in a manageable way. Here in Norway, we are also way ahead of many European countries. The result is higher birth rates and less inequality between and within genders.
Equality is also about teaching women to let go of their superiority in parenting. A good start is to earmark a portion of the paid leave after a childbirth to the father. He takes it or it disappears. Then the return to work for mothers is softened by the fact that the child is at home with the father, and the father's competence as a childminder can no longer be questioned. This is a triple win situation: the children win a competent father, the father becomes a true parent and not just a distant breadwinner, and the mother does not need to work as hard at home.
Aase Tveito
Tromsø, Norway
Breaking up Iraq? 1
21st April 2006
While I enjoyed Gareth Stansfield's article (May) regarding the debate in Iraq on federalism vs centralisation, I am surprised he did not mention Iraq's indigenous Assyrians and how they would be affected by a split, with Assyrian lands going to the Kurds. Contrary to popular belief, the Kurds are not a secular people and there is evidence to suggest that they are determined to destroy the ethnic identity of the Assyrians. Complete autonomy will give them full licence to do so.
Waleeta Canon
George Washington University
Breaking up Iraq? 2
11th May 2006
Gareth Stansfield (May) points up the forces pulling towards a breakup of Iraq. As an Iraqi, I feel that this view, widely promoted by the Kurds, ignores the fact that Iraq has for more than 80 years been the centre of pan-Arab movements and a symbol of Arabism. Generations of Iraqis have been brought up on this ideology. This is not confined to Sunni areas; as a Shia, I can affirm that it is rooted in the Shia community as well.
A Kurdish state in the north of Iraq, whether independent or loosely attached to a central authority in Baghdad, will create enormous tensions in the region. Iran, Turkey, Syria and Armenia have about 21m Kurds living among them, but they are deprived peoples who enjoy few rights: a separate Kurdistan in Iraq will encourage them to assert their identity. This development would be very unwelcome to those states. Only two factors currently hinder Turkey from militarily intervening in Iraq to stem the activities of the PKK and to signal to its own indigenous Kurdish population that it will not tolerate any secessionist movement. The first is Turkey's desire to join the EU, and the second is the American promise to Turkey that Kurds in Iraq will only be permitted autonomy within Iraq and not full independence.
The Kurdish leadership, however, has clear ambitions to create an independent state including all of north-eastern Iraq as well as parts of Mosul. It is plain that any viable Kurdish state will also require the resources of oil-rich Kirkuk city. Turks, however, view Kirkuk as a red line—not only because it is the homeland of Iraqi Turkmen but because they would not wish it to become the financial cornerstone to any project of a wider Kurdish state. During my last visit to Zakho, the Iraqi town situated at the frontier of Iraq and Turkey, I saw Turkish tanks and armoured vehicles roaming the town. Turkey is ready at any moment to intervene to prevent the emergence of an independent state.
The only solution is a unified Iraq. This must come about by the withdrawal of coalition forces. We Iraqis must be left to decide our own future—whether by opting for rule by a military strongman, or by the testing of political strength in a civil war. Iraq will inevitably become an arena of regional conflicts. Saudi Arabia and Jordan will try to defend the Sunni constituency, Turkey the Turkmen, and Iran the Shia in the south.
Abbas al-Janabi
Conflicts Forum
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