Letters

Timothy Garton Ash (February) is surely right when he argues for a European identity built on a narrative of what has been achieved in the EU over 50 years, and his combination of this story with a critique of shortcomings is bracingly honest. But as he admits, six abstract nouns—freedom, peace and so on—will hardly catalyse identity or command a deeper loyalty. Clearly, there are shared or overlapping cultural identities in some areas, such as literature and architecture. Why can't the continuities from Plato, Dante and TS Eliot be stressed, or the commonalities that underlie Rome, Palladio, Le Corbusier and, say, Rem Koolhaas? Culture often commands more loyalty and respect than politics, and there are patterns here which attract more than tourism. Religion and spirituality might also be added to the agenda, even if they should include post-Christianity and atheism—two very western traditions. The inability of the EU to face up to its European cultural background is one of its great deficits. Until it does so, it will not inspire deeper commitment.

Charles Jencks
London W11

Europe's true stories 2
3rd February 2007

Garton Ash promiscuously litters his essay with the patronising and superficially all-embracing "we" and "our": his Europe is always, graciously, "our" Europe"; his interests are "our interests"; he needs a new narrative, so "we urgently need a new narrative." Are we not permitted to think for ourselves and have our own visions of Europe? It is exactly this kind of indolent, condescending de haut en bas thinking that causes so much resentment of the European project in the first place; it is more reminiscent of Europe's ancien régime than of Garton Ash's dewy-eyed modern, democratic Europe.

He then expects us obligingly to ignore the references he makes to Europe's troubled past and present and automatically to share in his Panglossian perspective of pan-European progression. Garton Ash is not looking for "our new European story"; he is pursuing his own, personal fairytale.

Sean McGlynn
Bradford on Avon

Ivan Illich's fury
19th January 2007

Charles Leadbeater tells us (January) that Ivan Illich was an "iconoclastic former Catholic priest and visionary," "a critic" and a "darling of the left." This tells us something of the man, but a deeper reading of his works (rather than his biography) reveals what Leadbeater has missed—Illich's raw anger, his sustained fury at the scale and persistence of injustice. Read Deschooling Society or Tools for Conviviality, and it becomes quite understandable that this is a man who would walk "several thousand miles" to set up a think tank in Mexico.

The reason this matters is because in Leadbeater's sanitised representation—a nicely packaged Illich-lite, ready-prepared by the kindly guru for use in our comfortable 21st-century planning seminars—Illich's "genius" is stripped of the fury that propelled him. Without that fury, the power of Illich's thought is emasculated. Reading Leadbeater's article felt to me like seeing a tiger in a zoo.

David Fell
London W6

The drama that never was
12th February 2007

We can reassure you that the decision not to go into production with a proposed London bombings drama last year ("News & Curiosities," February) had nothing whatever to do with supposed fears of "Muslim protesters outside White City." This was a project that had been commissioned to development stage only, and although it had produced a well-crafted script, we took the view that the timing was not right, as the channel had a number of other projects about to transmit on related subjects—not least our July 2006 dramatised documentary Britain's First Suicide Bombers, evidence in itself that we have no fear of tackling this challenging theme.

Television dramas are expensive to invest in, and it is common—and good—practice to develop a number of projects before committing to anything. This was the case for both the 7/7 bombing drama and the Jean Charles de Menezes drama you also mention: most producers accept that this is the reality of working in the world of drama.

Roly Keating and Jane Tranter
BBC

Canada's comeback
21st January 2007

Here is one Canadian who isn't cheering "Canada's comeback" (January). The course being steered by the minority Stephen Harper government in both foreign and domestic policy is divisive and hypocritical. At home, Harper has fanned the flame of Quebec nationalism in order to secure some Quebec seats in the next election. Anything which gives one province status as a nation necessarily diminishes Canada as a whole. And Harper's new militarism—which attempts to turn a "support our troops" sentiment into licence for a more aggressive military posture—is clearly rejected in opinion polls. Canada is in Afghanistan to promote peace and reconstruction, not to conquer Kandahar. Canada is not nationalistic, it is not militaristic, it is not American. Canada is peace-loving, respectful to others, and secure in its place in the world.

Myles Leach
Ontario, Canada


Neuroses and psychoses
5th February 2007

We are pleased that Prospect and Robert Drummond (February) are attempting to explain to a general readership some of the complex clinical, social and ethical issues relating to mental health problems. Perhaps it is inevitable that such an endeavour will lead to oversimplifications and a tendency to lapse into journalistic shorthand.

Drummond states that a neurotic person forms pathological relationships and that a psychotic person can't form any. People are not entirely encapsulated by a psychiatric diagnosis. A tendency to form pathological relationships is not part of the diagnostic criteria for any so-called "neurotic disorder." Around 20 per cent of the population will suffer from such a disorder at some point in their lives. People with agoraphobia, social phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder and the like form all sorts of relationships, because they are just like you and us.

The statement that a psychotic person can't form any relationships is deeply misleading. This could be taken to imply that one need not bother to try to establish any sort of relationship with people suffering from psychosis. Between us, we have nearly 50 years of experience as psychiatrists. We have assessed and treated hundreds of people with psychotic illnesses. They all have relationships; as work colleagues, partners, siblings, parents, friends and so on. Some might be isolated and have few relationships, but one of the reasons for this is the stigma attached to being mentally ill.

R Higgo and R Poole
Manchester

Slow journalism
26th January 2007

Susan Greenberg (February) misses entirely the reasons for the lack of serious non-fiction journalism and literature in Britain. The documentary evidence needed to write a true story requires access to official records, most of which were off-limits to the British public until the Freedom of Information Act came into force in 2005. Truman Capote could never have written In Cold Blood in Britain. Our patronising contempt of court law prohibits the kind of interviews he conducted. Not only that: court and police incident reports, witness statements, coroner reports and jail booking logs are all off-limits. Even interviewing a prisoner in jail is fraught with obstacles—a situation quite different from the US, where all that is generally needed is the prisoner's consent. Even when British writers do manage to obtain a prison interview, they must effectively sign away their rights to publish the information.

Then there are the costs. Public bodies often charge the public usurious rates to access information paid for with their taxes. When Michael Crick wrote his biography of Jeffrey Archer, he had to pay £1,000 for a court transcript. Few writers have access to such budgets.

Finally, if one overcomes all these difficulties, there is still a most pernicious libel law to deal with. Greenberg points to Orwell, but he and his publishers spent a good deal of their time worrying about libel, and indeed some of his books were nearly quashed because of it.

Until we have stronger rights to official documents and reformed laws for libel and contempt of court, Britain will continue to lag behind America in its output of quality narrative non-fiction and journalism.

Heather Brooke
London W11

Google vs Gutenberg
24th January 2007

Jonathan Rée (February) compared the "exact photographic images" of Google Book Search favourably with the "questionable text" and "plain typefaces" of Project Gutenberg. But for those of us who love books for their content without concern for their form, the small size of a Project Gutenberg eBook—thousands of which can be contained on a memory stick—is preferable to Google's huge graphical files.

Moreover, Google does not allow full texts to be downloaded. With Project Gutenberg, you can often download complete eBooks with a single click.

Utility will always win out over leather bindings and gold leaf lettering. "Bookness" resides in the words, not in the paper and binding.

Michael Hart
Founder, Project Gutenberg

Meaning of the iPhone
3rd February 2007

John Browning's piece about the iPhone (Prospect Online, February) missed the point—the importance of the iPhone is its functionality. Apple has demonstrated strengths in usability which will likely make the iPhone a success.

Given that the phone market lacks an entrenched player, we may find that Apple is able to exercise enormous influence through the iPhone. As Browning points out, it represents real convergence. It is likely to combine a user-friendly phone, an excellent video device and a passable web browser.

The iPhone will also take power from mobile networks and return it to phone-makers—Nokia and Motorola may hope the iPhone does well for exactly this reason.

Brian Mulholland
Richmond