Dr Myriam François (Making this about British values will stigmatise Muslims, 5 June) trots out the familiar line that UK military involvement in the Middle East prompts “violent blowback on home soil”. Quoting Islamic State on Britain’s “transgressions against the lands of the Muslims”, she attributes “tangible goals” to this movement. But this is to ignore the decades-long contest between Sunni and Shia Muslims for dominance within some nation states and within the region as a whole. It would be reasonable to ask “the lands of which Muslims?” when yet another massacre of parents and children takes place in, say, an Iraqi market. There may well be an argument for outside parties to withdraw and leave the different sects to it – concentrating on blocking arms supplies would certainly be more useful. Undoubtedly, western intervention hitherto has facilitated the exponential expansion of these conflicts; and what are probably emotionally disturbed and/or socially disadvantaged individuals in this country have been manipulated into believing and acting on Isis’s simplistic and mendacious narrative. Academics and others should be wary of endorsing it.
Dr Anne Summers
Birkbeck, University of London
• Myriam Francois is quite wrong to mock the idea that art and culture convey values (“What’s the reasoning, exactly? If only these men had read a little more Jane Austen, they couldn’t possibly have considered the prospect of mass murder?”). Indeed, Plato and Aristotle thought they did. Arousing pity and fear – through the likes of a genius like Jane Austen – is emotionally, psychologically and ethically beneficial to us all. If the men who carried out the Manchester and London atrocities had experienced more of it, they might have thought twice before they carried out mass murder. “British” values are indeed superior to those of many other countries, which is why so many people with a wide variety of faiths and beliefs, including millions of Muslims, have chosen this country and are proud to call themselves British.
Alan Newland
London
• In the name of (a version of) Islam, terrorists maim and murder hundreds of innocent people in Britain and France and thousands of innocent Muslims in the Middle East. In the name of profit, Britain supplies arms to Saudi Arabia that are used to maim and murder further thousands of innocent people in the Middle East. In the name of “good” relations, Britain supports Saudi and other repressive regimes which, through funding and Wahhabist ideology, help to encourage terrorism worldwide. In the name of strength, Theresa May is proud of her preparedness to use nuclear weapons to maim and murder millions of innocent people, deform the environment and adversely affect millions of future lives. In the name of peace, ought we not all to be voting for Jeremy Corbyn?
Peter Cave
London
• How can modern British politicians talk about unifying communities against Islamic terrorists while supporting the creation of separatist Islamic schools, or any faith-based schools? We are largely a secular society – our children should be taught about religious philosophies, but not subjected to them.
All religion is fundamentally anti-democratic; intrinsic are ideas of the saved and the damned, the believers and the heretics, the us and the them. Why should the vicar determine which children should go to a local school? We need a secular school system to help ensure that everyone is taught tolerance, fairness, and acceptance of another person’s private faith. Why isn’t this in anyone’s manifesto?
Neil Burgess
London
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