Cuba must beware the US
The prospect of Cuba losing its unique identity is one that engenders some disquiet (Who profits as Cuba opens up? 18 March). A socialist society that has been callously isolated by the US for over half a century, Cuba has also had to endure its good friend, Russia, turning its back after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
For all its defects Cuba has striven to distribute its wealth, and basic services such as education and healthcare, as equitably as possible. This is in rather sharp contrast to the despoilment of our capitalist economies as a result of elitist governments and their perverse and unpunished allies in the financial sector. Which system is preferable? And which is more likely to be sustainable into the future?
Raúl Castro does not need advice to know that he must proceed with extreme caution as the wolves circle, envisioning another succulent meal.
Brian Sims
Bedford, UK
• President Barack Obama’s remarks about human rights to President Castro are best appreciated in the context of the US’s longest-running vacation camp on the island, where visitors get to wear orange jump suits and funky metal jewellery while listening to rock music. So select are the premises that not even top-ranking US citizens are seen residing there.
Peter Scott
Elora, Ontario, Canada
Battle of the generations
The piece on Generation Y was a fascinating political commentary on the plight of younger people (11 March). It alludes to an issue that seems to be voiced more often these days: the generation war. This intergenerational issue has been manufactured to obscure the real underlying issues. The young are being dispossessed not by the old but by failed economics, the greed of large corporations and the desperate need for contributions for the coffers of political parties.
In western developed countries we have exported jobs which our young could undertake to lower-cost economies, thereby creating unemployment and low wages. As a result we have imported low-cost goods that the unemployed can’t afford and an insidious sinking wage norm that affects buying power.
At the same time governments are fighting their way to the bottom on tax rates while paying lip service to dealing with massive tax avoidance by multinationals. Minimum wages will not pay rent and feed a growing family, and zero-hour contracts maximise profits at the same time as minimising wage incomes.
So political parties prostitute themselves to the rich and powerful and economists still advise governments based on failed theories. It is time we started addressing the real issues created by the unfettered capitalism and greed of Reaganomics, Thatcherism and, in New Zealand, Rogernomics. The poverty of the young is not the fault of the old.
Keith Edwards
Omokoroa, New Zealand
• The Guardian’s report on Generation Y makes sober reading, especially to parents with children of this group.
There has to be something fundamentally flawed about the way western society is moving; technology is creating many new jobs, but is probably destroying more old ones, and at the same time western societies are encouraging people to work longer before they can retire, thus making it even harder for young people to move into the labour market. Or they are offered the opportunity to work for little or no money with internship schemes and zero-hour contracts.
So we find ourselves with millions of young people who need to work but can’t, and millions of older people who would love to stop working but can’t either. Something does not make sense.
Ian Alexander
Madrid, Spain
A diatribe against maths
Journalists must write about many subjects but the danger of not knowing what you are talking about is that you don’t know when to stop. Which brings us to Simon Jenkins’s absurd diatribe against maths (18 March).
Has he never travelled by car or aeroplane, neither of which would exist in their current form without applied mathematics? Has he never studied a bridge and wondered why it looks the way it does or how the designer knew it would stay up when a train went over it? The choice between alternative designs and the details of the chosen alternative are based on mathematical models.
Engineering is literally impossible without maths, yet it is a profession that appears in neither Jenkins’s article nor, apparently, his world view.
Pure mathematicians may seem to be going off in useless esoteric directions, but the same was said in the 19th century about those developing non-Euclidean geometry, only for Einstein to find that it was just what he needed to describe reality in his general theory of relativity. The same can be said of matrices, Heisenberg and quantum mechanics.
Graham Andrews
Spokane, Washington, US
• Harsh words about maths by Simon Jenkins, but could it be that people find the subject irrelevant for life because they don’t know the right kind of maths or any kind of maths? It is of course nonsense to say that GH Hardy accepted that “higher maths was without practical application”; he was talking about his own work and he disliked any kind of mathematical applications, especially the military ones.
Maths is a unique subject, in that it consists mostly of theorems and their proofs. Mathematicians work mainly with proven facts, not opinions you can argue about.
The subject instils a respect for logic, precision and quantitative reasoning, which are sometimes lacking in the work of the social sciences. While China is at present only at the top of the maths league table they may well be at the top of the patent league table in the not-too-distant future.
Max Planitz
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
• I take it, then, that Simon Jenkins was no good at maths when he was at school.
Malcolm Faddy
Maleny, Queensland, Australia
• I am sorry for Simon Jenkins. His comments imply that he is incapable of enjoying Maslanka’s puzzles.
Jan B Deregowski
Aberdeen, UK
The possession of art
In his article about art and billionaires (4 March), Philip Kennicott is echoing the German sociologist Max Weber who, in his Collected Methodological Writings, once wrote: “Is the kingdom of arts not a kingdom of diabolic splendours, a kingdom of this world and for that reason, in its most deep sense, opposed to the divine, as a result of its aristocratic spirit opposed to brotherhood?” I wonder if artists make themselves accomplices in this diabolic enterprise. Not the likes of Van Gogh, of course, but the colossal financial success of some contemporary businessman-like artists makes me believe that indeed some are.
Jean-Marie Gillis
Wezembeek-Oppem, Belgium
Briefly
• The Archbishop of Canterbury graciously calls on the UK to “take its share of the load” of immigrants and refugees (18 March). Happily, here in Canada, we regard our newcomers as a welcome opportunity, not as a “load”.
David Josephy
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
• One cannot but admire the laconic chutzpah of the abstract forerunner Hilma af Klint for “not having defined her paintings as art,” with no self-branding whatsoever – nonchalantly titling her most important group of canvases The Ten Largest (18 March). As if she were but the medium of her brushes, just as of the platen in her seances.
R M Fransson
Wheat Ridge, Colorado, US
• I was mightily amused by Mike McKillen’s outrage at his granddaughter’s remark: “God made this worm!” (26 February). How could he think this indoctrination? I fear that wherever his grandchild goes to school, she will receive the same information regarding worms.
Mary O’Mahony
Crosshaven, Ireland
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