US must return Guantánamo
The US occupation of Cuba at the dawn of the last century was a combination of the Monroe doctrine of regional control and a desire to relieve the Spanish of the remnants of their empire. A condition of the US withdrawal (in 1902) was that the infamous Platt amendment be inserted in the Cuban constitution with a view to underpinning US hegemony in the island.
One result was the US base at Guantánamo Bay which is, shamefully, still in operation today. President Obama had promised to close the base as an illegal detention centre for untried victims of the “war on terror” – but the pugnacious refusal of the Republicans in Congress, among other factors, has meant that the base remains a dark stain on the US character.
With the potential, and long overdue, rapprochement between Cuba and the US (17 April), now must be the time to restore lost dignity to the Cuban people by returning this vestige of imperialist adventures and cold war tensions to its rightful owners. It is the least that Raúl Castro will require.
Brian Sims
Bedford, UK
Proportional representation
As the polls continue to predict, much like your own Andrew Rawnsley (24 April), it is incredibly unlikely any party will secure a majority in the British elections. Two times in a row we will see a government seeking cooperation from multiple parties to pass legislation: quite a feat for a political system designed to favour majorities.
For decades the country has been paralysed on the issue of electoral reform concerning the accurate representation of parties compared with their level of support. The devolved political bodies of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and London are the only areas of our democracy where a glimpse of enlightened politics can be seen.
With the two major parties enjoying the benefits of our majoritarian electoral system, it’s unlikely to see any movement for reform surfacing within them, support for proportional representation (PR) being ditched by Labour once its position was solidified as the primary opposition to the Conservatives.
Clearly the impetus for change must come from a smaller party, one that could reunite Labour with its reformist streak, or won’t back down from Conservative opposition.
Where would this reformist party be found? Every party likely to have representation in the next parliament, other than the Conservatives, Labour, UUP and DUP, supports PR. It has support across the political spectrum – from the Greens to Ukip.
A pessimistic estimate would see 70 pro-PR MPs returned after the election, more than the 57 the Liberal Democrats could muster in 2010. In addition to predictions that the big two parties would be in an even weaker position, there has never been a better time to push for PR.
David Wood
London, UK
The science of clean air
The spread of particulate and gaseous air pollution throughout east Asia from massive combustion of fossil fuels by industrialisation (Inertia as Kathmandu chokes beneath a blanket of pollution, 17 April) recalls my pre-war experience of acrid impenetrable fogs in Manchester and the 1952 Great London Smog, which killed 4,000 people in a single weekend and a further 12,000 over the subsequent four months.
Further UK smogs have been prevented by the Clean Air Act of 1956, which banned the burning of coal in open fires, although children living near main roads continue to suffer from frequent respiratory problems from diesel combustion.
Climate scientists focus less on particulate pollution, which adversely affect humans locally, than on the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on global warming and consequent climate change, which threaten the biosphere as a whole. They advocate the rapid development of clean renewable energy, although the chief economist of the International Energy Agency, Dr Fatih Birol, has declared that fossil fuel subsidies are “public enemy number one” for renewable energy.
Ammonia, manufactured locally from air, water and renewable energy, can be adapted to internal combustion engines and can drive steam turbines for electricity generation in remote areas such as Kathmandu, mitigating the twin problems of climate change and particulate pollution. The science is there, but not, so far, the political will. How long must we wait?
Bryan Furnass
Canberra, Australia
Not the first genocide
Your article (17 April) on the Armenian genocide quotes the Pope as saying that this was the first genocide of the 20th century. While this deserves commemoration, we should not overlook the earlier genocide in Namibia, then German South-West Africa, when the authorities there issued an order of extermination against the entire Herero nation of 80,000 people between 1904-1907. Around 65,000 Herero people were massacred.
Hermann Göring’s father, Heinrich, had been the first governor general of South-West Africa from 1885-1890. Hitler knew about the fate of the Herero as well as the Armenians, prompting him to pose the question, “Who now remembers the Armenians?” This is precisely why we need to commemorate these relatively recent acts of genocide and not let them get swept under the carpet to suit political expediency.
Peter D Jones
Lenah Valley, Tasmania, Australia
A problem of naming
In Very long non-stop flight (10 April), migrating blackpolls are described as leaving “Canada and North America”: a new wrinkle, and one more instance of the confusion caused by naming two large continents after the hardly deserving Amerigo Vespucci. Canada is in North America. So is the United States of America, the only country without its own proper name and the one that took “American” for its nationality. Many Europeans speak of “America” as containing Canada. And so it does, if North America is meant. But we are not Americans and have turned down several offers to be so.
Elizabeth Quance
Westmount, Quebec, Canada
Pleasure and philanthropy
No need to resort to magnetic resonance imaging applied to the brain: the link between pleasure and virtue has been known for a long time. No doubt it works with giving to charity too (17 April). The Stoics, Spinoza and Jean-Jacques Rousseau all have a quote stating that virtue is its own reward. And even Epicurus links virtue to pleasure. I don’t see why such a discovery would make the donor selfish: who said that virtue (or giving to charity, that is) should necessarily be painful? Being broke – because, like David Shariatmadari, “monthly donation” was inadvertently ticked – is another story.
Marc Jachym
Les Ulis, France
Briefly
• Surely it is irresponsible in the wealthy western world for a woman to produce 13 children. Even worse, to be producing four more at an age when a woman is no longer fertile (24 April). How can we get the message to the developing world that this kind of excess is one of the prime factors that threaten the survival of the human species when examples like this are in the news? The irony is that the woman’s children may stand no chance of surviving unless there are limits to the number of children being born.
N E Wigg
Linkfield, UK
• David Spiegelhalter’s Why one in 10 of us might be gay after all (17 April) isn’t really news. What is news is his revelation that the number of men and women in the UK who are willing to accept same-sex relationships as “not wrong at all” has more than doubled over the last 20 years.
Richard Orlando
Westmount, Quebec, Canada
• Thank you for your Hamilton wins in Shangai résumé (17 April), clearly putting Formula One racing where it belongs. Now might you perhaps start moving towards more gender equality on your sports pages?
Sally Miles
Bengeo, UK
• In your remarkable two-page photo of 1,700 Chinese students taking exams (17 April) I spotted only one holding the pen in the left hand. Normally about 10% of a population are left-handed; in China the figure is 1%. It seems left-handed children are made to use their right, perhaps a necessity as some characters in Chinese are more difficult to write with the left hand.
Norbert Hirschhorn
London, UK
Email letters for publication to weekly.letters@theguardian.com including a full postal address and a reference to the article. Submissions may be edited for publication
