We should start talking about what we want to be
About Brexit, Fintan O’Toole is characteristically apt (25 January). The “fog of fantasies” and dysfunctional “democracy” can be found elsewhere as well, all the more in those whose embrace of neoliberalism has been pervasive, as in the US and, to a lesser degree, in Australia.
As in Britain, the US and Australia bear historical baggage: in the former, bullshit and money; in the latter, dislocation and vacancy. Conservative US Democrats cling to a belief that a Trump vote was an endorsement of Trump per se; the Australian Labor party reads the entrails of polls and concludes that punters are racist/nationalist, and so they must be too.
The real elephant in the room, climate change, has gone missing.
O’Toole’s powerful conclusion, to “end the mad race for a meaningless prize and start talking about who you want to be”, is spot-on. Oddly, only in the US is there evidence that this is a real possibility with the extraordinary young talent elected in the midterms.
Felix Prael
San Diego, California, US
Why don’t we let citizens sponsor refugees?
Millions of people are on the move; with burgeoning population growth, the future will see even more such migration. Recipient countries are alarmed at the prospect and there is a general hardening of attitudes towards such incursion.
Your Spotlight report, ‘I don’t understand why they threw us on the street’ (1 February) illustrated this dilemma, but also contained the seeds of its resolution. The Italian reception centre was closed down, but plenty of sympathetic Italian citizens were prepared to take in the migrants. Would it not be the sensible thing to admit any migrants who had received a commitment to such support, thereby providing a framework in which the citizens themselves would determine which migrants would be admitted?
Sponsorship has always been a component of immigration programmes. All it requires is the expansion of this practice to all types of immigration, including refugees. This would also allay the fears of those who object to being compelled to support uninvited migrants, and would thereby reduce this source of opposition to immigration. Most people are not racist, but do fear the effects of uncontrolled immigration on their living standards.
David Barker
Bunbury, Western Australia
Listen to all sides, and then make your decision
Everyone is biased, even you, by Nic Fleming (25 January) is food for thought in these divisive times. Fleming quotes a neuroscientist who says that, alarmingly, “Social media seems to be amplifying existing divisions [read: biases] and probably making them worse.”
Added to the old alternatives liberal and conservative, yet parading under their respective banners, there is renewed emphasis on centrism, which is considered capable of also nurturing biases. All this brings to mind a clear-headed line of advice from Walt Whitman, that “You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.”
Richard Orlando
Westmount, Quebec, Canada
How did the US make contact with Guaidó?
A weakness of the article by Julian Borger about US support for Venezuela’s self-declared president Juan Guaidó (1 February) is that it neither says which measures the US took to establish communications with Guaidó, nor that one couldn’t find these out. It is difficult to believe such contacts did not take place.
Christopher Mailänder
Gschwend, Germany
Doing the same thing and expecting different result
Susie Orbach quotes the Brexit slogan “Tell them again!” (1 February). A more sophisticated version of this is to cite a second referendum as conforming to Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and expecting a different result. This assumes that voters have the reasoning capacity of a lump of magnesium.
George Schlesinger
Durham, UK
Maybe China can help Japan with missing island
Islands are going underwater (Eyewitness, 8 February). I heard Japan lost one recently. I wonder if China could use its expertise in island building to help?
S W Davey
Torrens, ACT, Australia
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