Refugee crisis: for whom?
The Guardian Weekly has been exemplary in reporting on the refugee crisis (15 April). But does that mean that it is the refugees who have caused the crisis? Or is it a European crisis? Or hands up who has not muddied the waters in this crisis?
I have a simple equation for working out which countries should take the refugees. Take the number of refugees – say roughly 4 million – and divide it by the number of countries who have bombed Syria; supplied arms to the regime, rebels or Isis; harboured any of the protagonists; or allowed other countries’ military to operate in their territory.
Let’s say 20 countries are involved. That’s 200,000 refugees each. If the refugees are genuinely horrified by being sent to any of those countries, then such countries should simply foot the bill for their sanctuary in another country. This would be a huge relief for Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, who between them have around 2 million refugees.
What about independent arms suppliers? I am pretty sure that most refugees would not want to live with them, so how about they foot the bill for refugees in the poorest countries – one supplier per country. What a great deterrent this could be.
Gaynor McGrath
Armidale, NSW, Australia
• I note that UN officials and representatives of organisations such as Amnesty International are quick to declare that the EU plan to return “refugees” to Turkey “could be” illegal (8 April). It is also the case that these opinions could be nonsense.
A refugee is defined in law as someone who is afraid to reside in their country of citizenship because of the probability of persecution arising from various prescribed forms of discrimination. The so-called refugees in this case have travelled to Greece from Turkey, not from their country of citizenship, and therefore have passed through a country that is a signatory to the UN convention relating to the status of refugees. Their attempt to enter the EU from what should be a safe country (Turkey) is not therefore motivated by fear of persecution but by a desire to seek a better life.
If there is a problem with Turkey returning genuine refugees to their country of origin (something that is absolutely prohibited by the UN conventions), then the UN and Amnesty International should be venting their wrath at Turkey to force it to live up to its obligations, and not at the EU.
Alan Williams-Key
Madrid, Spain
We must share tax burden
In the feature on the minimum wage increase in Britain and its probable effect on the shadow economy (Middle class cash-in-hand employers ‘unlikely to pay minimum wage’, 8 April), you also refer in the last paragraph to the “shadow work and pensions secretary, Owen Smith”. Is he, I wonder, tasked with oversight of the shadow economy? Irony unintentional I’m sure, but it raises an issue widely ignored in such discussions: to what extent is such economic activity hidden both from the taxman and the public?
A parallel issue: to what extent do many western economies depend on a largely hidden and often illegal migrant workforce? In the light of the current revelations about the level of tax avoidance practised by a great many major corporations, perhaps the question we should all be asking is: how can we ensure that the burden of taxation is shared equally between all sectors of society?
Clearly the load falls mainly on the middle-income employee who has little or no opportunity to hide his assets. With the ever-increasing burdens of an ageing population, rising healthcare and education costs and a tottering infrastructure in dire need of replacement, the time is approaching when the traditional milch-cow will run dry.
A total re-examination of the taxation structure, one that ideally aligns with those of other nations at a similar level of development, is the only possible answer. Tax havens must be eliminated, and the international lawyers and accountants who prosper by promoting them ruthlessly pursued. The common fallback of a desperate government – to increase the rate of their goods and services tax – is no longer an adequate response.
Noel Bird
Boreen Point, Queensland, Australia
Gut reactions to terror threat
I read Aidan Foster-Carter’s piece, North Korean rhetoric has reached new heights (1 April) and found myself applauding his final sentence where he says that this [kicking] “is a gut reaction, not a policy”.
Indeed, I remember a previous time when Kim Jong-un was on the verge of destroying civilisation. That threat miraculously disappeared when the Boston Marathon bombing occurred. So should we conclude that Kim is simply the caretaker baddie who fills in while we wait for another Islamist attack?
And, taking the conclusion from your editorial on Ireland’s Easter Rising (1 April) that summary execution of the leaders was “not only wrong [but] pre-eminently foolish”, maybe we should consider our drone-strike strategy against Isis to also be pre-eminently foolish.
Or maybe some of our leaders really do want us to carry on prodding the hornets’ nest so that citizens are pacified by a permanent status of fear – be that a fear of Kim Jong-un, of Isis or of whatever else happens to be conveniently available. Indeed, that was one of Naomi Klein’s conclusions in her book The Shock Doctrine.
Yes, we somehow seem to have a massive disconnect between key policy and simple common sense.
Alan Mitcham
Cologne, Germany
Worth of second languages
Shortly after reading Tracy McVeigh’s piece on the hidden value of a second language (25 March), I attended a lecture given by Manfred Spitzer, a German professor of neuroscience. He is of the opinion that the use of digital media in early years inflicts irreversible damage on our children’s brains. An average German child spends nearly a third of the day in front of a screen; the child does not learn what is most important: namely, social interaction, physical education and coping with real-life problems. Unless we do not learn this as a child, it is too late and we will struggle all our lives. According to Spitzer, learning a second language or a dialect alone in early childhood is crucial for our ability to put up with difficult situations later in life.
Just as it is easier for you to learn a new type of sport when you have already mastered another, it is easier to learn a new language when you know the pattern of others.
He quite vividly pointed out how all this contributes to a higher developed brain, which, in turn, crucially prolongs our brain functions in old age. Just as McVeigh put it, “the bilingual brain is better equipped to cope with damage.”
I can only endorse McVeigh’s opinion that bilingualism supports our children’s chances of a fulfilled and successful life.
Henrike Krüger
Michelfeld, Germany
Briefly
• In maintaining that “a new plant at Hinkley, Somerset is badly needed”, your item is not stating fact but quoting Tory dogma (11 March). Why “a new plant” and why Hinkley? Why not invest the billions earmarked for this nuclear power project in decentralised, clean, free renewables instead?
Anne Humphreys
Agethorst, Germany
• Mandeep Dhaliwal’s piece on how one can minimise the effects of antibiotic resistance (18 March) makes a lot of sound points. However, we need not be so pessimistic, as antibiotics are not the only means to deal with serious infections. Research in the US and elsewhere is looking at making new antimicrobial drugs. Use of bacteriophages (“phages” or phage proteins) has been shown to greatly increase the effectiveness of antibiotics. It seems as if the serious threat of antibiotic resistance has revived interest in these protein phages.
Simon Baguley
Schliersee, Germany
• The hole in the ozone layer means that here winter days can be very hot, while the nights are cold, and the intensity of the sun is greater than in Australia, hence the high rates of melanoma (8 April).
Edward Black
Pauanui, New Zealand
• Patti Smith’s use of her own snapshots of NYC sites as an aide-memoire for her M Train (1 April) is reminiscent of Gustave Flaubert’s pioneering Calotypes (a process similar to the daguerreotype, but with paper as medium), hundreds of which he made in and around Carthage in 1858; it was from these – upon his return to France – that he constructed the landscape descriptions in his novel Salammbô .
R M Fransson
Wheat Ridge, Colorado, US
Email letters for publication to weekly.letters@theguardian.com
