The fraught future of Europe
Your headline coverage of the hardening of attitudes to refugees and the corresponding rise of the far right in Europe made gloomy reading for me (9 September). All the more so because it reflects a similar hardening of attitudes towards refugees evident here in Australia.
On a recent flight from Dubai to Adelaide my wife Julie and I encountered Syrian refugees bound for re-settlement in South Australia. They were in a state of anxious anticipation at the prospect of new life down under. But, much more than this, they were relieved to be escaping the holocaust in their homeland.
I hope that promise of a new life is fulfilled. The odds are very much with them that it will. But it won’t be completely plain sailing for them here in terms of acceptance by any means.
They are starting out on a new life in a nervous society where buses for the first time ask passengers to be wary of unattended luggage, where government warnings encourage us to report anything that “doesn’t look right”, where an innocent question from a Syrian refugee to a policeman can be enough for that refugee to have his details written down as a routine security precaution, where our cyberspace is full of the most puerile anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant nonsense, where far rightists on immigration have just had marked success in our recent national election, and where a barbaric refugee policy still has strong public support.
Let’s hope we can buck our own version of the far-rightist trend you identify for Europe. At present it could go either way.
Terry Hewton
Adelaide, South Australia
• Natalie Nougayrède comments on the future of Europe (9 September), with her opinion that behind all evil in the world is Russia. I totally agree that “the so-called Franco-German engine ... is broken – mainly because of France’s economic weaknesses”. Germany, for all its talk of upholding the rules, breaks year after year the rules on trade surpluses. It is projected to reach this year alone up to 8.9% of GDP. Anything above 6% is in violation of EU rules.
Where are the politicians and journalists to shine the brightest light on this destruction of other nations’ economies? Is it a wonder that the French voters turn to the Front National if, on their backs, Germany exports its unemployment? A reduced import deficit from Germany would allow for breathing space for the other European nations.
Steffen Müller
Hastings, UK
• In The currency of community (9 September), his review of Joseph Stiglitz’s book on the failings of the euro, John Kampfner makes the point that the present crisis in Europe embraces far more than a currency imbalance. Like it or not, the Brexit decision pinpoints wide disillusionment in the UK with the apparent evolution of the EU into an unwitting instrument of the uneven distribution of power and wealth.
The imminent withdrawal of Britain may have an even greater impact on the EU. It must contribute to the growing dissent among EU members suffering the dual impacts of austerity and the influx of refugees.
That the European experiment is still worth pursuing goes without saying. In our current geopolitical context, even major economies such as Germany stand little chance on their own of competing with the superpowers, China and America. It is ironic that the success of this attempt to create unity from recent disharmony now rests on whether Germany, under Angela Merkel, maintains effective leadership, or whether the various rightwing groups typified by Marine Le Pen gain effective control.
Should the rightwing movements gain power, the future for a united Europe looks bleak indeed. If this, the worst possible outcome eventuates, Britain may well enjoy a short period of self-congratulation for seeing the writing on the wall.
Noel Bird
Boreen Point, Queensland, Australia
Censorship by Facebook
I read with interest the Norwegian prime minister, Erna Solberg, commenting on the recent furore over Facebook’s censoring of the iconic image taken during the American war in Vietnam (16 September). The horrific image depicts Kim Phúc, as a young girl, running down a road near Trang Bang, her naked body spattered with burning napalm.
Solberg states, “I want my children, and other children around the world, to grow up in a society where history is told as it was. In a society where they can grow into mature adults by learning from experiences of past generations, to be better informed citizens of the world.”
I could not agree more. War is not only cruel because of the people that perpetrate violence. It is also cruel because of the people who fuel it. When I see this picture I see napalm. When I think napalm, I think of the Norwegian government permitting Norway to be one of the biggest suppliers of magnesium to the US production of napalm in the 50s.
Cut to the present day. Norway is still a major-league global supplier of weapons (per capita). The Norwegian female ski-jumping team and Norwegian biathletes are sponsored by the Norwegian-US arms producer Nammo.
Nobody is learning anything. Erna Solberg is just telling it as it is.
Patji Alnæs-Katjavivi
Oslo, Norway
Rise of the Anthropocene
The Anthropocene, according to ecologist James Lovelock, can be traced back to 1712 when the first steam engine began operation (9 September). Later, of course, we became even more inventive and began ransacking the energy stored in the Earth.
The Industrial Revolution’s carbon emissions and the “plastic pollution” that has now spilled over into our oceans, are just two of the major, and not entirely foreseen, consequences. But the most serious development that defines our epoch according to Lovelock, in his latest book A Rough Ride to the Future, is overpopulation. “Gaia, the Earth System,” he says, “cannot sustain the present level of human population for very much longer.”
Richard Orlando
Westmount, Quebec, Canada
Mindful of mindfulness
Terry Eagleton, in his review of The Happiness Industry (26 August), does the notion of mindfulness an injustice. At the recent Mind and Life Conference with the Dalai Lama in Brussels on Power and Care, we were reminded that the pursuit of happiness involves also doing our best to reduce suffering in the world. Training in mindfulness can help some to break out of the bonds of powerlessness and feel their own strength to become better advocates for global justice.
As temporary residents on this planet, we have the power and the responsibility to care enough to be, to the best of our ability, active in making a positive difference for the benefit of all creatures today and tomorrow.
Silvia Dingwall
Nussbaumen, Switzerland
Briefly
• I can fully sympathise with Anthony Walter (Briefly, 2 September) and his difficulty with mystifying terms used in the Weekly. It isn’t just North Americans who may be flummoxed by new words that appear to have entered common parlance. I have increasingly found that my vocabulary is out of date, so that playing Scrabble creates confusion when my (1960s) dictionary doesn’t contain a word that my visiting daughter thinks is commonplace. Maybe I need to get a new dictionary.
Katy Beaver
Glacis, Mahe, Seychelles
• So London bankers consider brown shoes a determinant of failure (9 September). In Canada, brown shoes were worn with a smart business suit by the new prime minister, Justin Trudeau, at his swearing-in ceremony. It is a look he seemed to favour prior to his election and it did not appear to hinder his success. Perhaps the bankers referred to in the story are of an older generation and have not yet caught up with newer fashion trends. Or perhaps they have not yet realised that success is best determined not by “accent” and “dress”, but by more substantive qualities.
Avril Taylor
Dundas, Ontario, Canada
• With regard to your 19 August article (Peta: change name of Eggs and Bacon Bay) I am hopefully reminded of Gandhi’s saying: “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.”
It is not just that the name encourages poor dietary choices; it encourages a callousness toward the suffering of “food” animals and a disregard for the environment that we cannot afford.
Layne Powell
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Email letters for publication to weekly.letters@theguardian.com
