Albertans did not “convincingly throw their support behind provincial NDP leader Rachel Notley”, as David Suzuki wrote (15 May). Less than half, 41% of voters casts their ballots for NDP candidates, while more than half, 52 %, voted for the two rightwing alternatives.
It is the bizarre result of the first-past-the-post electoral system that produces a majority in the legislature with a minority of the votes. Canada’s current rightwing government got its majority with 39%, in contrast to the 61% that did not want it.
Britain’s Conservative party just got all the power on the basis of 37%. Narendra Modi recently got all the power in India on the basis of 31% of the vote.
This is all wrong. Shouldn’t people get the parliament they want and vote for? Shouldn’t everyone be represented in parliament by someone who broadly supports their views? It can be, and is, done elsewhere.
It is obvious that the situation is intolerable. There are a few countries that use this system and they are almost all relics of the British empire. The people who can change the system are those in power, but it would be a miracle if they got rid of the system that got them elected. Those currently in the opposition should guarantee a change if they gain power, but may not as they are hoping for power on the basis of minority support at a subsequent election.
This is not democracy. We are trapped.
David Huntley
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
• Holy cow! When the results of a Canadian provincial election make the front page of The Guardian Weekly (15 May) you know that something has happened!
André Carrel
Terrace, British Columbia, Canada
Mediterranean migrants
Natalie Nougayrède makes some valuable points in her article about the migrants flooding across the Mediterranean Sea (15 May). In particular she points out that the majority are not refugees but are economic migrants. Her suggestion, however, that the problem will only go away if Europe works with Africa is wrong.
Australia has successfully stopped its boat-people problem by the simple expedient of rescuing them, if necessary, and then returning them to their point of origin. No matter how desperate economic migrants may be, they will not spend their life savings on a trip that will result in them being returned to where they started. Europe, or more specifically Italy, has created this problem by allowing all those migrants who somehow make it to their shores to stay.
Nougayrède concludes by saying that “a more far-reaching European approach is needed”. While Europe continues to allow those who make it across the sea to stay, that statement is certainly true.
Alan Williams-Key
Madrid, Spain
America’s war in Vietnam
Forty years is a long time, and Martin Woollacott’s analysis (15 May) offers some insight on the lasting effects of the Vietnam war on American attitudes. He mentions three prevailing narratives current in the US to this day (the definitions are mine): the wishful (“the US had all but won”), the delusional (“it did win”), and the political (“the mission was undertaken in ignorance etc”).
The American public is still in denial of two facts: defeat and war crimes. If the concept of defeat is in any way connected with failure to achieve the stated aims by force of arms, the US lost the Vietnam war. And while trying to win it, America used means (carpet bombing of civilians, agent orange, napalm) that fall into the category of war crimes by any definition.
Atonement will be very difficult, because these two facts are the complete negation of deeply held beliefs in the American psyche: invincibility and goodness. Vietnam has been the glaring proof that the US is not invincible and is not necessarily good. Will the American public ever come to terms with this?
Giorgio Ranalli
Ottawa, Canada
• Congratulations to Martin Woollacott for using the correct terminology – the American war in Vietnam. The correct use of language cannot be underestimated in its effect on framing the debate.
Peter Sobey
Valla, NSW, Australia
Inequality of income
Well done, Annie March (Reply, 8 May). All the points you make about western profligacy and the desperation of the poor are valid, but do you never feel that this approach is just howling at the moon?
When Richard Alpert, alias Ram Dass, complained to his guru in India back in the 60s about these very same things, the reply he got was this – “but RD, don’t you see it’s all perfect – it’s going exactly as it’s supposed to go”. What I hear him saying is that what we see as a disastrous situation is simply an organic process over which we have no control, and the end is not able to be influenced.
The outrageous disparity between rich and poor to which March refers is another manifestation of the fact that in times of crisis the centre cannot hold, and we as a species and the planet are not just approaching, but are involved in, a crisis.
As disaster looms, a lurch to the right is inevitable because, as is so often quoted, he who has the gold makes the rules, and we can be in no doubt as to who those guys will favour.
Why would there ever be a move to “overhaul an economic system accountable to neither morality nor social justice” when the current system never more than pretended it was a moral or just system? Because it works so successfully for those who hold the gold.
Mike Scott
Takaka, New Zealand
Briefly
• Considering that the Beatles covered Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Smokey Robinson, and that the Rolling Stones named themselves after a Muddy Waters song and covered Chuck Berry, Willy Dixon and Robert Johnson, an academic study was hardly necessary to establish that the British weren’t exerting the influence (15 May). No doubt these London academics will next determine if there is any correlation between being baptised in the Roman Catholic church and becoming Bishop of Rome; or perhaps they will undertake a study of bears, woods etc.
John Coleman
Erskineville, NSW, Australia
• Born in Greece as a monolinguist, I returned to my country of origin as an Anglo-Greek bilinguist after some 40 years in the UK. Although I agree that bilingualism makes you think differently when awake, it is just as important to examine the biolinguistic effects when asleep (1 May). When asleep in Greece, I dream in English, with one exception: my nightmares are always in Greek. I look forward to Panos Athanasopoulos’s article entitled Bilingualism makes you dream differently.
Nick Alevropoulos
Athens, Greece
• Congratulations to Carl Rose on his inspirational photograph of children cycling to school on the Millennium Greenway near Chester (8 May). The photo is an antidote to the gloomy news coming from most of the rest of the world. The image of the little girl, feet off the pedals, coasting at speed through the sun-dappled shadows of trees reminds us that nothing is hopeless; as long as children who can take joy in the world keep being born, we will keep having the chance to create the world they deserve. That this image comes from the county where I was born makes its message especially poignant to me.
Chris Bullock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
• I have been concerned for some time about how I can help reduce climate change. The Guardian has come up with an idea. I am at present divesting any of my investments involved with fossil fuels. They may not be a large influence but I hope the idea can catch on. It is somewhat ironic because I live in Alberta.
Ron Mason
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
• An exited Britain would soon miss the solidarity of the EU, inter alia, in keeping at bay the economic muscle (oil and gas) of Russia with her extortion tactics; a Brexit would be “Exit, pursued by a bear” (22 May).
Now, Mama Bear may be grizzled, sozzled, mangy, lame and teased; but the bear’s a bear yet: prickly, disgruntled, hungry and erratic.
R M Fransson
Wheat Ridge, Colorado, US
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