Correspondence
Correspondence Bomb the banners Philadelphia, Pa. To the Editors: John Lyon is right in criticizing teary-eyed Hollywood-style madonnas [Mar. 25]. But certainly all statues are not in bad taste,...
...They are rather poor but they contributed $ 1 million out of their own pockets to Britain for the Falklands campaign...
...Shouldn't the people in the Falklands decide whether they will be a part of Argentina, or they will remain a part of Britain, or be independent...
...They resemble bank vaults - "Temples of Blank White Cinder Block...
...But certainly all statues are not in bad taste, and churches that have cut them out altogether are- artistically-pretty dreary places to be in...
...Seamus Mallon, deputy leader of the Social Democratic and Labor Party (the constitutional Catholic party) has recently noted that in the Derry area, a strongly Catholic area, one in four Catholics is unemployed, but only one in fifteen Protestants...
...II], the opposition to the IRA is fundamentally ideological, and support of NICRA and the more militant groups that flowed out of it was crypto-nationalist, I am happy to hear it...
...Commonweal must be well aware of the fact that in Argentina there is no bill of rights, and there are no judges, and that the country is run arbitrarily by the military, for their personal benefit...
...Reverend Cobain's article misrepresents the plight of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland, past and present...
...Mexican title to one-fourth of the U.S...
...But it is also true that people from Belize would be exterminated by "our friends" the Guatemalan military, and Franco would already have disposed of the people of Gilbraltar, if the British had left...
...Why this attempt at self-justification abroad instead of reconciliation at home ANTHONY BRADLEY Fascism & Falklands College Park, Md...
...I know I've never seen an icon that looked Holly woodesque, and there's certainly nothing sentimental about them...
...The unemployment rate among males in the province is reckoned at 25 percent, but in areas of Catholic West Belfast it is closer to 75 percent...
...The public housing which they inhabit, like Divis Flats in Belfast, has frequently been described (by impartial observers) as the worst in Europe...
...In the matter of housing, Catholics occupy a higher proportion of public housing for the good reason that they are economically worse off than Protestants...
...How can peace and justice ever be effected in Northern Ireland if the Reverend Cobain and his colleagues refuse to distance themselves from the garrison mentality which has unfortunately been the defining characteristic of Ulster Protestantism...
...Involved Irish-Americans and their friends have been there and back by now...
...It revealed that only three-to-five percent of managerial positions in the Northern Ireland Electricity Board are held by Catholics...
...25] calls attention to the fact that the debate in the House of Commons left unsettled the question of the long-term British administration of the archipelago...
...Do the rights of man have a price like the stock of big companies...
...Who says their use is only for Eastern Catholic or Orthodox churches...
...You add that second thoughts may lead to some kind of internationally negotiated solution...
...There is a small island in the Caribbean between Jamaica and Cuba, not far from Salvador...
...Whether they are unemployed as a direct consequence of discrimination in the present, or because of discrimination in the past matters little to Catholics who have no jobs...
...Will Cobain...
...To the Editors: If, as Robert Cobain states [ Mar...
...It is true that it costs money for Britain to keep forces in Belize, and much more so to defend Gibraltar...
...You recall that Thatcher supports a "Fortress Falklands" because as she says, "There is no other course if Britain is to honor the preferences of the Falklanders as to the government they want to live under," but that David Owen thinks that it is the responsibility of the prime minister to reach an understanding with Latin America over the islands...
...Will they encourage our government to reverse its visa policy and allow all spokesmen to talk to Americans...
...they are well-informed and working toward unity at an encouraging pace...
...If Bishop Cahal Daly believes that Republicans conceal their ideology, (presumably insidious), will he support the free circulation of Sinn Fein literature in Ireland...
...I asked the Lord to save the Queen...
...When the patriotic fervor cooled off, the "neocolonialism of the British Empire" became the scapegoat...
...It is utterly specious to allege that Catholics discriminate against Protestants, if for no other reason than that they are not usually in a position to do so...
...To the Editors: Your editorial "Fortress Falklands" [Feb...
...Discrimination against Catholics in the matter of jobs continues to exist in Northern Ireland...
...In the meantime the list of Argentines tortured to death reached thirty thousand...
...J. BRODERICK In the face of facts Belfast, Northern Ireland To the Editors: I was dismayed to encounter, in the Belfast Telegraph, a summary of an article which appeared recently in Commonweal ["A Protestant View of Northern Ireland," Mar...
...Your editorial brings up also the fact that the estimate of the cost of recapturing the islands and to garrison them for four years and make them economically viable will be $4.8 billion which amounts to $3 million for each islander...
...Like all fascisms the Argentine one needs, to stay in power, a "national" enemy...
...AUGUST J. DURELLIave the Queen...
...The name of the island is Grand Cayman, and it is inhabited by twenty thousand people who want to remain British...
...Ironically, it was the repressive response, of the Stormont government to their legitimate demands which reawakened their nationalism...
...the Lord is behind you with a dose of sunshine...
...They cannot, given the systemic disease of state they have created, and they are running out of cards to play...
...THOM NICKELS Been there & back Astoria, N.Y...
...AUGUST J. DURELLI...
...Ten years ago a war with Chile about buoys in the Beagle Canal was avoided at the last minute...
...W.M...
...territory is better than the Argentine title over the Falklands and its government much more respectful of human rights...
...Protestants refused to live in comparable public housing on Belfast's Shankill Road...
...They were second-class citizens for the fifty years duration of the Stormont regime and they have since been further immiserated by the activities of the British Army and the Ulster police operating under draconian legislation (the Emergency Provisions and the Prevention of Terrorism Act) which suspends basic civil rights...
...I think not...
...The outrage of Unionist (Protestant) politicians, who resisted the whole concept of the FEA from the beginning and have now voted for its abolition, suggests that the agency's forthcoming report on the civil service and subsequent reports may establish equally damning evidence of discrimination against Catholics...
...make a deal with Mexico over Texas and California...
...Would you suggest that the U.S...
...The Fair Employment Agency has recently been investigating job discrimination in the larger state employers...
...The allegation that the civil rights movement was inspired by nationalism is without foundation...
...What kind of fate can the islanders expect, who have a different language, culture and religion than the Argentines...
...As the black people of Belize and the white people of the Falklands, they want to live under a system of laws that guarantee human rights...
...Surely if I had to choose between 1,001 tacky Infant of Pragues all dressed up and sparkling under the glow of two million votive candles, I would pick that over burlap banners proclaiming: "Have a great day...
...Instead of conceding that a debt of social justice is now (Continued on page 318) Correspondence (Continued from page 290) owed to Ulster Catholics, Reverend Co-bain alleges that the problem is only a deficiency in the establishment's public relations...
...As to Reverend Cobain's allegation that the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland was characterized by violence, he is correct, but the violence was perpetrated on unarmed civil rights demonstrators by police and army...
...Its half-truths do a grave disservice to the Catholic community of Northern Ireland, and fly in the face of well-established facts about the situation here...
...The false symmetry of their arguments exposes the political vacuums in which they both circulate...
...The people of the islands are British and unanimously want to remain so...
...People born in Argentina are subjected to persecution when they do not accept the fascist regime of the military-the same military that during World War II did everything they could to help Hitler defeat Britain and the U.S...
...The day the fascists were defeated at Port Stanley I prayed...
...In the editorial not a word was said about the nature of the governments that have controlled Argentina for the last fifty years...
...Most Catholics in the early days of the Troubles wanted only to have the rights of first-class British citizens...
...What about the icon...
...If the British/Loyalist establishment had ever been able to democratize "Ulster," they would have done so by now...
...Wouldn't the Falklands end as East Timor...
...I love the country...
...I was born in Argentina, as my father was...
...You neglect to consider this situation when you suggest that Britain should look for an agreement with Argentina...
...Catholics have no need to exaggerate their grievances in Northern Ireland...
...And this is in a strongly Catholic area...
...North and South...
...If statues cannot be resurrected from the Lipstick Realm, at least the Roman church can be a little more imaginative in its use of "alternative" religious art...
Vol. 110 • May 1983 • No. 10
