Untitled - the ultimate blog

SIR – You mentioned the slaughter directed by radio of half a million people in Rwanda. Perhaps the exact
techniques used to commit genocide, such as (to take Rwanda’s case) radio broadcasts coupled with the
use of crude panga-knives, are not the most important question. Nor should we restrict ourselves to
studying the state apparatus needed to sustain acts of mass murder, such as the Holocaust.
The deepest conundrum is what makes groups of people, defined by religion, class, race or any other
attribute, so vulnerable to political manipulation that they can be easily persuaded to commit diabolical
acts against other groups. Until we solve that core problem, would-be manipulators will always find one
medium or another, from the printed word to the latest form of e-communication, to demonise and
proscribe the hated “other”.
Dennis Sandole
Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution
George Mason University
Arlington, Virginia
Understanding Arabic
SIR – I enjoyed reading your long-overdue special report on the Arab world (July 25th). My one objection
is your insinuation that spoken Arabic is incomprehensible between different countries. Standard Arabic is
taught in all 22 Arab countries and is the official language of them all. I, for one, come from the extreme
eastern corner of the Arab world, but I can communicate freely with anyone (who has been to school) in
Tangier, at the extreme western corner. Mutually incomprehensible dialects are indeed common, but this
is normal considering the huge distances involved. Where else do you have border crossings for 22
countries at which you are asked “Do you have anything to declare?” in the same language?
Muthana Kubba
Cham, Switzerland
* SIR – Your recognition that the “ultra-conservative Saudi royals may well be more liberal than the ultraconservative
Saudi people”, misses the point. The Saudi establishment is educated in Western
universities; the prime moral guide for many Saudi people is the local Wahhabi preacher. This is an all too
familiar historical picture of an “enlightened” elite governing the “backward” masses who are prone to
violence and disorder.
Perhaps if those liberal Saudi royals agreed to hold fully fledged municipal elections, permitted open
debate in the media, stopped chopping off peoples heads and hands for wrongdoing, and allowed women
to drive, to vote and get elected, then maybe Saudi public opinion would become more liberal.
Saidolimhon Gaziyev
Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Fundamentals
SIR – I was surprised that a newspaper founded in 1843 to promote free trade seemed to accept the idea,
in an article on the “rising vogue” for shopping in small locally owned stores, that “local protectionism”
might be a good thing for communities and for the environment (“Keeping it local”, August 1st).
Protectionism, at the local level or on a national scale, might temporarily benefit the protected industries,
but it will eventually hinder everyone, especially the poorest.
And as for the assumption that buying goods from local suppliers benefits the environment, a study by
Pierre Desrochers, a geography professor at the University of Toronto, concluded that localism and “food
miles” are at best pure “marketing fads”.
Quentin Michon
Paris
Education standards
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