Here is this week’s People’s Letters Page…
Dear Editor,
Is there merit in believing that Christmas food advertising constitutes a hate crime?
Directed at the 2% of the population who identify themselves as vegan and the 8% who identify themselves as vegetarian, (2018 figures).
During the Christmas holiday season the industry of death ramps up its production and promotion of its products.
Aimed at those creating an animal graveyard in their stomach as they enjoy eating the flesh of the fallen.
Our humane eyes and ears are assaulted by glossy television, radio and print advertisements eulogising an animal products based Christmas.
Slick television commercials promote having an animal carcase and animal by-products as the centre of the Christmas dinner table.
This retail version of the Final Solution is upsetting to those who want to celebrate the holiday season with any input from animal products.
The existence of a myriad of vegan diets, sound in nutrition and health affirming benefits, shows that humane food consumption is possible.
A diet based on meat and animal by-products is being flayed as unhealthy, environmental destructive, and leaking into the violent culture so prevalent in society today.
As we begin the season where the carcase of a dead bird is a centre point of a festival that celebrates new life the message is simple: by removing meat and animal by-products consumption from your diet you are helping to close the bloody slaughterhouse door.
May we all have a happy and humane vegan Christmas.
Yours,
John Tierney
Chairperson-Waterford Animal Concern
Larchville
Church Road
Waterford
Dear Editor
As fellow writers, we wish to express our support for the novelist Sally Rooney.
Palestinian artists have asked their international colleagues to end complicity in Israel’s violations of their human rights, and this for many of us is a clear ethical obligation.
Sally Rooney’s refusal to sign a contract with a mainstream Israeli publisher — which markets the work of the Israeli Ministry of Defence — is therefore an exemplary response to the mounting injustices inflicted on Palestinians.
It is less than a year since Human Rights Watch concluded that Israel had ‘dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated, and subjugated Palestinians’, amounting to the ‘crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution’.
It is only a few months since the last bombing of Gaza, since the most recent incursion into the Al-Aqsa mosque and the new round of expulsion orders in occupied East Jerusalem. This is the context of Sally Rooney’s decision.
In making it, she is not alone. In May, she was one of more than 16,000 artists who condemned Israel’s crimes in ‘A Letter Against Apartheid’.
Israeli apartheid, they said, is ‘sustained by international complicity; it is our collective responsibility to redress this harm’.
In supporting Sally Rooney, we reassert that responsibility.
Like her, we will continue to respond to the Palestinian call for effective solidarity, just as millions supported the campaign against apartheid in South Africa.
We will continue to support the nonviolent Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality.
Full list of 70 signatories:
Maan Abu Taleb writer
Hanan Al-Shaykh writer
Tariq Ali writer, broadcaster
Monica Ali writer
Suad Amiry writer
Kevin Barry writer
Ronan Bennet writer, screenwriter
Nicholas Blincoe writer
Season Butler writer, artist
Carmen Callil writer, publisher, critic
Niamh Campbell writer
Caryl Churchill playwright
Sarah Clancy poet
Isabel Coixet screenwriter
Robert Coover writer
Molly Crabapple writer, artist
Selma Dabbagh writer
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz writer
Geoff Dyer writer
Ben Ehrenreich writer, journalist
Inua Ellams writer, artist
Lynn Gaspard publisher
Francisco Goldman writer
David Harsent poet
Seán Hewitt poet, critic
Rita Ann Higgins poet
Rachel Holmes writer
Brigid Keenan writer
Hannah Khalil playwright
Nancy Kricorian writer
Rachel Kushner writer
Paul Laverty screenwriter
Ed Luker poet
Sabrina Mahfouz poet, playwright
Emer Martin writer
Ahmed Masoud writer
Tessa McWatt writer
Pauline Melville writer
Lina Meruane writer
China Miéville writer
Dana Naomy Mills writer
Pankaj Mishra writer
Michel S Moushabeck publisher
Eileen Myles poet
Karthika Nair poet
Courttia Newland writer, screenwriter
Andrew O’Hagan writer
John Oakes publisher
Nii Ayikwei Parkes writer, editor, curator
Vijay Prashad historian, editor
Alexandra Pringle publisher
Keith Ridgway writer
David Riker screenwriter
Bruce Robbins writer, scholar
Colin Robinson publisher
Andrew Ross writer
Joe Sacco cartoonist, journalist
Sapphire writer
James Schamus screenwriter
Kamila Shamsie writer
Jack Shenker writer
Rick Simonson bookseller
Gillian Slovo writer
Ahdaf Soueif writer
Jacques Testard publisher
V playwright, performer
William Wall writer
Naomi Wallace playwright, screenwriter
Eliot Weinberger writer
Penny Woolcock screenwriter, director
Dear Editor,
As a culchie living in Dublin for the last 10 years I can understand how you might not ‘get’ Garth Brooks.
You’ve probably never had the pleasure of roaring your head off to ‘Friends in Low Places’ in a packed nightclub in Tullamore.
You’ve also probably never sampled the delights and emotional intensity of being wrapped around some strangers in a pub in Mayo drunkenly singing ‘If tomorrow Never Comes.’
Garth Brooks and his music mean a lot to us his fans.
To all the ‘haters’ complaining about the fact that he is going to play five concerts in Dublin next year: No one is forcing you to listen to him!
Please just let us enjoy this moment, goodness knows we’ve waiting long enough to see him back on these shores
I’m always baffled as to why people find it necessary to comment on other peoples choice of music, it’s a purely personal thing.
Could all musical snobs please leave us Garth Brooks alone please?
There’s no need to look down on us, we’re just like you!
Yours etc,
Orla Kenny,
Glasnevin
Dear Editor,
Who was the genius who decided that the best way to protest against high fuel prices is to drive a load of fuel guzzling lorries to Dublin and block the traffic?
Would they not have been better served saving fuel and using public transport instead to make their protest in Dublin city centre?
While I sympathise with their problem I don’t support the way their protest was conducted.
Why take out their frustrations on Dublin commuters, we have no power over the price of fuel unfortunately?
Also I observed some of them beeping their horns outside a city centre maternity hospital, very poor form that.
Yours sincerely,
James Carney,
Cabra