The Guardian Weekly 09.10.09 23
Reply
MattKenyon
Stoking alarm
Julian Borger's front-page article
Iran's nuclear admission stokes
global tensions (2 October) is a
good example of first-rate alarmist
journalism containing little rel-
evant fact and a lot of innuendo and
straight confusion. As such it repre-
sents a total distortion of journalism
in the tradition of western liberalism.
If the Iranian nuclear plant is
supposed to be secret then why has
Iran disclosed its existence? In fact,
the Iranian officials have openly
stated that there was nothing secret
about the plant and that they are
conforming to the International
Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA's)
requirement by disclosing its exist-
ence six months prior to operations.
Thus the reaction of the west makes
little sense.
Furthermore, Iran is agreeing
to let the IAEA inspect the plant.
Thus Iran's claim that the plant will
be used for energy and medical
purposes may well be true.
The quote from Mohammad
Mohammadi-Golpayegani to the
effect that the "plant will make the
enemies blind", used by Borger to
heighten the drama of his report,
is somewhat hackneyed, given the
prevalence of this quote on the web.
Taken at face value, the quote
has the requisite alarmist value
even if it doesn't strictly make much
sense in the context at hand. It does
make sense, however, if one recog-
nises that in Persian "blind" would
perhaps be more correctly translated
as "to surprise" or "anger" someone.
Then Borger brings in Israel and
its concern. If anyone in this part of
the world should be concerned for
its security it is Iran, especially with
Israel threatening to unleash the
dogs of war. It is noteworthy that
unlike Iran, Israel refuses to allow
the IAEA to inspect its facilities at
Dimona. Furthermore Israel has not
signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, which Iran has signed.
John Bent
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
� "If diplomacy has any chance,
it will have to be backed up by the
credible threat of international
sanctions," say western diplomats
quoted in your front page piece
(25 September).
That may be true, but it is only
half the truth. The other half is that
sanctions would be considerably
more justified if they were equally
applied to the sole acknowledged
nuclear power of the region, which
has consistently ignored UN resolu-
tions for years, and which, in spite of
its relatively small size, constitutes a
real threat to all its neighbours.
Iran's nuclear programme is
presented in the western press as an
offensive tool, while it is perfectly
skewed the story, the central point
of which was the imbalance of the
situation, that your reporting serves
more to misinform than inform.
Terry Greenberg
North Vancouver, BC, Canada
Niles's real culprits
In your Review article The new
Invader (18 September) we are led
to believe that the culprits threaten-
ing the Nile Delta, described as one
of "the most fertile tracts of land"
in the world, are climate change,
industrial pollution and salinity,
but throughout the article reference
is made over and over again to the
disastrous ticking of the country's
demographic timebomb with Egypt's
present-day population of 83 million
set to increase to more than 110 mil-
lion in the next two decades.
Whereas Egyptians are probably
half on the mark in blaming the
west for global carbon emissions,
they might start taking into account
recent research carried out by the
London School of Economics that
concludes that contraception is
almost five times cheaper as a means
of preventing climate change than
conventional green technologies and
advises that family planning should
be viewed as one of the primary
methods of emissions reduction.
Denise ADS Pereira
Fornos, Portugal
Seeing red at slaughter
Taiji inhabitants may be forgiven for
thinking they are being picked on
(Japan's dolphin slaughter turns sea
red, 18 September). After all, they
are not the only ones turning the
oceans red with dolphin blood.
In fact, in Europe in the Faroe
Islands, the locals not only kill a cou-
ple of thousand dolphins and other
cetaceans in an even more grue-
some manner than in Taiji, but they
actually organise a carnival around
it so the whole population can take
part.
Few people have ever heard of it
or signed the petitions to stop that
barbaric practice. Even fewer have
gone knocking on the door of the
local government or Denmark, to
which the Faroes belong.
S�rgio Nogueira
Brussels, Belgium
Seeking coexistence
The new intolerance (4 Septem-
ber) regarding Islam is not only a
rightwing phenomenon. Leftwing
liberals are also beginning to quietly
voice their discomfort with Islam,
especially in regard to its views
on women, sexuality, freedom of
speech and human rights.
Europe remains a far more
tolerant society than any Islamic
state; the right wing here are actu-
ally allowed to express their hyste-
ria. What the west longs to hear is
a moderate majority Islamic voice
articulating a Muslim faith that can
coexist peacefully within Europe's
liberal humanism society. Please
Pankaj Mishra, tell us about that.
Ulric Gerry
Munlochy, Ross-shire, UK
Fork in the road
Finally we have an acknowledge-
ment by a mainstream economist
that the economic growth view
may not be compatible with the
ecological standpoint (Slow down,
or we'll burn up, 18 September). It is
curious that Lord Stern has declared
that immediate action on climate
change will cause less hardship
than action later and admits that
the pace of change has outstripped
predictions, but claims that we do
not have to rein in economic growth
immediately. He seems to have
discovered a fork in the road even if
not leading to Damascus.
Dick Varley
Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia
Briefly
� Paul Davies (A one-way trip to
Mars, 25 September) is absolutely
right. Colonists do not usually
embark on their journeys only on
the condition of a guaranteed return
ticket. It's their destination and their
choice. Think of out of Africa.
Darian Hiles
Adelaide, South Australia
� In his letter (25 September), David
C Peake implies that the change to
the metric system in the 1970s in
Australia was without problems.
I lived in Sydney from 1974 to the
end of 1975 and there were a few
glitches. I saw some material in a
shop that I thought would be great
for a tablecloth. I asked what width
it was and was told it was 140cm.
"I'll take a metre." What was the
reply? "We don't sell in metres. We
sell in yards."
Felicity Oliver
Ostermundigen, Switzerland
� Richard Layard (Greatest good can
be found, 18 September) seems
unaware that there already is a
"civilisation based on the Greatest
Happiness Principle". In Bhutan, the
principle of Gross National
Happiness rather than Gross
National Product as the aim of
society has been actively promoted
and incorporated in government
policies for more than a decade.
A stable, progressive and largely
contented society is evidence for
the policy's success.
Alex McKay
Belbora, NSW, Australia
justifiable as a defensive strategy,
in order to reach a much needed
regional balance of terror that we
Europeans have adopted as the
cornerstone of our defence strategy
for decades.
Jean-Marc Andreoli
Meylan, France
A question of balance
If the Guardian were reporting
a story in which a 90kg combat-
trained marine armed with an auto-
matic weapon assaulted and crippled
a five-year-old child armed only with
a home-made toy gun, how con-
cerned would you be about achiev-
ing journalistic balance (UN investi-
gation finds evidence of war crimes
in Gaza campaign, 25 September)?
Would you feel obliged to emphasise
that both sides "fought dirty", and
imply that the shame of doing so was
somehow equivalent? Would you
quote an interview in which the ma-
rine justifies his actions, and refrain
from seeking comments from the
child? Would you sub-headline the
article with words implying the guilt
of each party was equal? Would you
enhance the article with the pho-
tograph of the five-year-old with a
menacing look on his face, thus sug-
gesting he alone was the problem?
In Gaza, Israel is the marine, and
Palestinians, the child. There is abso-
lutely no balance in that conflict, and
any implication that there is serves
Israeli propaganda, not truth.
The real significance of the
Goldstone report was not that both
parties "fought dirty", but that Israel,
in spite of overwhelming superiority
of arms, having a multitude of op-
tions, chose to use the dirtiest ones.
The depravity of the Israeli choices is
on a totally different scale from those
of Hamas, which had few resources,
and fewer options.
In the imaginary fight between
the marine and the child, whether
or not the child tried to put a finger
in the marine's eye or made a kick
at his genitals, is marginal to the
main point of the story, and barely
worth mentioning. In trying to be
balanced, the Guardian has so badly
Send letters to: Kings Place, 90 York Way,
London N1 9GU United Kingdom,
fax +44 (0)20 3353 3186 or email
weekly.letters@guardian.co.uk
Please include a full postal address and a
reference to the article. We may edit letters.
To contact the editor directly
weekly.feedback@guardian.co.uk

Page 1Page 2Page 3Page 4Page 5Page 6Page 7Page 8Page 9Page 10Page 11Page 12Page 13Page 14Page 15Page 16Page 17Page 18Page 19Page 20Page 21Page 22Page 23Page 24Page 25Page 26Page 27Page 28Page 29Page 30Page 31Page 32Page 33Page 34Page 35Page 36Page 37Page 38Page 39Page 40Page 41Page 42Page 43Page 44Page 45Page 46Page 47Page 48 Produced by PageSuite