Reactions 7
Excusing the Taliban, religious hate speech, and fighting for freedom: more spiked readers give their views.
After the attack on America: more spiked readers give their views.
What do you think? Email spiked letters. Please keep your letters succinct.
Auntie Claire damning grinning Tony as well-meaning but unrealistic? (Fighting talk: Claire Rayner and Peter Tatchell, 19 October) This is the funniest thing I’ve read in weeks – both for its wild inaccuracy and its potkettlehood. Guy Herbert, UK
Jon Holbrook’s article appears to apologise for the Taliban regime (A pariah made in the West, 25 October). There can be no excuse for the way that the Taliban has cynically ignored human rights – not only arbitrarily using the death penalty, but consistently denying basic human rights to women. The article also ignores the fact that the UN has repeatedly tried to reason with this so-called government. The sooner a multiethnic, UN-supported regime is put in place in Afghanistan, the better for all. I wish the ex-King well in his efforts to make this a success. Kevin Hutchens, UK
Maybe spiked‘s smartarse Brendan O’Neill went on a different demo to that one that I and 30,000 others attended on 13 October in London (The piece movement, 16 October). London was most certainly swinging that day….Yes, there were different and diverse groups (what O’Neill calls ‘disparate’), but they were all against the irrational violence inflicted upon the Afghan nation and against American and British imperialism. It must have been so easy for O’Neill to walk around Trafalgar Square thinking up funny little criticisms – the rest of us, however, were there to raise up a big, almighty storm, and to shout ‘Stop this war, and stop it now’. What a shame O’Neill was too busy laughing at us all to join in. Perhaps he should have stayed at home and watched all of it on BBC News 24. Marisa Golding, UK
I don’t know why your contributors get so steamed up about laws against religious hatred. The reflex government response to any threatening situation seems to be to pass a law – it’s simply politicians’ bullshit. They know that a law will be ineffective, but passing it means that they have done something. It will be like the Dangerous Dogs Act and Section 28 (which bans schools from promoting homosexuality), two fatuous laws under which nobody has ever been prosecuted. John Christopher Pearce, UK
A thought-provoking article (Apologetic imperialism, 12 October). I believe there is something that people in the West should be ready to die for, and that is freedom – the freedom to believe what we want to believe. This does not currently exist in many countries around the world. Having said that, I also believe that our societies allow too much disparity among different social groups in wealth and opportunities for self-improvement. The big question for me is how we reconcile these ideals with the concept of freedom. I have no answer for that one. Kevin Bennewith, Australia
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