Statues of ‘tyrants’ were torn down in Romania, Iraq and the former Soviet Bloc to enthusiastic approval from the western media, including the Irish media. However, at home retention of grandiose monuments to tyrants is cited as evidence of “maturity”.
Similarly Martin Mansergh (July 19) defends the racist, anti-semite war criminal Arthur Wellesley Duke of Wellington against any proposal to remove the grandiose monument to him from the Phoenix Park. Although born in Ireland Wellesley held native Irish in contempt, referring to them as ‘a nation of scoundrels’.
While Wellington’s reputation as a general derives mainly from victories against the Napoleonic armies in Europe, he cut his teeth in India conducting murderous campaigns against Indian villages on behalf of the British Empire and the rapacious slave-dealing, drug-dealing East India Company.
English historians have carefully promoted the image of Wellington as a sensitive caring man who punished indiscipline or mistreatment of civilians by his soldiers (whom he delicately described as “the scum of the earth”) and was traumatised by the slaughter at Waterloo. The reality is very different.
While Dr Mansergh concedes that there are some aspects of Wellington not to like, he omits to mention horrendous atrocities perpetrated by Wellesley’s troops at San Sebastian and Badajoza. Bizarrely the victims of Wellington’s war crimes in the Peninsular war were Spanish, despite Spain being an ally of Britain. Wellesley implicitly sanctioned and then covered up the slaughter, which was motivated not only by greed on the part of English troops but by their racist hatred of and contempt for Spanish people and their Catholic religion.
Dr Mansergh points to Wellington’s role in ‘granting’ Catholic emancipation, having previously bitterly opposed it. Wellington conceded because England was riven with unrest and the British government could not risk insurrection in Ireland.
Even as Wellington did a U-turn on Catholic emancipation he raised the property threshold for voting from £2 to £10 annually, thus ensuring the bulk of the native Irish remained disenfranchised.
Our Scottish cousins have long shown contempt for Wellington by permanently covering the head of his Glasgow statue with a traffic cone. While the monstrous monument in Phoenix Park does not lend itself to such adornment and demolition is probably now impractical, due consideration should be given to renaming and rededicating it to victims of slavery and colonial repression wherein Irish people to our shame played a part. The least that should be done is to cover up the offensive fresco depicting the slaughter of Indian people.
BRIAN PATTERSON
Newry, Co Down
NHS not safe in private hands
Hundreds of demonstrations recently marked the 72nd anniversary of the NHS. A few celebrated its past, a number praised its present, but the most significant ones were those that sought to protect its future.
Were it not for the Covid-19 pandemic and the magnificent way in which health and care staff have risen to the challenge of a generation, there may have been few if any events to mark this NHS birthday.
The foundation of the NHS in 1948, and the securing of the principle that healthcare would be free at the point of use and available to every citizen from the cradle to the grave, was among the most significant social developments of the 20th century in Britain and Northern Ireland. These changes were not given freely, they were won by the struggles of the organised working-class.
Seven decades later neither that principle nor the institution itself are safe from private enterprise and greed, aided and abetted by free market parties at Stormont and Westminster.
Only a few months ago, for the first time in its history, the Royal College of Nursing, had to call on its members to take industrial action to secure pay parity and safe working conditions. Executive parties had been denying them both demands for years.
For the last 10 years the NHS budgets have been slashed. All seems to be forgotten as the very people responsible for the cuts have been falling over themselves to applaud the nurses they refused to pay.
The life-changing principles gained more than 70 years ago have transformed our health and wellbeing and have brought significant benefits to the working-class. In the coming period we need to be prepared to defend those principles.
A publicly funded health and social care service designed to deliver quality outcomes is central to a humane and decent society. Only a socialist society can guarantee that – for this and future generations
LILY KERR
Workers Party, North Belfast
Attitudes must change
Peter McEvoy (July 21) has a few good points about Irish freedom fighters. I agree that the British have much to answer for especially concerning the slave trade, treatment of slaves plus the treatment of the aboriginal citizens of the areas that they conquered.
I do not agree with his view on Israeli police being rammed with the intention to kill in an area known as Palestine as geographically Palestine is Israel, Judea, Samaria, Jordan and parts of Southern Syria. There has never been a country called Palestine and still isn’t because the Arabs do not want one. It is all a policital game for Islam to take over all the areas and then Europe. I live in a mixed village, (one of the few) and have many Arab neighbours as well as Christian ones. In my business dealings, I buy and sell to the Arab community all over this land and I can say that in my conversations with many, that 90 per cent do not want a country or government run by the PA, PLO or the other dictatorial parties. Yes, many would like independence but if they are not allowed to talk freely we cannot in Israel make any progress to a solution.
Israel withdrew fully from Gaza and look at the mess it is in now because there were no negotiations or peace treaty in Arabic.
The potential here is so fantastic if we are allowed to work, think and invest together but the educational system in the PA-controlled areas must change from hatred to love. After all we are all human.
MAERTON DAVIS
Kfar Vradim, Israel
Mystical madness
I had to laugh at the letter by a Andrew J Shaw (July 23). He claims Palestine is a mythical place, that there was never a Palestine, that the Palestinians are planters. His head is definitely full of mystical madness. If he can read a map of the middle east from centuries past he can not fail to see Palestine, not Israel, and the only planters are the Zionists mostly from Europe and America. Real Jews lived side by side with the Palestinians until the British invaded and used their old tactics of divide and conquer and the rest is history.
A GIBSON
Crumlin, Co Antrim
Expression of gratitude
As an attender at Mount Oriel Day Centre in south Belfast I wish to draw attention to the exceptional carers who work there. During lockdown they have contacted each of us weekly to see if we needed anything, even a comforting chat. I have always found the National Health Service very accommodating. God bless them all.
AGNES BRADLEY
Belfast BT6
