Readers' letters from Saturday 24 Mar 2007

What is racism?

 I THINK it’s time we had a debate about racism in this country and what constitutes racism. I find it interesting that the M.E.N. has run two articles over the past year about Muslims living with veils.The article on Thursday, March 22 was about a girl converting from Catholicism to Islam. I don’t recall seeing any similar articles over the past year about converts to Christianity, Judaism or any other religion for that matter. I would like to know why this article was commissioned. And are there going to be similar articles about converts to other religions? In fact I found the whole tone of the article disturbing in its non-questioning propagandist view.Going back to racism, the person in the article explained that she wants to marry a ‘Muslim boy’. Is that not racism?I thought excluding people because of colour, faith or religion was the definition of racism. I know when I went looking for a wife, I didn’t exclude people on any of those grounds. But perhaps I am wrong.

Odysseus, Stockport

Survey welcomed

MANCHESTER Friends of the Earth welcomes the findings of Wednesday’s M.E.N. survey showing that a majority of residents supports the introduction of congestion charging combined with investment in public transport. During our loveyourbike.org project to promote cycling (see website), we have discovered that there are a lot of people in Manchester who are keen to switch to commuting to work by bicycle, but they are put off by the amount of traffic on Manchester’s roads. Your survey also shows that a congestion charge would take traffic off the roads, which could reduce traffic to a level which would encourage more people to cycle.Decreasing congestion, improving public transport and allowing more people to cycle to work would be a triple win for the region’s roads, its economy and the environment.

Jonathan Whitehead, Manchester Friends of the Earth

I AM an avid fan of the television drama Life On Mars.I lived and worked at that time in our history when jobs were reasonably easy to come by. Smoking at work was a normal activity – in fact few people didn’t smoke and they didn’t whinge about ‘second hand smoke’.Everyone, including the boss, went out for a drink or two at lunchtime and we were allowed to call a spade a spade. Schools were good and local. Your own doctor came out at night in an emergency. There were no waiting lists at your ‘local’ hospital. Husbands earned enough to keep their family so women didn’t need to work if they didn’t want to. Corner shops stocked everything and there was no need for two cars in the family.The only good things that seem to have come out of the following years are improvements in women’s rights and racial tolerance.Living as we do now, in an atmosphere of dictatorship, who can blame me for looking back on the easy living we used to have? Yes, I lived in an era of flower power and free love, when teenagers were finally acknowledged as young adults. But have the politicians forgotten how good life was before political correctness was invented and they started to tell us how to live, eat and breathe?

Pensioner, Stockport

Gabby' s plea

MANY of your readers know me from my football commentating career. But today, I want to challenge readers in the Greater Manchester area to take on Trek Kilimanjaro for The Children’s Society. Trekking, like the game of football, takes passion and total commitment and the spoils are just as great, a sense of achievement and exhilaration that’s priceless. Africa’s highest peak, Kilimanjaro, is beautiful. At 5,895m, you’ll travel through five climatic changes to reach the peak. Nowhere else in the world can you pass through such breathtaking scenery.You can be a part of this fantastic trek from June30-July and money raised can help give children back their child-hoods. It’s the challenge of a lifetime, but one you’ll never forget. To take part you’ll need a good level of fitness and a commitment to raise £3,000 in sponsorship. The charity will help you every step of the way with advice on raising the money and a fitness programme to get you into shape. For more information call The Children’s Society on 0845 300 1128 or visit their website at thechildrenssociety.org.uk. And I wish you all the best of luck!

Gabby Logan

Shocking behaviour

LAST week, I decided to take my four-year-old son on a trip to Manchester to visit some museums. After parking the car in the M.E.N. Arena NCP car park, we made our way out via Victoria Station.My lad said he needed the toilet so we went in the gents on the station. Well, that was a mistake.I suppose I should have known by the sign in the doorway that the cubicles were closed due to ‘misuse’ that anything could have confronted us in there. But, at just after 11am in the morning on a busy weekday with loads of people about, why on Earth should it?So, we get in there, do what we have to and then, as we’re ready to leave, I notice several men have been at the urinals for far too long. The fact there was a small child in there wasn’t going to stop these men exposing themselves to one another and obviously enjoying the experience.Why should anyone have to be subjected to scenes like that in a public toilet? I’m sure whoever is in charge of the conveniences in the station is aware of the situation. But what’s the point of having a sign saying alternative arrangements are being sought for cubicles if this is going on in the meantime? Why can’t there be an attendant on duty to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen? It should be everybody’s right to use a public toilet without being subjected to some sort of floor show. The fact that these men simply carried on with what they were doing when a small child was there (who thankfully didn’t notice anything untoward) I found utterly appalling.

Concerned dad, Chorley