The New Internationalist welcomes your letters. But please keep them short. They may be edited for purposes of space or clarity. Letters should be sent to letters@newint.org or to your local NI office. Please remember to include a town and country for your address.

Ex-BINGO workers write
Your BINGO! edition (NI 383) yanked me back 35 years to my days as Oxfam Canada’s education director. Before I fled the scene to devote my development energies to my home environment, I suffered some serious compromises of my beliefs.

When we were invited to send a handful of youth delegates to the Second World Food Congress in Holland, we scrounged free seats from Canadian Pacific Airlines; their President sat (nominally) on our Board of Directors. I learned then that airlines don’t give away their mainstay asset, economy seats. So, our delegates disembarked at the site of an international conference on poverty from the front of the aircraft, in company with the national boss of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation. Oxfam did set up some truly developmental projects, but even they were undermined by corporate sponsors. One of those was Massey Ferguson. Oxfam UK had a promising little programme to help farmers in Lesotho. Massey Ferguson South Africa moved in and offered one the use of a high-tech tractor to demonstrate its advantage over ‘crude’ stick plows. The machine appeared to demonstrate the benefits of modern technology – until the rains came and washed the farmer’s topsoil into the stream below.

The activists I hung around with took to calling the whole international development conference network, the ‘Hunger Jet Set’. I fought hard to separate my education programme from the fundraising images adopted by the national office. I managed to pull the education function away from Oxfam into a new agency, the Development Education Centre. Even then, our links to the pervasive charity image were intolerable, so I left.

John Olsen Errington, Canada

I worked in a voluntary capacity for Greenpeace UK from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s and saw the change from placards to filofaxes. The term yuppie was popular then and many career NGO workers typified this style and appeared more interested in career development than campaigning issues.

A few of us saw that the ‘fur coat’ of the environmentally friendly British HQ concealed the ‘no knickers’ of internal air flights and car usage, meetings rather than phone calls, and waste in the procurement and distribution of information and campaign materials. Our efforts to change this were not welcome. Then the end to effective campaigning came when Greenpeace backed off from an action at Sellafield under threat of asset sequestration: it valued its money higher than the environment – just like a multinational. Things may have improved since then, but it seems unlikely.

Peter Easter Hastings, England

What’s fair about Nestlé?
Although it may appear to represent a step in the right direction, Nestlé’s ‘Fairtrade’ coffee brand sets a dangerous precedent (Currents, Disability in the Majority World, NI 384 and www.newint.org/features/wrong-label/index.html). It will undoubtedly be more widely available and probably cheaper (bulk buying and stretching definitions of the word ‘fair’ apply here) than other fair trade brands. The danger is that less well-informed shoppers will go for the easily available Nestlé product. Nestlé’s market share jumps and more established, more ethical fair trade brands lose business to the greedy giant that recently sued the Ethiopian Government. Nestlé dominance in fair trade coffee would mean an erosion of the concept’s principles. The concern for social development would be devoured by a rabid desire for profit.

Nestlé is not interested in social justice or development. Nestlé ‘Fairtrade’ coffee is its way into an, up until now, inaccessible but booming fair trade sector. Now ethical consumers must be able, not only to recognize a Fairtrade mark, but also to distinguish between the producers who bear it.

Simon Harding Bristol, England

Inspirational Greenpeace
Greenpeace inspires me (BINGO!, NI 383). It sparkles up the otherwise morose mornings of our days in Howardian Canberra with such daring innovations as getting the flag of renewable energy on Parliament House’s masthead. Greenpeace also provided members of parliament with a solar-powered breakfast outside the Prime Minister’s Lodge. The unsocial Mr Howard dodged this treat so he could stick with his coal-fired breakfast instead.

It was Greenpeace, along with the Wilderness Society, which set up the Global Rescue Station, 65 metres high in one of the giant Styx Valley trees in Tasmania. That act was pivotal to Mr Howard’s grudging protection of 55,000 hectares of ancient forests (there are at least 450,000 hectares more to save) at the last election.

I see Greenpeace like a big organic pear. The inevitable blemish or two is its guarantee of goodness.

Bob Brown Australian Greens Senator

Faith prejudice
Re: Mat Saleh’s letter (‘Equivocal Muslims?’, NI 383): Can I ask you, if a letter had been submitted in which any other faith group were essentialized as largely violent, inherently tribal and deeply ungrateful for the help granted to it by the post-colonial West – would you have published it?

One of the signs of Islamophobia is that ‘anti-Muslim hostility is accepted as natural and “normal”’ (Runnymede Trust, 1997). Saleh’s letter would seem to be an exemplar of this kind of pedestrian hostility, and I find its presence in the pages of your magazine deeply disturbing.

While I understand letters do not necessarily express the views of your journal, I certainly do not expect to pick up a copy of the NI and read correspondence propagating a faith prejudice which, to all intents and purposes, is racism.

Yakoub Islam Huddersfield, England

Unsafe secrets
Your edition Nuclear’s second wind (NI 382) was very timely, for it will take a powerful public education process to overcome the lies, deceit and spin of those who would lead us down this track. Most dear to my concern has always been the danger to democracy in nuclear’s need for secrecy and centralization of control; your article is one of the few that I have read that does not miss this danger and I thank you for that.

Peter C Friis Australia

NI vs RD
In May 2005 the Reader’s Digest published an article advocating greater use of nuclear energy, claiming that it is ‘safe, clean and effective’. The September 2005 issue of NI (NI 382) presents a very different perspective, clearly showing that nuclear energy is not safe (the danger of accidents, admittedly a tiny statistical risk, but appallingly devastating when – not if – they happen); that it is not clean (non-nuclear pollution from plant construction and uranium mining and from the transport of nuclear fuel and waste material; plus the nuclear waste problem); and that it is not even effective (it is heavily dependent on Government subsidies and would be out of fuel in a few years if all conventional power plants were replaced by nuclear ones).

But how can the disinformation and propaganda spread by mainstream publications such as the Reader’s Digest be effectively countered? Especially given that they present themselves as being ‘agenda free’ and would probably condemn magazines like NI as being propagandist? (In fact NI is propagandist, but it doesn’t try to hide that fact as the establishment propaganda vehicles do.)

Peter Schaper Biggenden, Australia

Speaking in tongues
The language her daughter speaks causes Reem Haddad a good deal of soul-searching.

I'm not sure how but I have managed to produce a daughter whose sentences can only be understood by the Lebanese. For only they can understand the bizarre mix of Arabic, French and English.

‘Ana going aa’ ecole,’ (translation: I am going to school) declares three-year-old Yasmine in the mornings.

My British husband often seeks me out to translate his child’s sentences. ‘I think I know what she’s saying but I’m not sure,’ he says, looking a little ashamed. And so Yasmine repeats her mixed-up sentences and I dutifully translate.

At first, I worry. ‘By age three,’ a magazine article declares, ‘your child should make clear sentences and use proper words.’ I begin to panic. Yasmine’s sentences are far from clear. I blame myself. I decide to read her books only in one language. I put away the French and Arabic ones. Yasmine has a fit. I bring them back.

Then I decide to speak to her solely in Arabic. Not an easy task. I am a typical Lebanese who floats from one language to another. I don’t know the Arabic words for many things. I usually just use the English or French word. So I buy a dictionary and spend time looking up the proper Arabic words.

But the headmaster of her school frowns. ‘How do you expect her to compete with other children if she doesn’t speak French?’ he practically bellows. ‘Speak to her only in French.’

And so I switch to French. Yasmine continues to speak Arabic but incorporates some French words here and there. And since her father only speaks English, the child’s sentences become trilingual.

‘We’re back where we started,’ I complain to my husband.

Lebanon, a French mandate between the two World Wars, is well known for its multilingual talents. Nearly a quarter of a century of French rule has strongly influenced aspects of life. French was first taught in Lebanese schools in 1834. But when American missionaries arrived in the region in the middle of the 19th century, they founded several English-speaking schools and universities. While French continued to flourish in the Christian areas, English grew increasingly popular in the Muslim regions.

During the 16-year civil war, thousands of Lebanese fled the country. Many settled in Anglo- and Francophone countries. When the war ended in 1990, many returned bringing with them French and English speaking children. There’s also a strong US influence – with the introduction of cable television, viewers here are bombarded with non-stop American films.

As a result, English and French words continue to enter the Arabic language mainstream.

Today, when registering their children at elementary schools, parents have to choose whether to put their children in an English or French section. While some class material is taught in Arabic, most is taught in the language chosen by the parents. At a certain point in school, all three languages are taught simultaneously.

Children end up imitating their parents, whose business and social conversations often contain mixed sentences. This is particularly annoying to visitors from Arab nations where Arabic is considered the main language in schools.

‘Why can’t you just stick to one language?’ asks a friend visiting from Jordan. ‘Do you think we can stick to Arabic?’

I try. But it’s hard. Conversations just don’t flow as easily. I revert to the dictionary. My friend sighs. ‘Arabic should be your main mother tongue,’ he reprimands. ‘If you want to speak English, speak purely English. If you want to speak French, speak purely French. But stop mixing them. It’s annoying and I can’t understand you.’ I’m relieved when he leaves.

When my son, Alexander, was born a year ago, I was determined to use only one language when speaking with him. I chose Arabic. I thought myself wise.

One day I was trying to coax Alexander (in Arabic of course) to follow me to the elevator. He refused to budge. Yasmine, watching us, looked at me disdainfully. Finally, she came and stood squarely in front of her brother.

‘Alexander,’ she said, ‘taa go to ascenseur. Rahan walk bil jardin maa mommy.’ (Alexander, come let’s go to the elevator. We are going to take a walk in the garden with mommy.)

An excited smile appeared on my little boy’s face as he jumped and crawled after his sister.

Reem Haddad works for the Daily Star in Beirut.