17th February 2003

Dear Sir,

The importance of what happened this weekend in Bermuda and around the world cannot be understated. Not only did millions of people of different nationalities, religions and races come together to call for peace, they did it proactively - before a war has started in order to try to prevent it. Well done to the people of Bermuda who similarly came together and raised their voices on this issue!

For the size of our population, the demonstration here of around a thousand people is equivalent to one of a million people in a country the size of the United Kingdom. The Peace March really showed Bermudians as the aware and active global citizens that we are.

The demonstrations illustrate the view (held by probably the vast majority of people around the world) that using violence to counter violence is just plain wrong. It has been said by a few that these demonstrations show support for Saddam Hussein. They do not. Such a simplistic view that equates ‘opposing war as a means of solving a problem' to ‘supporting a brutal dictator' is sheer intellectual ignorance.

The hypocrisy and arrogance of the USA and UK Governments (that have helped arm and fund horrendous regimes like Iraq's and others around the world in the first place) is indefensible. The “logic” that underpins the belief that they can act unilaterally and pre-emptively, yet anyone else, who acts similarly should be punished, completely undermines any moral high ground that they might have.

There are and probably always will be people who will want to use violence (in its many forms) as a means of furthering their own selfish needs. Sadly, that is one issue on which Saddam Hussein and George W. Bush have something very much in common. (Do some research into just how many countries the USA has intervened in militarily since the Second World War, and into which is the only country to have ever been tried and found guilty of state sponsored terrorism in the World Court…)

If humanity in its totality can only offer a solution to a problem that feeds into the cycle of violence then we are in real trouble. War is an easy, short-term option - especially for those who don't actually have to go in and fight it. Working on, and committing to, long-term methods of finding peaceful solutions to problems through consensus across nations and religions and races... that is the hard option. And THAT is what we are gathering together to call for.

DAVID NORTHCOTT

City of Hamilton

February 16, 2003

Dear Sir,

Much has been said and written about Dr. Stanley Ratteray. What has not been said is: what can we learn from his life? To me, and probably to many in Bermuda, his example said: ‘All of us, repeat all of us, can and should benefit from each other; a positive contribution is possible from each and every Bermudian'. How can we reach a time when most,if not all of us,accept that we must pull hard on the rope-of-unity in one direction as Stan did; in the best and most beneficial direction for all of us together in our Bermuda.

History and historians can write and talk all they want about Ghandi, Nelson Mandela and others. What we have got to do as a group of people is to pull together and engage in positive unity of thought,speaking and action. We need to stop thinking negatively. Stop concentrating on the bad stuff. We need to start caring;start seeking ways to work as The Team of Bermuda, for Bermuda. No more divisive talk.

Let's cut that out. Let's get together, pull together to rebuild a sound,happy and caring Bermuda Community that stands for fair play, opportunities for all, and an end to racial talk and bias in every sphere of our lives. Let's go. Let's show ourselves and the world that our Bermudian man and friend Stanley did not waste his effort and time on earth:show that infamy will not win the day over Stan's values which are the same innermost values of so many Bermudian people. Let's go for it!

WILLIAM LUSHER

Pembroke

February 17, 2003

Dear Sir,

In reference to the anti-war rally on the weekend, I am amazed at how readily Bermudians will rush to the moral high ground in support of a rogue state half a world away but completely ignore the glaring social, judicial, financial and governmental problems in our own back yard. Where was the march to decry the fleecing we got from the BHC? Where was the march to object to the fact that our courts have failed to successfully prosecute a single capital offence since the Middleton murder?

Where was all that indignation when the sophomore government of the day decided they were above the Constitution and could rewrite it at their whim? Where is the outrage when the only witnesses to a murder at 3.00 a.m. are 14 and 15-year-old kids? How do community leaders and activists feel about the bands of teenagers roaming the streets at night, fighting their way into nightclubs and private homes?

How about the fact that 80 percent of the GDP is produced by 20 percent of the workforce and 80 percent of that workforce has no permanent ties to the island? Or how about the fact that someone making $100,000 per annum doesn't stand a chance of paying a mortgage on an entry level home priced at $850,000? If those last two don't get you outraged then you really haven't been paying attention.

I believe there are a few dusty old adages involving rocks and glass houses, motes and eyes and so-on which have been forgotten by the herd in their rush to political correctness. From a simple thermodynamic point of view we would do better to expend our energy against the issues in our own backyard than to try to change the course of a decision that has already been made.

There is another adage of arrogance, delusion and inevitability about a king who died of frustration after failing to stop the waves from washing up the beach. I don't know who this is more applicable to, the anti-war marchers or me, yelling good advice at sheep.

JONATHAN DYER

Hamilton Parish

February 16, 2003

Dear sir,

I read with some dismay in your “Young Observer” section of The Royal Gazette on Thursday, February 13, 2003, Page 31, that a young Jewish girl from St. George's who as an exchange student with Israel, was instructed on how to use an M-16 rifle - it's only use is to shoot another human being.

I would have thought her time would have been more fruitfully spent being instructed in the cause of the Palestinian/Israel conflict, as she said she wished for a peaceful solution to the crisis. Where she to have been a Palestinian student, handling an M-16 rifle she could well have been shot to death by an Israeli soldier, as many have done, costing their young lives for less.

BILL COOK

Paget