Sir, - John Waters is obviously setting forth his own agenda when he claims that "liberalism, not racism, poses the real danger in contemporary Ireland" (Opinion, March 26th). There is real danger that Mr Waters, consciously or not, is contributing his journalistic support to efforts by the Government and others to group all foreign arrivals as "immigrants", thus denying even the possibility that among them there are people fleeing persecution.
Nowhere in his article does he mention asylum-seekers or our obligations under UN conventions to accept such unfortunate people. On the contrary, he asserts: "Immigration is essentially an economic phenomenon and, as such, should be subject to economic analysis rather than the fudge of compassion, moral superiority and political correctness."
Mr Waters should be well aware that fundamental human rights, especially that "everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution" (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) are universal and stem from the dignity of the human person. Man-made economic laws and compassion should serve to promote the inalienable rights of the human person.
A second point, which I find more objectionable, is his attempted redefinition of racism as "simply fear of the unknown" and not, as the Oxford Dictionary puts it, "antagonism between races". Mr Waters is acting as a revisionist in denying the reality of this evil and pernicious poison. He decries our Taoiseach's recent condemnation of the racism that is threatening to "undermine the fabric of our society".
The fact that The Irish Times has thought fit to appoint a "Social and Racial Affairs Correspondent" obviously confirms his thesis that racism in Ireland is a creation of the liberal media.
If Mr Waters wishes to investigate and experience the reality of racism in our contemporary society let him come down from his ivory tower and meet and live with people who experience this reality every day of their oppressed lives. He owes an apology to these people, who are real and not figments of the liberal media's imagination. - Yours, etc.
Brendan Butler, Pennock Hill, Swords, Co Dublin.