Madam, - If only Muslim leaders had been as vociferous about the plight of the people of Darfur as they have been about the Pope's recent speech, then the lives of many of their fellow Muslims might have been saved.
However, in the face of the Sudanese government's onslaught that has resulted in over 200,000 dead and 2 million displaced and continues to put the lives of many hundreds of thousands at grave risk, Muslim leaders - both secular and religious - have largely stayed shamefully silent.
Sudan is a member of the Arab league and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. Yet the few mentions of Darfur from members of either of these bodies has been to support Khartoum out of what I can only describe as a utterly warped sense of solidarity.
It seems that the mass murder, rape, torture, displacement and bombing of the African Muslim population of Darfur is of little interest to them.
There have, however, been courageous Muslim voices that have tried to break the collective silence. One such voice has been that of the British journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. Noting the outrage over the Pope's remarks, she wrote recently in the London Independent, asking: "Where is the shrill outrage when Muslims kill and ethnically cleanse other Muslims from their meagre homes?" And she added: "Now comes the greatest test of their selective morality, the genocide in Darfur. And they have already failed the test, dishonourably and conspicuously, by withholding condemnation of the most systematic and planned annihilation of a Muslim population in the 21st century." - Yours, etc,
SEÁN STEELE, Kilfenora Road, Kimmage, Dublin 12.