A chara, – Regarding Peter Murtagh’s piece (Opinion, June 8th), one must not get carried away by the flowery rhetoric employed in painting the “left” seen by Mr Murtagh as some benign binary of fascism.
Citing La Pasionaria as a hero, Mr Murtagh plays the part of a fellow-traveller better than any “noisy segments of the Irish left” he scorns, who tend to get the flak for airbrushing out the unsavoury characteristics of those who may have opposed greater evils.
Dolores Ibárruri (La Pasionaria) went into exile in the Soviet Union following her side’s loss in the Spanish civil war where she was a lifelong apologist for Stalin’s regime. I hesitate in using the term “side” regarding the Spanish civil war as Ibárruri has been accused of acting on Stalin’s orders many times during the war in eliminating rival leftist factions, POUM being perhaps the most famous example, who should have been considered allies in opposition to Franco.
One could delve into the bloody atrocities committed by the Paris Commune or the fallacy of Mr Murtagh’s statement, “the EU fashioned structures to ensure it never happens again” – with such disregard for the Balkans – as further flaws in his article. I hope, however, that the one brief example might serve as a warning against happily subscribing to such simplified notions of good versus evil.
One should not discriminate in choosing educative-holiday locations for their children; Dresden and Sarajevo supposedly enjoy warm summers. – Is mise,
GEARÓID Ó FAOILEÁN,
Verona Esplanade,
Limerick.