Sir, - Congratulations to Mary Holland for her timely account of the current Holocaust Exhibition in London, and the parallel she draws between the rise of fascism in the Europe of the 1930s and the growing tide of mindless hatred which is increasingly disfiguring our society (Opinion, June 15th).
Last week I attended a meeting of the Anti-Nazi League in Dun Laoghaire, at which John de Courcy Ireland, no stranger to these columns, made the same parallel with an urgent eloquence.
Asylum-seekers are being demonised and made into scapegoats for a deep malaise at the heart of our society. The alarmist language used by many of our leaders turns what should be an enrichment into a problem. At a time of unprecedented change, it is understandable that some people should be fearful for the future of Irish identity (never as "pure" as is sometimes made out to be, nonetheless); but it is the business of the Government to allay such fears, to inform and educate those whose education has clearly not equipped them for an understanding of the apparent stranger in their midst.
We are at a watershed: either we can react in a positive way to the new, multicultural Ireland which we will undoubtedly become, or we embark on a road of blinkered intolerance whose consequences are too terrible to contemplate. - Yours, etc.,
Pat Little, Clarinda Park West, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.