Al-Ahram Weekly

Men again

Sir- You have an excellent weekly journal. I want to thank you for your efforts. There is one thing that I continue to be dismayed with, however. Every picture is of men -- men, men, men.

I have been very supportive of the Palestinians in particular and the Arab countries in general since 1970. I slowly became less interested in keeping up with the day-to-day politics because of the one-sided dimension (seemingly) projected in the news of the area. Today, with this very serious situation in Israel, I am keeping up with things again but am disheartened to see women left out of the news completely. Women continue to be an invisible face in the Middle East. Please try to change this in your reporting. I am very disgusted with Israel and feel that Sharon has intentionally inflamed the situation, causing this latest sad moment in history. Thanks for trying to get the news out. Consider doing some stories on women in the Middle East.

Drusha L Mayhue
Bozeman, Montana, US

'We are all victims'

Sir- Shame on you both, Mr Clinton and Mrs Albright. For personal political gains, you have shut your eyes to injustice and violations of human rights against Palestinians and breaches of international law. It is a pity that you do not have an ounce of the courage and moral integrity of Mr Norman Finkelstein. Yes, he is American, a Jew and the son of Holocaust survivors. Yet he contends that some leaders of the American Jewish community have exploited the Holocaust to deflect criticism of Israel and its supporters in his book The Holocaust Industry (published by Verso, 2000). He also observes in his book: "In the face of the sufferings of African-Americans, Vietnamese and Palestinians... we are all holocaust victims." Your bias and lack of moral integrity will cost the lives of many more innocent Palestinians, Jews and yes, Americans (such as the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen).

Sng Hwee Lee
Maadi

Unlearning behaviour

Sir- I would like to tell you how happy I was to see the article "Unfolding the flowers" (Al-Ahram Weekly, 12-18 October) by Gihan Shahine. I am very happy to see that the issue of mentally challenged children is finally getting some attention in Egypt. Mentally challenged children are often treated very poorly in society, and ironically it was a child who taught me this lesson.

As I was waiting for my train one day, I noticed a little girl of about five walking with her mother. Naturally, when the little girl saw candy for sale she insisted that her mother get her something. This was typical behaviour for a little girl and therefore no one paid much attention, including myself.

Then another mother and child walked up, only this child was different. It was clear to all of us that this little boy, about the same age as the little girl, had Down's Syndrome. He began to walk from person to person, softly singing a song to himself. He walked up to me using one hand to wave and the other to hold his toy. I smiled at him and he proceeded to move on. Then I noticed the behaviour of the other adults in the room. They were all staring at him in what I believed to be a rude manner. When this little boy, barely five years old, approached someone, they would try to avoid him or move away from him. He would then try to approach someone else but for some reason they all acted in a similarly cruel manner, until he approached the little girl. She walked up to him and smiled. She saw no reason not to, because, unlike the adult in that waiting room, she has yet to learn that behaviour.

Behaviour, whether good or bad, is something we learn. I believe that some behaviour, including how we treat our mentally challenged citizens, is also something that we must unlearn as adults. I applaud Nader and Dalal Abdel-Aziz for doing this film and for realising that we must discard negative behaviour, not only for our own personal benefit, but also to ensure that our children don't inherit these same traits.

Ahmed Soliman,
New Jersey Institute
of Technology