Masking offensive
VIRGINIA HAUSEGGER (''Ban unAustralian burka'', Forum, June 27, p16) is spot on: ''Wearing the burka or niqab in Australia is an aggressive way of saying, 'I will not integrate into your society, and I care nothing for the cultural mores and social traditions of this country.' ... The burka is an arrogant display of disrespect to Australia and the Australian way of life.'' But I make another point: the wearing of the burka and the hijab is offensive to Australian men.
The purpose of this masking is to shield the male's ''possession'' from the lustful gaze of other men, a negative assumption about the behaviour of Australian men in general. It ascribes to them a lack of control displayed by a tiny minority of our community.
But, as we all tend to see our own shortcomings in others, could this male world view perhaps reflect the Muslim male's promise of an after-death frolic with a horde of lubricious maidens?
Barrie Smillie, Duffy
Backing burka ban
CONGRATULATIONS to Virginia Haussegger for finally having the guts to speak up on the topic of banning the wearing of this primitive garment. (Forum, June 27, p16). These women are enclosed in their own personal prison cell.
Why are the other feminists silent on this issue? The burka is a symbol of dominance and oppression of women and has no place in a free society such as Australia.
Tom Ruut, Garran
Behind our boy Mills
THE SPORTING story of young Australian basketballer Patrick Mills (''Mills a first-round chance: Brown'', June 26, p30) is a much needed one at a time of scandal in our major football codes.
Mills is a Canberra boy with a proud heritage of Australia's two indigenous cultures.
He has established himself as a caring young person who cares for the needy in the Canberra indigenous community.
Parents Yvonne and Benny have given much to Canberra's basketball community, and Mills's uncle Sammy was the first indigenous residential scholarship holder at the Australian Institute of Sport in the early 1980s.
It's little wonder Mills now stands at the threshold of a wonderful sporting career.
John Bell, Lyneham
The king of what?
THE KING is dead (''A generation loses its king'', June 27, p1) the king of a generation of selfish, introverted, self-seeking, fantasy-besotted, pill-popping, individualistic, anti-community, over-consuming, spoiled and exploitative cohort focused exclusively on instant self-gratification. Meanwhile, a billion-plus despised, ignored, and abandoned human beings are engaged in a nightmarish daily struggle for subsistence on the crumbs from the rich (exploitative) man's table.
Obviously Abraham Lincoln was wrong; all men are not created equal.
Albert M. White, Queanbeyan, NSW
Hypocritical tributes
FOR SOME time, the Australian media has gleefully referred to Michael Jackson as ''Wacko Jacko'' happy to say he was crazy and ridicule him for being so.
I don't recall anyone in the media saying that he was someone who really needed help. Now that he is dead, all sectors of the media are falling over each other to pay tribute to him.
Hypocrisy, thy name is media.
Gordon Fyfe, Kambah
Keating was right
PAUL KEATING had many faults which cost him the 1996 election, but he was right about one thing calling the National Museum a ''lemon'' (''Museum is fit for the task'', June 25, p15).
It's more like a gimmicky amusement park, not like what people expect a museum to be. It certainly doesn't deserve to be called ''national''.
And would they please get rid of that big centipede-like monstrosity at the entrance that spoils the central Canberra landscape.
R.S. Gilbert, Braddon
Example for Iran
UNITED States President Barack Obama has already profoundly influenced people in Iran simply by being elected last year.
Through the internet and modern communications people in Iran witnessed a member of a black minority being accepted and elected by a popular majority.
After seeing democracy work successfully, it is no longer simply enough to announce the results of an election and expect the result to be accepted by all parties concerned.
Iranians want that for Iran too. All power to them.
Ronald Evans, O'Connor
A bullying solution
I WAS disappointed to read the article by a headmaster at a Canberra high school (''Technology adds new dimension to bullying'', June 21, p6).
I understand times have changed and that bullying is different.
I was bullied at my first high school and it only stopped when I turned around and hit the perpetrators after one too many shoves from behind.
I got beaten badly but since I stood up for myself they never did it again.
But the solution is not to tell the ''different ones'' to change or to try and not to be so ''conspicuous''.
Where would the world be today without those different individuals? Some the greatest brains, musicians, artists and leaders of the last century didn't fit in.
It is by following the biggest bully and trying to fit in that most of the world's biggest massacres and wars have happened.
I worry about my daughter, who at nine doesn't fit in. But I am not going to tell her to do so if that isn't what she wants to do.
I keep telling her she is different (as each of us are) and it is different people that change this world for the better.
Elissa East, Gordon
Keep our heritage hall
M.A. Smith (Letters, Forum, June 27, p12) says that, in an earlier letter, I lamented the National Capital Authority's decision to abandon plans for redevelopment around Albert Hall.
I'm sorry I gave that impression, because I heartily welcome the decision.
All I was doing in my previous letter was objecting to the reason the authority gave for scrapping its plans: in effect, that there was no lobby group pressing for it (suggesting they only did things if a lobby group pressed them, which is not acceptable for a public authority).
If they had given what's probably the real reason for their decision (that they realised the community generally was against such redevelopment), I would have ''gone quietly'', or even praised the authority.
Incidentally, Mr Smith, my love of the Albert Hall must exceed yours, because mine started in 1947, 41 years earlier.
R.S. Gilbert, Braddon
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