LETTERS – JAN 2025
Electable elites
As always, MJ Akbar got to the nub of the matter in his powerful piece about President-elect Trump and the role played by the Washington political elite and the US mediain his November triumph (‘Will Mr & Mrs Moses wear a bandana now?’ December issue).
However, while this liberal elite is (understandably) mistrusted by a large swathe of ordinary Americans struggling to cope amid spiralling living costsand worries over rising immigration, the more right-wing elite, as epitomised by Trump, one-time Democrat Elon Musk and the likes of Rupert Murdoch, seem to find favour. They surely have no more empathy or concern for the working people than their more left-leaning counterparts – indeed, under Joe Biden, almost one million more manufacturing jobs were created than under the previous Trump administration.
Does the secret, then, lie in their sharing of certain worldviews with the very people who willrarely prosper under thesocio-economic systems they espouse?
Carlos Miller
West London
A force for good?
Dear Sirs
Mr Neville de Silva injects an air of optimism into his fine article about the sea change that has taken place in Sri Lankan politics (‘Another tsunami sweeps Sri Lanka’, December 2024 issue). And the differences between the leftist JVP/NPP and other parties, and between ’man of the soil’ Anura Kumara Dissanayaka and his predecessors, are certainly stark.
But may I be forgiven for being a little sceptical? Voters did come out overwhelmingly for change, but there was no real choice except for the JVP/NPP. And corruption is so embedded in Sri Lankan politics that it is hard to believe it will all be so cleanly rooted out as promised. We can only hope.
Name and address supplied
Earth will live on
An informative if alarming panel discussion held by The Democracy Forum brought to light an almost dizzying array of climate data, theories and posited solutions on subject of the threat posed by climate change to the South Asia region (Asian Affairs December 2024 issue, ‘A change in outlook’).
Clearly the geography of South Asia leaves it more vulnerable to the perils of climate change and extreme weather than many areas, yet, as the participants suggested, it is human wellbeing, even our entire civilisation, that are reallyat stake from our failure to address global warming, rather than the topography of the planet itself.
In the final instance, planet Earth would survive without us, following its natural cycles until such time as the sun may absorb it, in more than 7 billion years. It may be time tounderscore the real urgency of the climate change issue: not protection of the planet, but protection of our own species, in face of a threat to everything that makes us human.
Bridie Singleton
Dublin
Letters with full name and complete address may be emailed to asianaffairsuk@gmail.com; asianaffairs94@gmail.com Letters may be edited and rewritten for space or
clarity.