Sir, – As the author of the Annie Pepper books currently being serialised in The Courier I, along with a sizeable crowd of fellow Dundonians made my way to the Dundee Contemporary Arts venue on Sunday afternoon to enjoy some filmed footage of Auld Dundee.
There were four films on offer, two of which had nothing to do with Dundee at all and the other two were supposed to be representative of Dundee and its men and women at periods during the 20th Century, that is, 1939 and 2003.
To say that I was both saddened and offended by these offerings is an understatement.
Dundee and its people were portrayed as either bingo fanatics (the women) or Kettle Bilers (the men).
This was especially evident in the 2003 footage, which focused on the wonder of the Mecca bingo hall and its customers, mainly women or lonely men, who spent all week just longing for Friday night so they could go to the bingo and maybe win the national game.
I would like to point out at this stage, that bingo was a nationwide phenomenon and I am sure people inEdinburgh and Glasgow also went to the bingo but to make this the focal point of Dundee life was just wrong.
The presenter of these films, Shona Thomson, curator and tour producer, advised the audience that they had spent hours searching through their archives for this footage.
If this was the best they could find, I would suggest that they should have looked further, or perhaps spent some time in Dundee to find out what life is really like for the men and women who live and work here.
As this project was funded by money from the National Lottery, I would suggest that if any further funding comes her way that she and Creative Scotland, whom she also appeared to represent, should spend some of it in filming a more realistic overview of our city and return these dreadful films back to the dust of the archives never to be seen again.
Sandra Savage. 459 Brook Street, Broughty Ferry.
Warped ideology of extremists
Sir, – We must give thanks to the moderate Muslims of Britain who have disassociated themselves from the obscenity that is ISIL, or Daesh, and the shame that it brings upon their faith.
They have, on many occasions, stated Islam is a peaceful religion.
For the vast majority of Muslims in this country this is how they would wish to live among those of us who are unbelievers.
However, it cannot be denied that the death cult followers of Daesh find their inspiration and justification from the Koran and the Hadith.
Equally it can, of course, be said that Christianity has had similar dark periods in history.
The Koran, believed to be thought-perfect in every syllable, shows little compassion on those unbelievers whom God, it assures us, is constantly cursing, punishing, judging, scourging, annihilating and not forgiving and not reprieving.
It is also unequivocally clear that the Koran lists the horrendous punishments awaiting the apostate in the next world (Koran 3:86-91) and the Hadith is quite explicit on the justice that must be meted out in this one: “Whoever changes his religion, kill him”.
And it would be difficult for any Islamic scholar to disagree with the fact that on nearly every page of the Koran there are instructions for the observant faithful to despise the infidel and prepare for religious conflict.
It is left to moderates to split hairs but in reality Islam is a take-it-or-leave-it religion with no modifications allowed.
Arguably, Islam more than any other religion, has all the hallmarks for some perverted followers to establish it as a cult of death where martyrdom is seen as its highest achievement.
In this light it is hardly surprising that the world is facing a deadly, sinister and implacable enemy in Islamists who believe they are carrying out the will of their God and will be richly rewarded for so doing.
Iain G Richmond. Guildy House, Monikie.
Was Stephen House right?
Sir, – It has been reported there are terrorist sleepers in Britain and others can slip into the country by pretending to be migrants.
Could Scottish Police handle an attack like the one in Paris?
One expert claims the British police are not adequately armed, do not carry guns as a matter of routine and have light body armour.
Could our departing head of Police Scotland have been right to arm some Scottish police?
Mike Twaddle. 50 Marshall Place, Milnathort.
Vital decisions require thought
Sir, – It is true that we live in curious times when David Cameron urges us on to be part of another war in the Middle East and our First Minister is criticised for wishing time and more information before committing to this (Martin Redfern, November 23).
He goes further in suggesting that nationalist MPs should vote in a way that would not “artificially create division in the UK”.
No, clearly it would be much better to stop thinking and rush into another war, after all it worked really well the last time.
We have seen what happened when the UK bombed other sandy places and the chaos and destruction now apparent in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in Libya are testament to the fact that bombing is totally ineffective against insurgent movements.
Why should Syria be any different and why, given the division caused by Tony Blair’s war, should we get into another adventure?
I leave it to others to ask why Mr Redfern in his role as a cheerleader for this Tory Government, feels it legitimate to attack Ms Sturgeon about something which is literally a decision about the life and death of thousands of people.
George White. 2 Cupar Road, Auchtermuchty.
SNP’s White Paper delusions
Sir, – Henry Malcolm, November 18) asks no voters to “compare the UK Government’s present actions against their words one year ago and to judge for themselves who was telling the truth during the referendum”.
I can only assume this was written prior to former SNP head of policy Alex Bell’s revelation that the economic case as set out in the White Paper was wishful thinking and delusional.
A. Shepherds. Manor Street, Forfar.
Bring back National Service
Sir, – I was born in 1936 and since that time, the British Army, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force have been in action around the world protecting UK interests, no matter the interests of native populations.
We were once able to call on Canada, New Zealand and Australia to supply men and equipment to support our colonial interests.
In the Second World War, the USA had no intention of joining our fight until December 1941 when Germany joined Japan in declaring war on the US.
If the Soviet-Nazi pact had remained, we would have lost that war.
Today we do not have a viable navy and do not yet have war planes to fly from our new aircraft carrier.
Our modern army does not have the manpower to patrol our cities if that were ever needed.
We do have Trident submarines armed with nuclear missiles but we need the permission of the USA to fire them.
If we are short of manpower in our services we should reintroduce National Service.
All unemployed men and women could be called up to serve at least two years in the forces.
I suspect tens of thousands would suddenly remember where their parents were born and hurry home.
Tom Black. 83 Lawside Road, Dundee.
We lose Trident at our peril
Sir, – Five years ago, the Government scrapped the Nimrod maritime defence patrol system.
Now, at a time when we need those aircraft more than ever, we are having to borrow support from other allies to do what we had the full capability of doing ourselves, that is spotting where foreign submarines are located and how near they are to United Kingdom shores.
On this occasion we have been able to garner assistance in patrolling the seas around us.
I am pretty sure the Government is now fully aware of its idiotic Nimrod decommissioning mistake and that is why it is making plans for a replacement system.
So could anyone imagine a much more serious situation if we were to follow the lead of parts of Labour and the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the SNP and scrap Trident?
Could anyone imagine a situation where one of the world’s despots was planning to wipe our entire UK civilization off the face of the earth and, while nuclear weapons were heading towards us, we were scrambling to build air-raid shelters and fighting among ourselves for decontamination suits?
Colin Cookson. Hatton Green, Stenton, Glenrothes.