If the attacker was Muslim and the victims were white, the Christchurch coverage would have been very different

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After the terrorist attack at the two mosques in New Zealand, some Muslims have wondered what would have been the reaction if the Christchurch shooter was a Muslim and the victims were Christians or Jews? Here is a summary of what I think the reaction would be.

The story would be 24/7 news for days to come. Islam and Muslims would be put on trial. Trump will be tweeting to his 60m followers, “I told you so, Islam hates us!”

We would know what mosque the shooter attended, the charity he gave to, and his favourite vacation spot. The “imam” of the mosque would be blamed for radicalising the shooter. US officials will be quick to condemn Muslims as bloodthirsty savages.

It would be the lead story on every TV station and a front page story in every newspaper. TV stations would interject in regularly scheduled programmes for constant updates and analyses. Major TV networks will dispatch their top-notch hosts to broadcast from New Zealand.

The topic would be on every radio talk show for listeners to vent their frustration. We would see more people use the slogan “Je Suis Christchurch” or “Je Suis New Zealand”.

Facebook users around the world would pay tribute to the victims by changing their profile pictures. Last but not least, Muslim communities would be asked the most naive question: do they condone or condemn this terrorist attack?

Mahmoud El-Yousseph
Address supplied

Grey Brexit

The current state of Brexit has brought to mind an early episode of the television series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet in which the residents of the hut, having decided to repaint it but unable to agree on a colour, choose to individually rank their colour preferences. The colour their collective vote results in is grey, a colour none of them really wanted. Welcome to “Grey Britain” courtesy of the “Grey Lady”. The sadness for us is that our “hut” did not need painting in the first place but a team of dodgy, cowboy decorators told us they could save us a lot of money and it would only take a couple of days!

John Dillon
Northfield

As Theresa May persists in presenting her same shoddy deal-that-nobody-wants before parliament time and again, is it not by now long overdue that she stopped using the term “meaningful vote” to refer to this meaningless charade being endlessly played out under her lamentable leadership? If she truly wants to have a meaningful vote on Brexit, now that the reality of it has been revealed in all its enormity, then putting it to the people is surely the only way forward.

Julian Self
Milton Keynes

Our care system isn’t working

Why do the elderly not get more coverage in regards to how they are treated? It is not just your paper, but all media.

I recently worked in the care sector, whereby people leave due to the pressures of not being able to provide people with the most basic of standards.

You have residential and care homes charging the earth, yet providing sub-standard care. Yet the government seems intent on not doing anything about it, and turning a blind eye.

What the older adult needs is a raising of standards in care homes, more staff such as social workers monitoring these homes, more time spent with the elderly, and heavy sanctions or fines on those homes where abuse and below par standards exist.

Panels that decide on whether a person receives care or not should be scrapped – they just cause delay. Panel members have often not assessed the individual properly, and it tends to be when they refuse a service no alternative is given.

From what I have seen, the elderly and those suffering from mental health issues very much get a poor deal. They are left to rot, be abused, and safeguarding is an absolute joke.

I have had clients abused, and not removed immediately from placements. I’ve seen death due to delays, our most vulnerable waiting ages for care due to insufficient panel decisions, and a client left to bake in the sun which resulted in burns. And I can safely say this is most probably a very small tip, on a massive iceberg.

This is one person’s grievance. I’m pretty sure most people who have worked in care will have their own stories. One of my clients stated “this is a non-care home”. She was absolutely right. In fact it is a non-caring system that needs reform right from the frontline, and most definitely from middle management upwards, where it seems the long timers have sat in their offices for so long they have lost touch with today’s realities.

Our vulnerable deserve much better than this. As a country we need to reclaim our care system and the NHS. We should not accept these half measures. None of us are getting any younger, and as it stands I dread ever having to be in the system.

Anonymous

List of Tory leadership hopefuls makes for bad reading

Joe Watts has warned us that “senior” Tories such as Priti Patel, Liz Truss and Dominic Raab (who?) are making tactical moves in advance of their bids for party leadership. Be very afraid.

And, in case that were not sufficiently alarming, apparently and inexplicably, Boris Johnson – by common consent, the worst foreign secretary ever – and with little else of note on his CV (something he shares with Patel, Truss and Raab) has some support within his party for the top job.

Be very, very afraid.

Beryl Wall
London W4

Jeremy Corbyn is not complicit in the Christchurch massacre

It is absolutely outrageous for The Independent to publish the letter from Genevieve Forde of New Zealand which includes Jeremy Corbyn on a list of “international political leaders who are complicit in the massacres at two Christchurch mosques because of their words, silences, actions and inaction with regard to promoting white supremacy in order to further their own political careers.”

One can only conclude that she is indulging in too much British media.

Carol Wilcox
Highcliffe