ANNE NOLAN,
Madam, - It would be a sinister development if debate within our society concerning the justice of the case made by a lobby group were to be conducted in terms suggestive of a struggle between members and non-members of a particular religion.
Your columnist Fintan O'Toole's comments on the recent farmers' protest (Opinion, January 7th) equated the alleged clash of interests between urban and rural workers with the strife between fundamentalist religion (Muslim or Catholic) and the upholders of secular, liberal values. The coincidence of regional, cultural or occupational differences with religious ones is apparently something which Mr O'Toole desires to read into the situation, perhaps in the hope of making a self-fulfilling prophecy. Far from adopting an attitude which would lead away from the unfortunate occurrence of this coincidence elsewhere on the island, he seems desirous of importing it into our own society.
The tone of secular triumphalism in this column bodes ill for the future of genuine tolerance in our multicultural society. There are now many persons of the Muslim faith in the State who, having been born here, are Irish citizens. It should be remembered that in a few years time these people will be potential voters. They might well shy away, for example, from an Irish Labour Party whose supporters too often seem to be apostles of undiluted modernity, who see nothing wrong with trying to set workers of similar income levels against each other on a secular versus religious basis. - Yours, etc.,
ANNE NOLAN, Cathal Brugha Street, Dublin 1.