One-state in sight?
Thank you for the focus on Palestine (NI 544). In 1996, four Israeli border guards were found guilty of killing an unarmed Palestinian teenager. In a clear message, they were handed a one-hour – suspended – jail sentence, and a one agora (less than a cent) fine each.
With Netanyahu’s coalition, Israel’s obscene racism is now simply too glaring to whitewash, and diaspora Jews are beginning to distance themselves.
Would it not be poetic justice if in their zeal to impose a theocracy, the Haredim and their ultra-nationalist allies instead ended up paving the way for one-state between the river and the sea with equal rights for all?
The ‘I’ in LGBTQI+
Re: Peter Bavington’s letter NI 546.
Biological sex exists. Absolute sexual dimorphism doesn’t. Bavington stated that biological sex was ‘most definitely binary’ and that biological sex was found in ‘virtually all other animals’. This is, to put it bluntly, undoubtedly untrue. According to some estimates documented intersex people (people who exist outside of the biological binary of male and female), make up about 1.4 per cent of the population — more than redheads or green-eyed people — and estimates put undocumented intersex people at about as high as 5 per cent. Furthermore, definitions of sex span chromosomes, hormones, fertility, primary sex characteristics and secondary sex characteristics.
More still, many animals reproduce asexually and in some species of fish, the male will sexually transition to replace their female mate if she dies. I would like to thank the editors for their footnote (which I am reverberating here), but I feel that can easily go ignored.
As a trans person myself, all I’m seeking to do with this is educate people about my intersex siblings – the ‘I’ in LGBTQI+.
Disability hidden?
Amy Hall wrote in an article ‘Beyond punishment’ (NI 536), ‘...already let down by states and society on so many levels, disabled people are also massively overrepresented in criminal justice systems. In many countries police have the power to detain anyone perceived of being of “unsound mind”.’
Yet in my lifelong (born 1953) experience as a person with an invisible disability in the UK, there are virtual prisons for disabled people that NI pays far too little attention to. Thus when I look up the ‘UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD)’ on the NI website, I get: ‘No results, sorry about that’.
Thus I would recommend NI readers wanting to know what the UN disability chair has said of the UK government’s handling of disability rights to look elsewhere.
The editors write: Thank you for expressing your concerns over NI’s coverage, or lack thereof, around disability rights. Our last Big Story on disability (NI 467) was back in 2013, and it’s a topic we have revisited elsewhere in the magazine. But maybe it’s time for more coverage? Our website search function can be ropey at times, which is one of the reasons why we are due to launch a new website in the coming weeks. We always appreciate feedback on areas, topics and issues readers feel we are not paying enough attention to, and always strive to improve and expand our coverage.
What should we be covering in NI?
Maybe you think there is a subject that we should be giving our in-depth Big Story treatment, or perhaps you have a burning problem for our Agony Uncle, or a notion for our blue-skies What if… slot?
Submit your ideas by Monday 23 October, 9.00am at: a.nin.tl/StoryIdeasSubmission23
They will be shortlisted in a vote by our co-owners.
A tribute to NI puzzler Axe
We were saddened to learn in August of the sudden death of Alun Evans, who has contributed tailor-made geographical puzzles under the pseudonym ‘Axe’ to every issue of New Internationalist since the first NI Crossword appeared in July 1996.
Born in the Rhondda Valley in South Wales on the last day of the 1940s, Alun eventually settled with his family in Milton Keynes, England. He not only created puzzles for a range of publications such as The Observer and The Tablet but also wrote books, including From Old Tom to the Tiger and Brassey’s Guide to War Films.
Alun had completed two last Puzzler sections by the time he died, the first of which appears on Page 80.
