MGKLIST
lETTERS
Munn’s word
I am writing as President of the National Union of Students in Scotland to say that. whilst your Student Guide is well-produced. useful and informative. we are 'not a little distressed that you should have chosen to produce it in alliance with the Royal Bank ofScotland.
It is not coincidental that the Royal Bank is offering such generous financial inducements to the media and to Student Associations this year since they are the subject ofa continuing boycott by many students because they provide banking facilities for the Student Loans Company. All the High Street banks withdrew from co-operation with the loans scheme in December 1989 and : the Loans Company was only able to set up its operation on time because the Royal broke ranks and agreed to service them. Since. as articles in your Student Guide rightly pointed out. the loans scheme is forcing students into debt and hardship. we would advise all students and sympathetic members of the public who are opposed to student loans not to bank with the Royal Bank of Scotland.
As I said above. this aside the Student Guide should be an asset to all students. and you can while away boring lectures obliterating the name of the Royal Bank from each page with a birol Derek Munn President NUS Scotland Dublin Street Edinburgh.
Duock-up
Nine and a half out of ten to Craig McLean for his highly perceptive review of the excellent Michael Marra‘s Tron concert (The List 160). I can only guess that some gremlin changed the fathers ofmodern football from Queen‘s Park to Queen‘s Park Rangers. ‘The Wise Old Men of Loftus Road' doesn't have quite the same ring.
In return for not passing a copy of the review to Queen's Park‘s captain (who happens to work in my office) and for using pedantry as a flimsy excuse to remind everyone of how damn good Michael Marra is. I surely deserve the tequila.
Colin James
Loancroft Gardens
Uddingston.
Blackmail is not a reason for winning the bottle. Will you never learn ?
Death row juveniles
I read with interest your review of i ‘Let Him Have lt’ andthe
i subsequent facts on capital
. punishment in the USA (The List
l 160). I thought your readers might | be interested in some more facts on i this matter:
it The USA shares the dubious
!
distinction ofcxecuting juvenile offenders with Iran and Iraq. The USA has more juveniles on
Fed up with the television camera work on the Rugby World Cup? Think that Rum-n-raisin is too good for those City Slickers? Lost your castanets at the Tramway’s Young Spain Dance Festival? Give us one
reason not to write to The List. If you do, you might win
a bottle ofJose Cuervo Tequila.
death row than any other country known to Amnesty International.
More than 90 juveniles aged between 15 and 17 years at the time ofthe crime have been sentenced to death in the USA since the 705.
The death penalty is only one issue which Amnesty International is interested in. It also examines cases oftorture and extra-judicial executions in countries as far apart as the Philippines and the Senegal.
This year the organisation expanded its mandate to cover people denied their human rights due to their sexuality. and also those abuses carried out by non-governmental agencies.
Ifanyone is interested in finding out more about these issues. then they should write to Amnesty International at the address below. Billy McKenna Press Officer Amnesty International 99—1 19 Rosebury Avenue London.
Dance stance
In issue 160. Tamsin Grainger writes. ‘it would be marvellous to see other local authorities set up Ethnic Dance posts' in reference to the Asian Dance Artist in Residence for Strathclyde. Presumably she doesn‘t mean Scottish Ethnic Dance. because while she was Dancer in Residence for Edinburgh. there was certainly no Scottish Dance ever presented. despite numerous requests for it from the public. But the Dance Artist Residencies are devised by the Dance Department of the Scottish Arts Council. not by the local authorities. As both the Officer and Director of Dance are English. is there any coincidence that no Scottish dance is included in any of the Dance Residencies? And how many. ifany. ofthe eight Dancers in Residence in Scotland are Scottish or trained in Scottish Dance?
In the same issue. there is a feature on Ceilidh Dancing. It suggests that the popularity of Scottish dancing and music is linked to the Scottish national identity. Perhaps that
would explain why the ‘Scottish‘ Arts Council (a subsidiary of the Arts Council ofGreat Britain) feels the need to bring ‘Dance Artists in Residence’ to Scotland to teach us how they do it in England.
Thomas Moore
Webstersland
Westport
Edinburgh.
Tamsin Grainger replies: As Dancer in Residence I received two letters about Scottish ethnic dance. I invited both letter-writers to meet me and discuss how I could help. They never came. I encouraged all members of the community to become involved in the Project through local press and special brochures but I had no feedback front Scottish Indigenous Dance enthusiasts.
Dead again
Epitaph for the Open Page: ‘Dead from lack ofpotential advertising revenue.‘ Thanks!
Oliver Brooks
Sciennes
Edinburgh.
Eequrlo Precise, pithy and to the point. Now that's what I like in a letter. But as you might have noticed . we have expanded the Agenda pages to incorporate those issues previously aired in the Open Section. Contact our office to claim your bottle of wonderful Jose Cuervo tequila.
Damn poor coilee
Shame on The List! Your Student Guide last week was comprehensive and entertaining but unfortunately overlooked a gross politicalfaux pas. The ‘Essentials‘ feature included ‘the traditional diet (liquid variety)‘ and pictured. represented. advertised. a jar ofNescafe’. a product subject to the World Health
Organisation (WHO) boycott. soon to achieve three years of campaigning.
The campaign now active in fourteen countries is co-ordinated in Britain by ‘Baby Milk Action' in Cambridge. and targets Nescafe as the most popular product of the multi-national company Nestle. Nestle continues to distribute powdered baby milk to 45 developing countries against the repeated criticism of the WI IO. which estimates that half a million babies die in developing countries because of unsafe bottle feeding. The consequence of Nestle over-riding the WHO judgement by offering free baby milk to severely resource-deprived hospitals. is that an ‘essential' natural resource is literally neglected as women leave hospital with no breast milk and are forced to seek out Nestle baby milk on the black market.
Despite The List‘s oversight. I assure you the student population in Britain is not so apolitical in the 90$ as some might assume. BOYCOTT NESCAFE Lucy Musgrove Leith Edinburgh
lnsensitive posrtiomng I‘m writing about the article in issue 159 of The List on racist attacks in Muirhouse. and. on the facing page. the supposedly satirical ‘Lisstake‘ on the SNP and the Nazis. To publish a jokey column on Nazism at all is in dubious taste; to have it immediately following an article on the legacy of Nazism today in Edinburgh. is at best insensitive. and at worst offensive to those people suffering from racist abuse and attacks.
It might be argued that the best
way to deflate fascist ideas is to : satirise them. but to do so in f juxtaposition to an article on fascism
seems to trivialise the whole issue. and to treat Nazism as if it were a thing ofthe past. It’s not. as your article clearly shows.
It would be good to see The List not
- only reporting further on this issue.
but taking its editorial responsibilities more seriously.
Ms E. Burns
Glen Street Edinburgh.
Post Script
Address your letters to:
The List Letters at:
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Fax them to: 031 557 8500.
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84 The List 25 October — 7 November l99l
Printed by Scottish County Press. Sherwood Industrial Estate. Bonnyrigg. Midlothian. Tel: 031 663 2404.