There is only one human race
In reply to Anthony Jordan (Letters, February 15), nationalists like Eamon De Valera are morally blind.
Ethics is based on all humanity; there is no 'us and them' or no the 'other'. Ethics is universal brotherhood and universal human rights.
Irish and German nationalisms are based on the hatred of the 'other'.
Padraig Pearse said Irish hate of the English was "a holy passion". Hitler told people to think with the blood and hate the other and said that the German race was the master race.
A cynic wrote that the master race would be as blond as Hitler, as fit as Goering and as tall as Goebbels.
When Roosevelt died, Dev did not obey the same protocol that he followed when Hitler died two weeks earlier.
No representative of the then President called at the American Embassy to express condolence.
David Grey asked for an explanation and he did not get one. Both Dev and the President went to the German embassy to express condolence.
The American army and the British army saved us from Hitler's hordes.
The British fed us during the war by supplying us with 20,000 tons a year of American wheat.
On this score, Dev should have been prudent and recognised their generosity. After the war, he refused the American requests not to allow war criminals to settle here.
Many war criminals settled here and some prospered. We were isolated economically during World War Two while Northern Ireland boomed.
The economic isolation continued after the war with regard to Marshall Aid and Russia vetoed our admission into the UN.
Dev was both morally blind and not prudent enough to know who his saviours were.
Stephen Fallon
Barrington Street, Limerick
Irish Independent
