THE New Zealand PM has shown us a way of dealing with perpetrators of hate crimes: extinguish them by removing their names from any information released about the horrors they created. Names are used by people to accord a shared humanity, and by reducing them to an indefinite – “ a terrorist”, “a gun man” etc – we can reduce them to what they are, and deprive them of publicity that only draws attention to their hate and feeds the minds of the similarly inclined.

Media should stop giving a platform to those who seek to spread these objectionable messages. Under the guise of keeping the public informed, they provide headlines, news-bites and viral shares on the social networks and endless follow-ups of their journey to hate, filling pages and prime-time slots.

By refusing to give publicity, the space, the time and a name, surely it will reduce their delusional purpose and the spreading of their vile messages? Surely decent-minded people can show solidarity by refusing to share in their crimes by wiping out the expectation of graphic news and pictures, in print, by internet or television.

It is not just incumbent on the media to help stop this grotesque fascination with horror; it’s perpetrators and those who incite from a place of safety. We all have a role to play in eradicating it by switching off, refusing to share and read about these hate-filled people and their actions.

E Ahern
East Kilbride

ON Saturday evening and I watched Seven Days on the new BBC Scotland channel and A United Kingdom on BBC 2.

The first included a discussion between Alison Rowat, Dani Garavelli and Moray MacDonald. They first discussed the conviction and sentence of the murderer of Alesha McPhail in a balanced and unsensationalised manner, then moved on to the mosque killings in New Zealand, praising the empathy and leadership shown by PM Jacinta Ardern in emphasising unity in the face if this atrocity, and comparing her reaction to that of Theresa May following the Grenfell Tower fire, unfavourably to the latter.

These discussions, if they do nothing else, justify our widespread desire in Scotland to have news stories, local, national and international, reflected through a Scottish perspective. In both cases opinions were put forward which I have not seen on UK-wide news.

The second was a dramatisation of the repercussions of the marriage of Seretse Khama, the heir to the throne of the then British Protectorate of Bechuanaland, to Ruth Williamson, a white woman from London, which shocked the British establishment. The role of the British government in this matter – keen to appease neighbouring South Africa and their policy of apartheid, while determined to keep control of the recently discovered diamond wealth in their “protectorate” by exiling Khama from his country, fomenting conflict between him and his uncle (understandably uneasy about his nephew’s marriage to a white woman), and lying about a report which stated that he was a suitable monarch – demonstrated some of the worst aspects of British colonialism.

Both programmes gave food for thought, which is surely part of a broadcaster’s remit.

Ann Rayner
Edinburgh

WHILE agreeing completely with David Pratt in everything he writes in his article about the rise of right-wing extremism and its connection with many elements of everyday experience (This was no ‘lone wolf’ – the far right are winning votes all over the world, March 22), I feel he goes not far in enough in his conclusion.

Nobody of good conscience would disagree that the political agenda has been shifting to the right for many years. Nor perhaps that there is at least an incipient connection between violent white supremacy and ordinary populist opinion. There is, however, little connection made in public discourse between this general tendency and the continuing dominance of a very toxic kind of masculinity. And yet it is arguable that this is the common element.

There is a variety of male power, still woven through the fabric of society, always based on the threat of violence, on intimidation or on actual physical abuse and cruelty. It is engendered most emphatically when men are brought together with men in entitled, exclusive groups, with the idea that they can exercise their individual will over their property and their women.

This is a rough caricature of course, but it must always be a good idea to act to prevent our little boys becoming involved in any kind of toxic masculinity; for there is a place in our culture – not just on the internet, as David Pratt rightly emphasises – where the pinacle of maleness and the core of white-supremacist, ring-wing ideology intersect.

We are fortunate now to be able to see toxic masculinity for what it is and to be able to warm our young men. With the slide to the right there is a danger that it will again become normal, as it was when I was growing up during the 1970s, rendering it once again invisible, and piling further cruelty and abuse on generations to come.

Andy Duncan
Cupar