Letters to the Editor

China’s broken promises

Regarding “China limits reform in Hong Kong” (World, Tuesday): By rejecting universal franchise for Hong Kong’s chief executive and legislature in 2007-08, China not only undermined international confidence in its “one country, two systems” formula, but also may have violated an international treaty.

To assure Hong Kong residents and the international community, China registered the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration on Hong Kong — a treaty between two sovereign states — with the United Nations under Article 102 of the U.N. Charter. Hong Kong’s future is thus an international concern.

Although Hong Kong has the world’s 16th-highest gross domestic product per capita (according to the 2003 CIA World Factbook), it and Singapore are the only two among the world’s 25 richest societies that are classified as “partly free” rather than “free” by the New York-based Freedom House.

Hong Kong is past due for democracy because of China’s interference.

VINCENT WEI-CHENG WANG

Associate professor of political science

University of Richmond

Richmond

An Iraqi republic, if they can keep it

Unfortunately, John McCaslin repeats a common misunderstanding about how democracy and ancient Greece relate to democracy in Iraq (“Aristotle and Saddam,” Inside the Beltway, Friday).

Around 400 B.C., the city-states of Hellenic Greece had two forms of government: oligarchies like Sparta and democracies like Athens.

In Athens, although sex and property ownership limited the franchise to about 10 percent of the population, every citizen could vote on any law. The legislature consisted of whoever happened to show up on a particular day, and articulate demagogues could, and often did, plunge the city-state into war for the most trivial of reasons.

Sparta, on the other hand, was an oligarchy and a warrior culture controlled by a very small segment of the population. It started the Peloponnesian War for the most serious of reasons — because it feared Athens’ growing naval power and broad tributary dictatorship.

In the United States, we have neither an oligarchy nor a true democracy, in the ancient sense. We have a republic, which is the best of both worlds,arepresentative democracy. We have both a broader franchise than the ancient democracies and the deliberation that comes from a small number of governing officers who feel the weight of responsibility on their shoulders.

It isn’t perfect, but as Winston Churchill noted, all other forms of government are worse. Or as Benjamin Franklin replied when asked what form of government we had: “A republic, if you can keep it.” As Iraq moves toward “democracy,” it should keep in mind the system that has made us so successful: the will of the people, expressed through a constitutional republic.

DOUGLAS E. MCNEIL

Baltimore

Missing link still missing

I am referring to Saturday’s letter on evolution by David P. Crocker (” ’Best guess’ still best so far”). Evolution makes sense when understood as a process of the different, individual species. However, it is quite an aberration when the inference is made that one unique kind of species may be derived from another. Mutations and adaptations always occur within the realm of a given species.

It is my firm belief that one day mankind will get a good hearty laugh from the notion that we descended from apes as we do now from the flat Earth theory commonly agreed upon in the early Middle Ages.

FELIPE FERNANDEZ

Miami, Fla.

Hoyer’s hooey

In his letter Tuesday, “A gross mischaracterization,” Rep. Steny H. Hoyer had the audacity to write, “… when it comes to eliminating waste, fraud and abuse, the Republican Party is all talk and no action.” This is laughable coming from the “Great Appropriator,” an entrenched tax-and-spend politician whom the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste has given a lifetime rating of 12 and the designation of being “Hostile to Taxpayers.” While Mr. Hoyer talks about fiscal discipline, perhaps he would like to explain why he voted for continued funding to the National Institutes of Health for the following studies: “Mood Arousal and Sexual Risk Taking,” “Study on Sexual Habits of Older Men,” “Study on San Francisco’s Asian Prostitutes/Masseuses” and “Study on American Indian Transgender Research.”

This is but another example of what has become known as “Hoyer’s Hooey” in Southern Maryland.

VERNON GRAY

California, Md.

Conservative clock-turning on abortion

Charles Hurt’s article “White House to pull support for conference” (Page 1, Monday) sheds light on the global battle over reproductive rights. The conservative forces behind the withdrawal of U.S. support for the Global Health Council’s June conference in Washington have pushed the Bush administration to turn back the clock 30 years on the entire range of sexual and reproductive rights. Not satisfied with chipping away at Roe vs. Wade domestically, the administration is attacking access to contraception, meaningful sex education and other family-planning services worldwide through the global “gag rule,” withholding congressionally approved funding for the U.N. Population Fund, and trying to rewrite the near-universal consensus on population and development reached in Cairo in 1994.

Every time those ideologically-driven bureaucrats further restrict U.S. support for international family-planning programs, the lines at our clinics get longer — and more poor women in the 45 Western Hemisphere countries in which the International Planned Parenthood Federation works die for lack of access to reproductive health care services.

CARMEN BARROSO

Regional Director

International Planned Parenthood Federation, Western Hemisphere region

New York

Don’t rush Saudi reform

I strongly disagree with the shallow portrayal of Saudi Arabia as a police state in the column “Saudi promises” (Op-Ed, April 21). Please don’t misunderstand us: All Saudis are pro-reform, including the Saudi king, crown prince and even Saudi Parliament officials, who have acknowledged publicly a need for critical reform. Nevertheless, how we should construct reform is the issue with which all Saudis are wrestling.

You can’t ask a baby to race in an international marathon. Unfortunately, that’s what the so-called Saudi reformers are requesting. We can’t ask people who united just 70 years ago to conduct traditional democracy in an overnight decision. This would revive tribal and religious zealotry, causing harmful consequences.

To achieve the democracy we want, we need to learn how to accept the majority choice peacefully, regardless of intellectual orientation and tribal background. Overpressuring the government when we are at war against international and local terrorism would undermine the Saudi government’s plans for change.

The Saudi Consultative Counsel is discussing corruption,unemploymentand women’s rights in Islam. These subjects weren’t even recognized a few years ago. If we take the time factor into consideration while we are implementing steady political modifications, we will accomplish a win-win situation in a chaotic region.

KHALID ALSAEED

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia