Wrong stuff for Your Letters

Wrong stuff for Your Letters

During the month of February we have seen the best and worst
uses of the "Your Letters" section of The Jakarta Post.

Mr. Link Luckett's early February letter regarding puasa
resulted in several spontaneous letters from readers which
increased my knowledge about this yearly event. This, to my way
of thinking, is the way "Your Letters" should work: an idea or
opinion stated with feedback from readers leading to a greater
understanding among us all (even if Mr. Luckett did cop out in
his final letter).

The worst use of "Your Letters" is being displayed with boring
regularity by the Myanmar Embassy whose twice a week or more
diatribes sully the use of this column. Correct me if I am wrong,
but isn't an Embassy a political entity? If it is and it spouts
the "party line" of its government, doesn't that fall into the
realm of politics? And if that is true, why is The Jakarta Post
allowing another country's government to state its policies in
the "Your Letters" section? This chap from the Myanmar Embassy is
not writing as a private citizen (as Mr. Luckett did), but as a
representative of his government -- hardly the stuff the "Your
Letters" section should be made of.

I'd like to suggest that if the folks from this Embassy insist
on writing their paranoid fantasies, that they be allowed to do
so with the caveat that The Jakarta Post put them somewhere else
in the newspaper. I agree with Mr. Gary Gentry's comment, except
that when I see a letter from that Embassy I don't bother to read
it; we get enough propaganda from television adverts.

JOHN R. FENTON

Jakarta