Maternal deprivation, Saddam and others

Children in nursery care suffer from maternal deprivation

Sir: It is not only teenage girls whose behaviour creates anxiety, but teenage boys as well (letter, 10 December). It is worth asking what has changed since my own teens, and those of my children, now in early middle age, when teenagers didn't seem such a problem as they do now. There is one obvious and outstanding new factor, and that is that mothers now go out to work, and very small children receive that doubtful privilege, "childcare".

In the 1940s and 1950s a great deal of research was done into what was called "maternal deprivation" in young children. John Bowlby, in his book Maternal Care and the Growth of Love (1953), says "the quality of the parental care which a child receives in his earliest years is of vital importance for his future mental health". He makes a distinction between total deprivation (placed in a full-time nursery) and partial deprivation, when a mother regularly leaves her child with a carer. The damage is at its least when the child is left with someone who genuinely loves it, such as a grandmother, and at its most damaging where there is no one to whom the child feels he "belongs" for much of his day.

Nurseries take this into account these days, but there is no real substitute for the total attention of a parent in the earliest years. It seems worth asking the question whether some of the many unruly teenagers who cause us so much anxiety are the product of early deprivation of parental care, unfashionable though this idea is.

If the Government really wants to have a generation of confident happy teenagers then a "staying home" allowance for a parent with a child under three might give the young a more secure start in life.

Mrs JENNY LOWE
Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire

Saddam: unease replaces triumph

Sir: My initial feelings of excitement, as one of Iraqi origin, at hearing of Saddam's capture have been replaced with a sense of unease: unease at American triumphalism ("We got him!"); unease at his being paraded on television for everyone to gawp at; and unease at the way this will be used to justify retrospectively an unjust war and the continuing occupation.

In order that the situation not be worsened, the Iraqi people must take care not to repeat the mistakes of the past. In 1958 the pro-British king was killed in a revolution and his body dragged through the streets of Baghdad; and in 1963 the leader of that revolution was in turn executed and his body displayed on national television. Such events only served to corrupt and brutalise the Iraqi people and nurture a culture of political violence, leading inexorably to Saddam's tyrannical rule.

If Iraq is ever to create for itself a civilised and democratic society her people must resist the temptation, however understandable, to perpetuate this cycle and seek primitive vengeance against Saddam. Wherever his trial is ultimately held, it must be fair and impartial, and he must be allowed access to a full and proper defence. And, just as importantly, the court should only be able to pass a sentence of life imprisonment rather than a sentence of death. Anything less would be against the long-term interests of Iraq and its citizens. The politics of revenge have no place in today's Iraq.

DAOUD FAKHRI
London E17

Sir: They've got him, but they don't know what to do with him. He may be as much of a problem for the Americans as Charles I was for the Roundheads. That trial was essentially a vain search for legitimacy convincing few at the time or after the Restoration.

The proposed trial of Saddam Hussein poses similar difficulties, in that any tribunal set up by the Americans or by a US created authority has no jurisdiction over the man. The Americans can't send him to The Hague. The UN appears to be of the view that it has no jurisdiction either. But there is an additional difficulty in respect to the scope of the proceedings. Is it the man or the regime that is to go on trial? At Nuremberg it was in effect both. It will lack credibility if the dictator is tried without his surviving accomplices. But to try the regime should involve trying also the Western nations who backed it, armed it and caused its tyranny to prosper.

As the Regicides found to their great cost, the end never justifies the means.

CHRISTOPHER A COURT
Ashford, Middlesex

Sir: A letter on the capture of Saddam Hussein asserts that the US violated Articles 13 and 14 of the Geneva Convention by showing his picture on TV (16 December). Besides being a sad commentary on the priorities of some anti-war activists, this viewpoint is simply incorrect. Articles 13 and 14 were intended to protect the anonimity of PoWs and ensure their safety. Since Saddam has no anonimity, and since showing his image on TV serves the very obvious humanitarian purpose of reassuring frightened Iraqis that the tyrant who persecuted them for 35 years has been captured, no violation has taken place.

MICHAEL BRENNER
New York

Sir: According to US sources, Saddam has been accorded Prisoner of War status, yet he is reportedly declining to cooperate with his interrogators. I thought that a PoW was required only to provide his name, rank, and number, but maybe this comes from watching too many black and white movies of the Second World War.

Dr JOHN STEVENS
London SW17

Sir: When the crime and punishment process has been completed for Saddam could we, the British taxpayers, ask him if he intends to pay us for the weapons we were reported to have bought for him during the 1980s? There was a report of £40m worth plus of weapons sold to him by the UK for which he did not pay, so the suppliers were paid from tax revenues.

MICHAEL WELLS
Rushden, Northamptonshire

Sir: President Bush is to be commended for this marvellous accomplishment. However, the US administration must now take stringent steps to resuscitate its vision of an independent, free Palestine and a secure Israel living side by side in peace and harmony. Mr Bush should intervene to halt all violations of international human rights and humanitarian law perpetrated by Israeli occupying forces against innocent Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Dr MUNJED FARID AL QUTOB
London NW10

Sir: An interesting analogy was thrown out from President Bush's statement regarding Saddam ("when the heat got on, you dug yourself a hole and crawled in"). Modern historians might like to answer this question: who scurried to a nuclear-proof bunker and wasn't seen for days when the Twin Towers came down? Pots and black kettles spring to mind.

A S THOMAS
Port Talbot

Sir: In your extract from President Bush's speech on the capture of Saddam (15 December), "torture chambers and secret police gone forever", you failed to include the, as important, freedom from imprisonment without trial, which I'm sure he meant to say as well.

ROBERT SMITH
Merstham, Surrey

Sir: If George Bush Snr had allowed the troops to continue in the first Gulf War, they would probably also have achieved the capture of Saddam Hussein - and thousands, if millions, of people would have been saved. So, is this a case of the son redressing the sins of his father?

SARAH PEGG
Seaford, E Sussex

Sir: It takes time to complete a DNA test. Despite that, we were told very soon after Saddam's arrest that he had been positively identified through a DNA test. I am sure that the coalition has captured the right guy, but I wonder if he was captured some time ago. That leads me to fear that the Government will use this opportunity to bury bad news in the usual Labour style.

HENRIK LAIDLOW-PETERSEN
Ruislip, Middlesex

Cultural symbol

Sir: So the scarf is a cultural symbol of submission to men (Letter, 16 December)? Surely it is the plunging neckline and high hemline which symbolise submission to man - or perhaps they simply denote a desire to submit?

Women and girls should have the right not to wear the scarf, but I believe they should also have the right to wear it when that is their own (rather than an imposed) choice. Young Muslim women should be supported in their fight against the fashion industry which seems to want everyone to conform to some Western norm.

I am sure many men find a woman in a scarf more attractive than one with a bare and flabby midriff. Let's not forget that many British women in the 1950s would feel underdressed if they went out without some form of head covering, yet now the sight of our Queen in a headscarf is a source of amusement.

The idea of the French banning scarves (and skullcaps and ostentatious crucifixes) makes as much sense as the "two inches above the knee rule for hemlines from my school days. Watch for girls testing the system by developing larger collars until the head is almost covered.

Dr JOHN W BAILEY
Preston, Lancashire

Trafalgar sculpture

Sir: Re the brilliant creativity of the six shortlisted sculptures ("The Battle of Trafalgar", 12 December); how prophetic is the maxim of the US artist Barnett Newmann, "Aesthetics (the philosophy of art) is to art as ornithology is to birds" (ie no use at all)! And no less so, switching "artists" and "birds". More twerping, please, and we'll all go down the pan.

DAVID RODWAY
Lecturer in Art and Philosophy
Kensington and Chelsea College
London SW10

Truants on parade

Sir: Much was made of students missing lectures to protest against President Bush's state visit. In contrast, the children who appeared at the Rugby world cup victory parade and held banners proudly announcing their truancy were regarded as patriotic citizens. It would seem truancy is only legititmate if not made in the spirit of political agitiation.

MIRIAM SNELLGROVE
Auchterarder, Perth & Kinross

Informal language

Sir: It occurred to me as I read about John Lichfield's problems with "tu" and "vous" (16 December) that the Italians cause even more trouble. They have three words for "you". In Britain, the Welsh have "ti" and "chi" used roughly like the French forms. It seems to me that we English put "dear", "darling" and "love" into our speech to make it less formal, now that we only use "thee" to talk to God.

J C GORDON
Ripon, North Yorkshire

Historical twist

Sir: In "Toffs, vicars and dogs on bikes" (Media, 16 December), Brian Jenner writes that, while employed as a contributor to the Peterborough diary column, "Often, like Oliver Twist, you would have to phone up to ask for your payments". Could Mr Jenner refer us to the passage in Dickens where Oliver Twist does this?

Dr GILLIAN JONDORF
Girton College, Cambridge