Be diplomatic or be PC? Leo’s hopeless dilemma
LEO VARADKAR is once again embroiled in a political PC storm for being so crass as to visit an Ethiopian temple, entry into which is forbidden to women, leaving the ladies of his entourage wilting outside under the hot African sun (MoS, January 13). Dreadful! He should be ashamed of himself!
Yes, but… if he hadn’t visited the temple, presumably at the invitation of his hosts, then he would have been castigated for the diplomatic folly of offending said hosts.
Then, with the temple visit surely scheduled well in advance, all of the ladies including the ambassador would have been well aware of the temple rules (and, presumably, would have been well armed with sun screen and bottled water).
So did the ambassador warn against the visit, and if not, why not? Could it possibly be that she was more concerned with diplomacy than political correctness? Sounds to me like a classic case of damned if you do, damned if you don’t!
Anthony Manser, Faithlegg, Co. Waterford. …AMID the furore over the visit by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to St Mary’s Monastery in Axum in Ethiopia, a monastery which does not allow access to women, it emerged that the Ark of the Covenant believed to hold the Old Testament stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments given to Moses, resides there.
This has me perplexed. I understood the Ark of the Covenant was stored in a vast US government museum warehouse having been rescued from the Nazis by an archaeologist called Indiana Jones in 1936. Tom Cooper, Templeogue, Dublin 6w.