Madam,

I am on the side of Olga Thomas (‘Stop spreading hate and keep a welcome in the hillside’) in her dispute with Chris Smith (‘It’s reasonable to desire to conserve culture and heritage’).

For the last sentence of Mr Smith’s earlier letter, (‘Proposed mosque site is inappropriate and inaccessible’), “Residents who cherish our small quiet and peaceful village would be upset if there was any trouble”, sounds remarkably like a threat, to me, to the tranquillity and peace of the proposed mosque.

Mr Smith either smears the people of Llanbedr by even suggesting that that is their attitude to incomers seeking a place to worship and to pray, or smears Muslims seeking the tranquillity and peace of the village. Shame on you Mr Smith!

And Abraham’s travails on the Moriah hill (after which the chapel is named) are an integral part of Islamic culture and heritage, as they are of Christian and Jewish tradition, a symbol of all three histories which the mosque will preserve.

There are real fears that we all face economic impoverishment in our lives. Those prospects should be faced in a spirit of togetherness and inclusiveness, not in the depressing attitudes of difference and division that Mr Smith’s views embrace.

Yours etc, Ian MacIntyre. St John’s Hill, Barmouth.

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