Letter - 27 October 2017
From Fairtrade to free-ranging
Fairtrade
Okehampton Meeting raised a concern at Area Meeting about Sainsbury’s move away from Fairtrade Foundation accreditation on their economy tea to their own Fairly Traded scheme. We wanted to raise awareness of this change. The advice given was to write to the Friend.
Our concerns with this development are, first, that it will cause confusion among shoppers who are familiar with the Fairtrade Mark and trust its provenance.
Second, this could be the start of a trend. Will other products on Sainsbury’s shelves become Fairly Traded? Will other retailers follow suit?
The most important difference between the Sainsbury’s scheme and the regulations of the Fairtrade Mark is one of disempowerment for farmers over decisions relating to their social premium money, as decisions about the spending of this money will be made in London not in the communities who have earned it as part of their trade deal.
Third World producers who have visited us in Devon have always been very proud of the impact that their choices have made by using their social premium money for health, education or productivity initiatives.
The Catholic Agency For Overseas Development (CAFOD) is coordinating a day of action on Saturday 28 October to highlight the concerns outlined with a presence outside as many Sainsbury’s stores as possible.
I would encourage Friends to support this protest locally. There is also a petition (‘Sainsbury Don’t Ditch Fairtrade’).
Cynthia Higbee
Violence against women
After a collection for women’s refuge work in January, we in Gloucestershire Area Meeting were shocked to learn of widespread funding cuts in services for women and children fleeing domestic abuse and violence.
Our work since then has led us to ask: how can we usefully bring this matter to light? Is there a way we could learn from others and host an event to bring our experiences together?
So, this is an invitation to Friends in other Area Meetings to share information about refuges elsewhere. Are they still open? What efforts are being made to resist cuts to their funding?
Some may think that gender inequality is a thing of the past. Persistent violence against women says otherwise – along with the everyday, routine experience of casual sexism.
Like others across the country, our local small refuge actually provides a national service to women who cannot remain safely in their own communities: representing, in the words of one report, a regular pattern of forced migration here in this country.
We would be glad to hear from any other Friends doing work in this area
Andrea Rigby, John Geale and Jane Mace
Mind and brain
G Gordon Steel (13 October) is the second writer in recent weeks who, I think, mistakes mind and brain. The brain is simply the living tissue, the mind is the electrical dance of the neurons across the trillions of connections.
Our neural network spreads to the limits of the sensory nerve endings in our body and out into the world through our senses: so our mind, our awareness, fills our body and flows out beyond it. The brain has few internal senses, so any idea of the brain as the location of our mind is a construction that we import.
The view that we are separated off from the world, like calculators in boxes, is a theory that is not only much too simplistic to fit the facts but is, I believe, harmful. It is likely to lead to the mind limiting itself in what it can experience and achieve.
Beauty, for example, is much more than the surface glint of something. It has elements of both ‘right-ness’ and ‘other-ness’, and you could profitably spend a lifetime exploring what it means and still not grasp it fully.
Kevin Hogan
Faith and fact
Gerard Guiton (6 October) states, in a thought-provoking and uplifting piece of writing, that ‘Jesus was man, not God’. He states this as if it is a fact rather than his opinion or faith. Many Quakers may believe in the more orthodox church view of Jesus as part of the Trinity and to quote Nicea ‘of one substance with the father’. This again is, of course, faith not fact.
The letter pages of the Friend (6 October) have recently recommended the writings of Marcus Borg. His faith would appear to sit between the two views expressed above. (Marcus Borg says: ‘Jesus is the revelation of God for Christians. When we look at Jesus we look at God.’)
I think it would become Quakers more, when speaking about their faith, to actually say this is my faith. This is not a provable fact. There is such a variety of views [on this subject] amongst Quakers that some humility is called for.
Chris Wilcocks
Guided painting
It struck me, having seen yet another image of Christ (Amaryld Vernicle) in the Friend (29 September) and having noted in the past how similar are all the various icons I have come across, that it must be true that these old icons from the ancient Orthodox churches were painted while the painters were ‘channelling’ the image whilst in a meditative state of mind.
This conclusion is strongly reinforced by my similar experience of ‘drawing’ Assad for a reading of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s play Nathan the Wise. Assad was Saladin’s long-lost son. I was producing Lessing’s masterpiece for Newport Interfaith Group and needed the painting of Assad as a prop.
Somewhere or other, Assad – for I am convinced it is his likeness – must still be known in the timeless world of Spirit!
I remember, back in my childhood, when I used to ask difficult questions, being told by my mother that the Orthodox icons were in fact painted by Christian monks under spiritual guidance. To me, now, I feel the truth of this, though I have heard ‘experts’ proclaim that the similarity they all share comes from their being copied from the same source painting.
Mary Cook
Living Wage
I am encouraged by the activities described by Sue Newsom (6 October) in respect of the banks and paying a Living Wage.
There are two other initiatives that would complement this work. The first would be to change attitudes so people regard taxation as a good thing: that we pay what we can to provide a society that supports everyone and provides security. This happens in the Nordic countries where everyone is helped to contribute to society by working and training is free (see George Lakey’s book Viking Economics).
The second initiative is the Citizen’s Basic Income, payable to everyone. This would be enough to live on. Those in work would earn a bit less or pay a bit more tax to cover it. There would be no stigma about living in a particular way. This is being taken forward by Quakers in Scotland.
Both of these initiatives would increase equality and security, thus benefitting the whole of society.
Daphne Wassermann
The Bible Society
Like Sam McNair (13 October) I, too, was concerned, or more than concerned, by the Bible Society insert distributed by the Friend (6 October). So were other Friends to whom I mentioned it – one exploded with disgust. Am I wrong in thinking that the Bible Society’s mission includes the aim of converting people to Christianity rather than providing Bibles for those asking for them? In this case the insert used the example of a Muslim woman. I also believe that the Bible Society are quite well funded.
I don’t think Friends should be seen as giving support to this charity.
Penelope Putz
Ackworth School
I was interested to read (13 October) that Ackworth School was making it clear that it is a free-standing institution, completely independent of Britain Yearly Meeting, but that it also wanted to tell us that it continues to be Quaker in ‘outlook and governance’. I wonder what ‘Quaker’ as an adjective means to Ackworth School.
For me, ‘Quaker’ involves a testimony to equality. Fee-paying schools in Britain, in their roles as pathways to privilege, cannot be ‘Quaker’. I know many Friends are hurt by criticism of Quaker schools, but many more people are hurt by the social injustice caused by unearned privilege in our society.
Marian McNichol
Free-ranging
Just a thought, apropos of ‘Thought for the Week’ (6 October) and Luke 18:17. Perhaps: ‘Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a free-ranging chicken, shall in no wise enter therein’?
Geoffrey Braithwaite
