Letters - 07 February 2025
From peace education to conflation and confusion
Peace education
I read Jane Harries’ article on the Centre for Peace Studies in Zagreb (24 January) the day before the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, and less than a week after I’d come back from Beirut.
She makes an important point about peace education. It obviously goes much wider than study of the Holocaust or visits to the sites of past atrocities, moving though those can be. As Jane says, it needs to have a place in formal education, and I would suggest that needs to be in secondary education not just in specialist courses at university.
When I was in Kigali at the end of 2023 I visited the Rwanda Genocide Memorial and its education centre. As well as being highly informative, it was an intensely emotional experience. But I still don’t quite know how to process what I was exposed to.
By coincidence I’m currently reading Philippe Sands’ East West Street about development of the concepts of genocide and crimes against humanity, and where those terrible crimes came from in the twentieth century. I’m learning a lot, but we need more, and from an earlier age, if we’re really going to equip ourselves to build a more peaceful world in 2025 and beyond.
For me that means starting with schoolchildren. At Brummana High School in Lebanon, which is supported by the Quaker International Educational Trust, I and other trustees talked with some of the students about their experiences in the very recent war (and they do call it a war) between Israel and Hezbollah.
Strikingly, when thousands of families had to flee the south of the country and ended up in Brummana, all sorts of people and buildings welcomed them. The students talked about the food and other essentials they collected to help the refugees, and there was no evidence of the bitter animosity between different religious groups that was such a feature of Lebanon’s fifteen-year civil war.
Not only was there a sense of ‘we’re all in this together’ but also a feeling of optimism and hope for a more peaceful future – which those students intend to build.
In Kigali there was a group of schoolchildren at the memorial when I was there. More importantly, peace studies are now part of the country’s national curriculum.
I wonder what Quakers could do to encourage more policymakers and educators to help our young people acquire the tools for peaceful resolution of conflict.
Jeremy Holmes
Reality and visitation
May I respond to the letter in the Friend from David Fish (17 January)? I feel very strongly that Friends do need to visit people who are sharing worship online and ask to become members.
The internet is filled with unaccountable avatars and Friends just do not know what is real unless they can visit. (I am also thinking of sad stories I hear about fraudulent people in online dating.)
Trusting that something is real has to be a part of the equation when online. Then, of course, trust has to be earned through finding out if those Friends who want to become Quakers understand and aspire to the rainbow of features which make up ‘love’.
Anyone can use Zoom. Surely we are a community, where we help each other and learn from each other. I am not convinced simply worshipping together once a week on Zoom, and not getting to know one another, secures the direction of our travel. However, I have not joined Zoom worship groups and maybe there is lots of social time after worship where friends can get to know each other in the fundamentals.
My concern is that, unless these online Friends are known to a community of Friends, it is difficult to trust they will be able to understand the dynamics of a community and Quaker ways within those dynamics, however much they have read about them.
Thanks go to the editorial team at the Friend who shared David’s letter in a publication full of interesting internet articles.
Barbara Mark
Simplification
In his talk at the recent Future of British Quakerism conference, Ben Pink Dandelion asks: ‘Are we open to spiritual transformation, personally and as an organisation?’
I read it with much pleasure as a call for us to go back to basics and simplify the bureaucracy of our Society.
As an important step in this direction could we consider reducing the amount of centrally managed work?
David Heathfield
Donations and staff
The letter from Eric Walker (17 January) about donations and staff had resonances for me, and indeed his views are one of the reasons I stopped giving to Britain Yearly Meeting, plus when it comes to their advertisements, they often use extravagant and jargon-filled language, a far cry from Quaker simplicity.
Incidentally, another reason for my diversion of funds is illustrated by the recording clerk’s response to Eric Walker’s letter. Would it have been better if instead of the justification, there was some acknowledgement of the points being made, that they were worthy of consideration and would be taken into account?
Rod Harper
Conflict in DRC
Elizabeth Coleman and George Bani (10 January) do well to remind us of the ongoing conflict in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which gets neglected among the news of wars in other countries such as Sudan, Palestine and Ukraine.
DRC is at the centre of the digital revolution, with its abundant resources of coltan and other minerals which are needed to keep our smartphones functioning. Such valuable resources attract ruthless people who violently compete for these riches.
It is all too easy for consumers in the rich world to ignore the sufferings of the citizens who live in these places.
I thank George Bani and Elizabeth Coleman for reminding us of exactly where our thoughts should lie.
Sarah Early
Quakers in DRC
Thank you, Friend Elizabeth Coleman and the Friend, for drawing our attention in your 10 January article to the 460 displaced Quakers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Quakers of Goma trying to support them, Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC)’s agreement to soon receive funds, and Great Lakes Africa Initiative’s dedication to distribute.
In the UK, there is very little media coverage from this part of the world. Let us all hold these Quaker families and local Friends in our prayers and give when the appeal is launched.
Sarah Blackburn Kehoe
‘Quakerology’
I would like to recommend ‘Quakerology’, a new YouTube channel, to readers of the Friend.
In each session Emma Roberts, a South Wales Quaker, invites someone to reflect on their experience of being Quaker. Some interviews feature well-known Quaker voices, while others are with people quite new to the Society.
A powerful and often challenging listen, the channel constitutes a rich resource of diverse Quaker wisdom, which encourages us to broaden and deepen our thinking and conversational community of faith.
Sarah White
Conflation and confusion
Conflation and confusion over the words ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ is muddying any meaningful debate.
The clearest analysis of the various, conflicting and confusing ways that ‘gender’ is used is in Kathleen Stock’s Material Girls. I bind myself to the word ‘sex’ with hoops of iron.
Some people use ‘gender’ to describe their inner sense of ‘their authentic self’, for which we must accept their word. Sex can be verified independently.
Women and girls are at risk of violence because of their sex, established at conception by their chromosomes.
Given Donald Trump’s executive order, I hope we will begin to see greater precision of language on the subject.
Ol Rappaport
Comments
A reminder, Friends. Do not make personal accusations in these comments. You may of course respond to words written here, but ad hominem is unacceptable.
By The Friend editor on 6th February 2025 - 18:18
Conflation and Confusion
Thank you, Ol Rappaport - especially for your comment on the risk of violence to women and girls, which in my opinion arises from misogyny and which is a worldwide epidemic.
Our biological sex (seen at birth) has major implications for our lifelong medical histories. And our personal contribution to reproduction totally depends upon it.
Sympathy with people who are unhappy in their body is another matter.
By DavidH on 7th February 2025 - 8:05
Note to the editor: that’s not what “ad hominem” means.
Ad hominem means introducing true but irrelevant information about the speaker in order to try to discredit their claims. For example:
Donald Trump says it is raining outside, but Donald Trump is a convicted felon so I certainly won’t be taking my umbrella when I go out!
That’s an ad hominem: Donald Trump certainly is a convicted felon, but that has no bearing on the matter at hand. It is of course perfectly valid to infer from Donald Trump’s past record that we probably should look out of the window before making our own judgement of the weather.
By Keith Braithwaite on 7th February 2025 - 8:11
I was trying to figure out why the Republicans were so fired up about Trans. After all, they have a very poor record on women’s rights and I found this article, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/why-is-the-gop-escalating-attacks-on-trans-rights-experts-say-the-goal-is-to-make-sure-evangelicals-vote and I find it convincing. Their interest in Trans comes along with their racism, homophobia, and yes misogyny. And the point of it is to make sure that the worst kind of Christian, the Chrisitans who have missed the entire point of Jesus’ message, his maximally compassionate interpretation of the Law of his Lord and his ancestors, to make sure that those “Christians” vote republican. These people are no friend to women. They aren’t interested in protecting, say, women athletes from competing against androgenic people, they likely don’t think there should be any women athletes in the first place.
The Republican leadership and their ideological backers seem to see women (at least, women that they don’t personally know), as baby-factories and not much more. I feel confident that Donald “grab ‘em by the pussy” Trump, close friend of Epstein, does not have a principled concern for the welfare of women or girls.
And while I’m no developmental biologist I am a former farm boy and I think I do know that this Executive Order on gender and sex is nonsense on its face. The chromosomes that a fertilised egg carries suggest strongly what kind of creature the zygote will grow into, but many other factors have an influence. It’s simply bad biology to suggest that an “XX” will grow up to be an egg-layer and an “XY” will grow up to be a sperm-sprayer and that’s that. As readers may know, all mammal embryos develop both sets of primitive reproductive systems for a while. In humans, sexual differentiation starts after about six weeks gestation and continues for several weeks after that. Female is the default development path but if the Y chromosome is present, and functioning, it might give rise to regression of the proto-female system and advancement of the proto-male system, or it might not. Only after testes are formed and successfully start producing high levels of testosterone, and keep it up, and the fetus is responsive to testosterone, will a male body develop—probably. I’m reminded of the Talmudic teaching that there are eight “genders” which maybe reflect a kind of understanding of some of the complexities of this, and also the teaching that maybe the first humans created by Ha Shem were androgynous and only later split into male and female.
This may or may not have anything to do with how Trans people turn out to identify, I don’t know and I make no claims. I’m confident that whomever wrote this EO, and the Republican leadership, and Trump, couldn’t care less either way, and that’s why they can’t even be bothered to get the biology right.
By Keith Braithwaite on 7th February 2025 - 10:12
Hi Keith. Your Latin is probably better than mine but I used it to mean, as my dictionary says, ‘(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.’ That’s what I’m saying is unacceptable; but apologies if it confused the issue.
By The Friend editor on 7th February 2025 - 13:27
Yes, that’s the definition ad hom. and these days it’s generally taken to mean some sort of personal attack on the speaker, or at least an insult. But it’s originally one of the “informal fallacies” of logic. It would, technically, be equally much an ad hominem to say: Desmond Tutu says it’s raining and he’s a good man so I must take my umbrella. Probably Desmond Tutu would tell you the truth about the weather but such an argument is technically invalid.
In the interests of good plain (and Plain) speech I suggest that if you mean “don’t be rude to or about individuals while you disagree with them”, say that.
By Keith Braithwaite on 7th February 2025 - 13:41
I don’t understand what relevance US Republicans and Donald Trump have to any of the letters here.
By Moyra Carlyle on 9th February 2025 - 15:40
I have little confidence in rabbinic Judaism when it comes to science. Look how COVID ripped through the very orthodox communities who didn’t hear government advice, but relied on their rabbis for guidance. The Talmudic sexual categories are of observed genital features, including intersex, surgery and injury. They have nothing to do with gender identity which is an intuitive sense of being.
Nevertheless some in the trans communities have sought external justification and precedent to inform their intuition. In some cases is based on a very shaky authority, such as this article that includes an exegesis on Deuteronomy 22:5.
https://freecomchurch.org/resources/transgender/biblical-support-for-transgender-identities/
The exegesis focusses on the translation of a Hebrew word as ‘cloak’, but of the nearly sixty translations here, only three choose cloak…
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Deuteronomy%2022%3A5
As a Biblical trainspotter I despair at the convolutions some go to make Scripture fit their beliefs and aspiration.
Keith Braithwaite wrote recently “We reject the novelty of Biblical inerrancy… we aren’t bound to understand ours [experience] in the same terms.” the Friend, 8 November 2024
By Ol Rappaport on 9th February 2025 - 17:04
Dear Editor
Can we have that feature back where we were informed of further comments to articles online?
Please?
YiF
Ol
By Ol Rappaport on 9th February 2025 - 17:06
I am disturbed by the deletion of comments. “Ad hominem”- directing the argument against the person, not the argument- may sometimes be unavoidable, even beneficial. Donald Trump is a convicted felon and a plotter of a coup, whose incitement to violence on 6 January 2021 resulted in deaths. He opposes women’s rights, for example boasting of appointing the judges to the US Supreme Court who overturned Roe v Wade in the case of Dobbs v Women’s Health. Therefore any suggestion that his executive order on trans is a good argument for an “objectivity” on sex which results in excluding trans women from women’s services, or that in this matter alone Donald Trump is supporting women’s rights, is deeply suspect. Our common knowledge of Donald Trump should affect our response to his executive order against trans people.
As for “binding to the word ‘sex’ with hoops of iron”, it leaves trans people without space to live our lives. I am trans. I am a woman. Ol may, agreeing with Donald Trump, say my sex is clearly male, but I disagree, and so do Amnesty International, the European Court of Human Rights and the European Union (I cite authorities, rather than use argument, because I hope Friends will value these bodies’ perspective on human rights). The Equality Act 2010 affirms this, calling me a “transsexual person”, one who changes sex.
And I cannot recommend Emma Roberts’ videos. I was invited to participate, but declined. Emma’s comments about “extreme trans activism” and my personal experience of her show her opposition to trans rights. The most popular of her videos makes the specious claim that “Quakers was being overtaken by gender identity ideology”.
Youtube, like other social media, thrives on controversy. Its algorithm has produced five times as many views for the anti-trans video as for some of her other videos. If Roberts’ videos are promoted, some people’s first encounter with Quakerism will be an extended complaint that “gender identity is harmful for women and children”. This may put LGBT+ people off Quakerism.
Rather, I recommend the excellent QuakerSpeak videos from Friends Journal, professionally edited videos giving the kernel of lengthy interviews.
Sometimes, ad hominem comments will be unhelpful. Sometimes, ad hominem is essential background to an issue. A better rule for excluding comments and letters would be, deleting and excluding any that promote prejudice, whether it be prejudice against women, racialised people, LGBT people, disabled people, or others.
By Abigail Maxwell on 11th February 2025 - 11:10
Abigail, I’m afraid ad hominem comments will always be removed; those directed at other commenters or contributors will, hopefully, be dealt with most quickly. It is simply not necessary to condemn a person rather than the arguments they make. You could avoid this with, per your example, Donald Trump, easily enough, should you be minded.
We don’t have an issue with someone drawing attention to particular viewpoints being expressed on particular channels, nor with rebuttals to those viewpoints. We do have an issue with making judgments on the character of the people involved. This is not our way.
By The Friend editor on 11th February 2025 - 13:01
That makes some sense. But one way I can show Donald Trump is a racist is from what he says: his use of the codeword DEI to mean “Black person doing a job a white man should do”. I quote his racism, and that is enough: he is a racist.
Some Quaker meetings drive trans people away because some Quakers are single-mindedly and obsessively anti-trans- against trans people, against trans rights, and happy to circulate anti-trans propaganda diminishing our humanity and calling us a risk. I think that is as bad as Trump’s racism. I would not need to quote someone to show they are anti-trans if I could rely on Quakers being allies, finding anti-trans prejudice as harmful and repulsive as racism, and deleting those comments.
Donald Trump is a racist. That is just one bad aspect of his character. And some Quakers are transphobes. Don’t let them spread their prejudice.
By Abigail Maxwell on 11th February 2025 - 13:57
I’m going to leave your post there Abigail, to show why you’re using unnecessary language. It is perfectly possible to say that you believe that Donald Trump has expressed racist views (preferably with citation) without saying ‘Donald Trump is a racist’. We won’t allow a repeat.
By The Friend editor on 11th February 2025 - 14:06
There has to be a name for people who repeatedly and habitually do evil acts, but it would not need to be used if others suppressed the evil acts. I get the idea that there are only evil acts, not evil people; but racism and transphobia are a far greater evil than calling someone a racist. I am an ally, sometimes: I point out racist acts and speech, and condemn them. I need allies to prevent the circulation of transphobic speech. I am really not monomaniacal; I just wish others treated transphobia as seriously as I do. I have observed the social media of Quakers, repeatedly and monotonously expressing transphobic views, as if it was all they cared about.
Transphobia drives people away from Quaker meetings, and the more transphobia Quakers express the worse this will get. I want allies to point this out, and suppress transphobic speech. I am at risk of violence because I am trans. Ol Rappaport uses circumlocutory language to deny that I am a woman. I do not want “sympathy” because I am “unhappy with [my] body”; I want acceptance that the phenomenon of trans exists, and recognition that trans women, treated and accepted as women, flourish and contribute to society- like the trans pilot Jo Ellis, to pick a recent story from the news. Trans people forced into our assigned sex, as Donald Trump and Ol Rappaport demand, suffer miserably. Everyone has heard of “gender dysphoria”; I want everyone to know about trans joy, the joy we feel in letting our true selves shine, because people who know trans people see the latter and not the former.
By Abigail Maxwell on 11th February 2025 - 16:31
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