Letters - 09 June 2017
From education to 'Our life is love'
Education
The proposed closure (19 May) of Walden School, formerly Friends’ School Saffron Walden (FSSW), continues a trend over recent decades which have previously seen the closures of Quaker fee-paying schools in Wigton and Great Ayton.
As a product of FSSW and with possibly the longest school career there of any ‘Old Scholar’ (twelve years), and as a former parent user and governor of Ayton, I have often wondered whether the reasons that led Friends into the provision of private schools in previous centuries still apply in the post-1944 world of free public education and the competitive commercialisation of fee-paying schools. The undoubted role of Quaker education includes promoting values of respect and the development of every child whatever their capabilities and interests, and not only those that suggest academic achievement, as so crudely emphasised by politicians and the education market.
Would it not be in keeping with Quaker values to get out of private fee-paying education completely, where our witness is only to a very narrow section of affluent society, and concentrate on those children and communities where Friends’ values could make the most impact: the ‘inner cities’, the children rejected by the proposed grammar schools or whose personal needs cannot now be met by financially-stressed local authority schools? The funding of so-called ‘free schools’ makes this possible, and I’d commend new creative thinking along such lines to the Religious Society of Friends.
The witness remains essential, but the context has changed. Quaker education should change with it.
John Veit-Wilson
I was interested in ‘Equality and education’ (19 May). However, it barely touched on the problem that I and many Friends have with Quaker schools – I believe they are incompatible with our testimony to equality
I know that Quaker schools in Britain provide a very good education, but only for rich people. I know they provide bursary assistance, but many parents still cannot afford to pay the fees.
We have a testimony to equality but how good are we at putting it into practice? We live in a very unequal society. According to the Equality Trust: ‘Compared to other developed countries the UK has a very unequal distribution of income.’
In my view, any good that Quaker schools do is outweighed by the evil they do in perpetuating inequality in British society.
Ken R Smith
People and power
The article ‘Equality and education’ (19 May) mentioned the disparity between peace education and opportunities for the military in schools.
The Imperial War Museum is usually crowded with visitors, especially families and young children excitedly looking at military exhibits. There is no cost to go in.
The ‘People Power: Fighting for Peace’ exhibition, which is on until August, covers peace and anti-war campaigns since world war one. There was a major discrepancy with the main museum. The exhibition was not free to enter. Tickets cost £10/£7 and £5. When I visited, the rooms were not busy and there were certainly no children and young families. Probably visitors consisted of older peace campaigners.
There must be a way of protesting about this. Unfortunately, there were no feedback forms available and I was unable to find anything on the website. Peace museums are carefully controlled when it comes to active campaigning. Perhaps the Charity Commission does not see the main permanent exhibitions as campaigning for war but it certainly makes war accepted as the norm, particularly to young minds.
Sylvia Boyes
Friends House anniversary
I read with interest the report in the Friend (26 May) of the ninetieth anniversary of Friends House, designed by the distinguished Quaker architect Hubert Lidbetter.
Hubert Lidbetter was responsible for other Quaker buildings shortly after the opening of Friends House. These included Bull Street Friends Meeting House in the centre of Birmingham, which was opened in 1933, and the Mount School Hall, which was built to mark the centenary of the Mount School in 1931. Both buildings are still in constant use.
Bull Street Meeting House was refurbished, keeping the original design, in the nineties, prior to the development of the Priory Rooms. Hubert Lidbetter’s granddaughter attended the reopening of the Meeting house. The Mount School Hall is in constant use, including for the holding of Meeting for Worship for the whole school.
Other buildings designed by Hubert Lidbetter include the George Cadbury Hall as part of the Selly Oak Colleges.
All the buildings have architectural features in common.
Christine M Johnson
Criminal activities and civil disobedience
In the issue of the Friend of 19 May a contributor, Mark, poses the question: ‘Is it right to use criminal activities to obstruct lawful business?’
The question arose as a consequence of the activities of Sam Walton and Dan Woodhouse (5 May), who are alleged to have caused criminal damage when they entered BAE Systems’ Warton site with the aim of disarming warplanes destined for export to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen.
In answering this question one needs a clear understanding of what constitutes ‘lawful business’. It seems that the conflict in Yemen is, in part, a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, fuelled by mutual fear and distrust. Is it truly lawful to augment this fear by the UK selling warplanes to one side? Sadly, our government has granted export licences for £3 billion worth of arms sales to Saudi Arabia. In this distorted sense, Sam Walton and Dan Woodhouse have broken the law.
According to the United Nations’ humanitarian aid official in Yemen the death toll in the two year conflict has reached 10,000, with another 40,000 injured. It is believed that these figures may be underestimates and the UN ranks the conflict in Yemen as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
We cannot know what impact the sale of the BAE aircraft might have had on these casualties but we can be confident that the Saudis believed that they would have furthered their own objectives.
Don Mason
In answer to Mark’s question: Not if one’s activities are violent and/or unambiguously criminal and if the business one is obstructing is lawful under UK and international law.
Sam and Dan were seeking, nonviolently, to save innocent lives and to prevent war crimes by obstructing the imminent sale of fighter jets to Saudi Arabia for killing people in Yemen.
Quakers, in response to the Inner Light, have broken laws and served prison sentences since they were first arrested for ‘publishing truth’. Quaker conscientious objectors broke conscription laws. I have served fines and prison sentences for obstructing the deployment of cruise missiles, cutting the fence protecting nuclear weapons of mass destruction at AWE Aldermaston and preventing the deportation of a father of two children settled in the UK.
It is vital to test any leading to commit acts that may be construed by government agents as illegal. Is this a true leading?
The protests outside Lockheed Martin offices at 15 Lower Regent Street were started by the Muriel Lester Trident Ploughshares affinity group. We are committed to nonviolent citizen disarmament of Trident nuclear missiles and any nuclear replacement.
Lockheed Martin are the lead company in what I believe are immoral nuclear enterprises. We have previously occupied the Lockheed Martin boardroom. We were not charged. Whether an activity is deemed legal or illegal depends on the police, the CPS and the obstructed party pressing charges.
Chris Gwyntopher
Our life is love
The review of the book Our Life is Love (12 May) talks of the journey from ‘Awakening’ to ‘Convincement’ to ‘Faithfulness’ to the ‘Peacable Kingdom’.
This is the very journey that Advices & queries describes so succinctly. Advices & queries are even divided into four sections. Section one begins with talk of ‘the promptings of love and truth in your hearts’ (awakening). Section two continues by saying that ‘worship is our response to an awareness of God’ (convincement). Section three begins with the message that ‘each of us has a particular experience of God and each must find the way to be true to it’ (faithfulness). And, in section four, Advice 31 says ‘we are called to live in the virtue of that life and power that takes away the occasion of all wars’ (the peaceable kingdom).
It is good to know that this simple and useful map of the spiritual journey is available to us in our Quaker heritage and, indeed, the many books that it has inspired.
David Brown
