Paul Lacey’s lecture ‘The unequal world we inhabit’ has the subtitle ‘Quaker responses to terrorism and fundamentalism’. He is a scholar and uses research and analysis rather than first-hand stories. He writes as an ordinary person trying to understand phenomena that baffle and frighten us all and asks:

‘As a Quaker, how should I respond?’ Paul is American and his examples of modern anti-state terrorism were mostly perpetrated by Muslims; so some of his analysis scarcely applies to groups like the Red Brigades or Ulster Freedom Fighters (or the African National Congress). He challenges popular assumptions, and says the greatest terrors have been perpetrated by governments, from the French Revolution to Pol Pot. He shows why efforts to unravel the motives of suicide bombers are unsuccessful. Most claims of strong links between fundamentalist religion and violent insurgents are unconvincing, and few suicide bombers came from the ranks of the oppressed; but ‘there are strong reasons to believe that young Muslim men and women feel empathy and indignation for the poverty and oppression they see their fellow citizens and fellow Muslims experiencing and act in part out of solidarity with them.’

He looks at fundamentalist religion and how hard we find it to engage with its anxieties and sense of encroaching evil. Again he warns against over-simplifying, saying, ‘I find the terms “liberal” and “conservative”… imprecise, unavoidably value-laden and self-congratulatory, and thus of doubtful use for accurately describing complex positions.’ He gives a moving account of a demonstration outside a Planned Parenthood office where he found he had more respect for an older man on the other side than for his fellow counter-protestors. But I missed any reference to other Quaker dialogues with fundamentalists that broaden our understanding and extend our sympathies.

The first part of the book is a useful corrective to many common false assumptions. It could have been still richer and a better guide for us if Paul had used the reports of Friends who have had dialogue with violent activists, such as Adam Curle (not listed in his bibliography), or our representatives in Quaker House, Belfast, as described recently in Coming from the Silence. There have also been encounters with violent people in the Quaker Peace & Social Witness projects in South-East Asia and former Yugoslavia, and equivalent work by American Friends Service Committee.

What is the proper Quaker response to both problems? Paul gives an excellent account of our peace testimony; he is committed to it and admires the work it has inspired, but he questions its adequacy ‘when the killing starts’. He explains how the intellectual debate has usually been framed in terms of militarism versus absolute pacifism; pacifism will always lose this argument when things start to get dangerous. But reality is more complex – and Paul wonders if we are willing to address other forms of evil apart from injustice. He quotes Jack Patterson (formerly of the New York Quaker United Nations Office) on the obstacles inhibiting an adequate Quaker response to evil: ‘the preciousness of the peace testimony and the tendency to enshrine it as a creed; an inclination to avoid risk and a fear of controversy that prevents us from a discernment process on these questions’; and ‘those assumptions that are so sweeping and beyond question that they kill off the possibility of thinking in new ways.’ He gives as examples, ‘military intervention never works or does any good’ and ‘there is a nonviolent answer to everything.’ To keep a peace testimony alive, we must test it with uncomfortable questions and ‘unthinkable’ options.

He proposes two linked possibilities for progress. One is the agreement on Responsibility to Protect, recently described in the Friend by Gordon Matthews (23 April). This states that when a nation is unable or unwilling to protect its own people from genocide, war crimes, ‘ethnic cleansing’ and crimes against humanity, the international community has a duty to intervene. If Friends endorse this, we shall have to sanction a certain amount of armed force. Such force could be limited if nations would also assent to the idea of ‘Just Policing’ in international affairs. This concept gives primacy to maintaining justice, while the military response focuses on ‘victory’. When responding to crimes against humanity, Paul argues that ‘though we recognise that something equi­valent to SWAT [special weapons and tactics] teams may be needed to deal with the most violent crimes, we want them to be the rare, exceptional and severely restricted police response.’ George Fox was comfortable with the idea of policing, encouraging unarmed Friends in Barbados to go on patrol with armed neighbours for the protection of their property against fire and theft. But Paul does not have space to deal with the enormous risks; for instance British troops arrived in Northern Ireland to protect Catholic communities from an oppressive local police, but were soon almost at war with them.

I welcome these questions being opened up among Friends. Paul cogently says: ‘Aim for effectiveness and we may be trapped in unacceptable compromise with principle. Aim for faithfulness, and who knows how many cases of injustice and death we may find ourselves helplessly turning away from.’ But I think he overplays Quaker importance when he says: ‘With these questions we point ahead to some crucial examinations of future Quaker participation in the UN, both the implications of the Responsibility to Protect and the potentiality of the Just Policing model for peacebuilding, all of which is made more compelling by the need to respond to the tactics of terrorism.’ It is valuable to sort out our own thinking, but how much can Friends hope to influence the international debate? Perhaps there may be humbler work, such as the Quaker actions referred to in his final pages, that could command our energies and make a more significant contribution to a better world. Quakers have other options besides sanctioning violent missions by the UN or turning helplessly away.

Our Friend Donald Court told me how there was an air raid during his conscientious objector tribunal in the 1939-45 war. As they took shelter he realised: ‘This attests the values we are fighting for, that three distinguished people should take all this time to honour my unimportant conscience’, and he felt intensely isolated. But within that war (which came closer than most to a Just War) it was right that a few people like him should witness to a better way, rejecting violence as a means to a worthwhile end. Could it be our task to find ways to renew this witness even in the face of terrorism?

It is a mark of Paul Lacey’s achievement that his book leaves us with so many questions. I hope that it will dispel many misconceptions and stimulate some tough new thinking.

The unequal world we inhabit by Paul Lacey costs £8 and is published by Quaker Books.