‘Many are deeply hurt by Brexit.’ Photo: Rocco Dipoppa / Unsplash.
‘Britain’s exit from the EU should not mean that British Quakers withdraw from Europe.’
After EU: Jude Kirton-Darling on Friends’ ongoing witness to unity
On the 15 April 1945, British troops liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The human misery they discovered showed the darkest, genocidal depths that humanity can reach. Those soldiers, many of whom were deeply scarred by the experience, were quickly followed by workers from the Friends Relief Service, who worked in the camp for five weeks before joining the efforts to deal with the millions of displaced persons across Europe. One of those Holocaust survivors was my mum’s cousin Feri, who miraculously survived several camps.
It was therefore extremely poignant that when the European parliament, of which I was a member, voted on the UK withdrawal agreement, it immediately followed on from the commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, which occurred seventy-five years ago. During the commemoration, Italian Holocaust survivor and senator-for-life Liliana Segre shared her experience of the evil inflicted in Auschwitz and the subsequent ‘death marches’ to camps, as well as her sense of the duty to bear witness. She spoke of her emotions on entering a parliament which brings together the peoples of Europe to find common solutions, noting that it had not always been so and that minorities had always paid the price. She explicitly mourned the departure of Britain from the EU.
Many are deeply hurt by Brexit, and the divisiveness of the debate. As recording clerk Paul Parker has noted, we must now discern the best route ‘of reconciling, not dividing; loving, not hating; uniting, not separating’.
Britain’s exit from the EU should not mean that British Quakers withdraw from Europe. On the contrary, part of our witness of reconciliation, love and unity, demands an investment in the organisations that facilitate change.
Since 1979 the Quaker Council for European Affairs has undertaken this important work in the heart of the European institutions. Its quiet diplomacy and insightful research is transforming the narrative around migration, practical peacebuilding, and a rights-based approach to foreign affairs. As the Quaker United Nations Office does in UN circles, it provides a unique space in which ‘vital and transforming events take place’ (Rufus Jones, Quaker faith & practice 24.56). As an MEP, I saw this work from the other side of the table, and can testify to its impact.
Today across Europe, rising inequalities and social insecurity are providing a seed-bed for those who wish to divide, hate and separate. Liliana Segre appealed for us to not only bear witness, but to act. British Quakers don’t do looking the other way, or taking the easy option. A strong British Quaker voice in Europe is needed now more than at any time since 1945. We must nurture it, and support it. And Brexit shouldn’t change that.
