Building a movement for peace

David Mowat considers what is distinctive in Quaker peacebuilding work and invites Friends to think about how to take it further

On 21 January 2017 unprecedented women’s marches all over the world showed great rivers of hopeful and powerful humanity resisting the ominous growth of exclusive nationalism and the corporate monster eating its own capitalist tail. How, though, can Quakers contribute to a global grassroots movement for peacebuilding, and sustainable human life with justice?

What are we experienced in and good at? Although the financial resources of Britain Yearly Meeting are limited, we believe we have ‘riches beyond compare’. Friends, historically, have experience in peacemaking and witnessing for peace in conflict situations. These experiences range from the work of the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) in times of war to campaigning to end the slave trade, accompaniment in post-Yugoslavia and Northern Ireland, and to prison reform. Today we have ‘know how’ in several areas. Significant work has been done in areas as diverse as peace education and disarmament.

We are reaching out, as a concerned group, to all Quakers in Britain Yearly Meeting to deepen our collective conviction, self-confidence and ‘derring-do’.

Working ‘behind the scenes’

We can tell the stories of the effectiveness of this approach at the UN, such as campaigning against the use of child soldiers, recognising the legitimacy of conscientious objection and the change of approach by pharmaceutical companies around HIV/AIDS drugs.

How can behind-the-scenes mediation be harnessed to the cause of movement building, beyond international negotiation and conflict resolution?

Conflict transformation and nonviolence

The Turning the Tide (TTT) programme draws on the rich history of effective nonviolence movements across the world, focusing on training and support for nonviolent social change. Trained and experienced facilitators in Kenya have adapted TTT to their own context and are supporting people in Rwanda and Burundi to do the same.

Could they become a corps of international facilitators, taking the TTT approach to other countries?

Alternatives to violence

The TTT programme also complements the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP), which was developed by Quaker chaplains in response to a call from older ‘lifers’ in a New York penitentiary to help them teach their younger fellows how to resolve conflicts nonviolently.

How, for example, could the connections between AVP and TTT, the one mainly interpersonal and the other mainly collective and societal, be better understood and strategised?

Accompaniment

More than a thousand people internationally, including some 200 from Britain and Ireland, have participated in the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). Could the UK accompaniers be resource-people for a wider movement of peacebuilding?

What top-up skills could they receive to add to their human rights, media and TTT training?

Growing the movement

There is a Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) placement programme for Quaker peaceworkers both internationally and in the UK. We have stopped the placement programme in East Africa, and now offer capacity building and accompaniment to partners on the ground.

However, we should note that the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has a consistent programme nationally and internationally preparing young people as peacebuilders. Could we learn from this? For the longevity of Quaker input, what do we need to do to value older and nurture new generations of peacebuilding facilitators? A recent follow-up of the peaceworker programme has shown that the majority who did placements are now active in socially useful programmes.

How do such programmes interface with grassroots movements for peacebuilding with justice? Could a future peaceworker programme aim more explicitly at contributing to movement building?

Holistic approach

Quaker work has a holistic approach, operating before, during and after conflict. Therefore we have a deep understanding of what works and why – if we make the connections and see the bigger picture.

Keeping on keeping on

Last and not least, Quakers have worked on resolving specific conflicts long term. The eighteen years of funding for work in former Yugoslavia, followed by solidarity links, is an example of this. Being in it for the long term, being prepared to listen, learn and change, to take risks supporting unusual initiatives at an early stage – these are things that Friends bring to the table.

What would you add? How can we take our experience forward usefully? How can we add to the gigantic stream we saw on 21 January? How can the real inauguration of a global peoples’ movement be truly a river and not a flash flood?

This article was written by David and members of the Overseas Peacebuilding Sub-committee of Quaker Peace & Social Witness Central Committee (QPSWCC).

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