Farewell, pacifist Quakers
Symon Hill shares some thoughts on pacifism
Pacifism was a key factor in drawing me to Quakerism. It saddens me to see pacifism steadily losing its place at the heart of the Society, at least in Britain. The Peace Testimony is not incidental to Quakerism. Through seeking to live out our commitment to nonviolence, we testify to our experience of the Inward Light. God’s Light shows us our own inner violence, exposes the reality behind the world’s systems and leads us to act in the power of the Holy Spirit, a power that is deeper and longer-lasting than military power. I know only too well that some peace campaigns are ineffective and undermined by egotism or naivety. But this is a partial picture. It is not a reason to reject peace activism as a whole.
Some would have us believe that a pacifist is a coward and a traitor, happy to leave tyrants in power. In reality, pacifists recognise that there are always more than two options. We don’t have to choose between supporting a dictator and killing his or her people. Many who marched against the Iraq invasion had previously campaigned against arms sales to Saddam.
While I expect to find crude caricatures of peace activists in the Daily Mail, I have been surprised to find them on the pages of the Friend. I recently wrote about Tony Blair’s appearance before the Iraq Inquiry, and I respect those who wrote to disagree with aspects of my approach. But I had not expected so many letters supporting the invasion of Iraq.
Some of these have even followed the rather naïve line of the right-wing media, suggesting that anti-war activists support dictatorship. I am alarmed that some Friends seem not even to have heard of active nonviolence or the spiritual basis of pacifism.
Advices and queries number 2 encourages us to bring the whole of life ‘under the ordering of the spirit of Christ’. I do not see how that is possible if, when push comes to shove, we believe that the world can only operate under the spirit of violence.
