Forced migration: How can Quakers respond?
Ian Kirk-Smith reports on an important document on forced migration
The recent conference held at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, on 3-5 February, raised many important and challenging questions regarding forced migration and, in particular, the nature of a coherent and practical Quaker response.
The conference was entitled ‘Forced Migration: How can Quakers respond?’ and Friends, after a stimulating and positive day of discussion and discernment, released a minute for broader circulation in the Quaker community in Britain. The minute began by reminding Friends of Advices & queries 33 and 32:
Are you alert to practices here and throughout the world which discriminate against people on the basis of who or what they are or because of their beliefs? Bear witness to the humanity of all people, including those who break society’s conventions or its laws …
Bring into God’s light those emotions, attitudes and prejudices in yourself which lie at the root of destructive conflict, acknowledging your need for forgiveness and grace. In what ways are you involved in the work of reconciliation between individuals, groups and nations?
Friends had come to the conference from ‘across the water, by road and rail, from countries across Europe, and cities, towns and villages in UK’ to focus their attention on the subject and on how Quakers can respond. The minute recognised that Friends were at different places on their journey. Some were new to the subject and others brought ‘years of commitment to supporting people seeking sanctuary and refugees, or of trying to change the system’. The sense of a ‘strong shared Quakerly commitment to peace, justice and equality’ that guided Friends over the weekend was recognised.
The minute reflected the background and plight of those forced to flee their homes from ‘far away places where there is war, oppression of people on the basis of race, religion, nationality, gender, sexuality, belonging to a particular social group, or their political opinion, and others have fled war, famine, and poverty that has been created by climate change and politics’. It also described the dangerous journeys many had to make and where they had fled: ‘looking for a safe place to live and for their children. Some of them are children, they travel alone, vulnerable, cold, hungry, frightened, brave and full of dreams’.
The minute continued: ‘We come from communities where some welcome those seeking safety and others do not. Others who have brought us together are decision-makers, MPs who create laws, judges who interpret the laws …Home Office staff … private agencies that carry out work on behalf of the Government, for example in providing accommodation, detention facilities, transport around the system and sometimes out of the country.’
Forced migration in its various forms, the minute highlighted, ‘is clearly a concern for Quakers to take forward in our individual lives, through our communities and Meetings, our Quaker bodies and Yearly Meetings’. The minute hoped that Friends might ‘bring seeds of change and nourish the soil.’ Quakers have been involved in every aspect of the humanitarian responses to forced migration from advocacy and legal help to medical care housing ‘through the common thread of friendship’.
Friends, in the minute, stressed the need for ‘a different language for migration because the current situation and discourse is “othering” people’. Friends were invited to put together a short publication ‘to inform the basis of a spirit-led position of Quakers in Britain’ to be sent for consideration to Yearly Meeting. A number of Friends present were invited to contribute drafts on themes such as ‘Causes of forced migration’, ‘The hostile environment’, ’Detention centres’ and ‘Working for a safer world’.
The minute urged Friends to continue to work on ‘breaking down’ all ‘barriers that divide’ and stated: ‘We pray that the “scales will fall from our own eyes” and those of our politicians’ and that ‘we may be the leaves on the tree of life which are for the healing of nations’.
It concluded with a quotation from Quaker faith & practice (23.26): ‘That which is morally wrong cannot be politically right’.
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